Blurts & Spasms

Question details: If the cause of suffering is desire yet one desires justice (not from spite, but out of an ernest heart), and this desire brings them pain, should they let it go even though their suffering might bring justice to others?

I would agree with Pete Ashly’s approach - in fact I would encourage meditating on his answer for a while to see what arises for you.

When I read your question, for me it translated into this: “Does a boddhisattva suffer while helping liberate others?” What do you think? If they have fully realized emptiness - even within their decision to help liberate others - why would they suffer as a result of craving? And even if they experience personal pain because of their choice to remain, that pain is understood differently, isn’t it? To remain in the world but operate outside the (internal) dynamics of suffering does not mean there is no pain, but that the subjective importance, power and active perpetuation of pain attenuates. In this context, then, the coincidence of justice and pain parallels the coincidence of active compassion in postponing Nirvana.

Then I read what I believe to be your comments regarding “justice” as “having a person know that what they did was wrong while hindering their ability to further commit their crime,” and another regarding intervening in abuse. Is hindering harm not right action? Of course it is, when it arises out of compassion. If you are provided a compassionate means of intervening where there is abuse, is this not right action as well? It is only a question of what degree of resistance you present to the wrongdoer, and the state of your mind and heart while doing so. To understand this and skillfully embody it is, I think, part of the intimate unfolding of ahimsa for any practitioner who subscribes to that precept. There are a number of diverging views about this in the sutras - and indeed among the scriptures of many other traditions as well. Which for many of us illustrates why this is an emergent personal journey.

My 2 cents.

(see https://www.quora.com/What-should-one-do-if-they-feel-they-should-keep-their-Dukkha)