Kindness With Knowledge
Being kind to all beings is a good thing, but only to be kind is not enough. We need to have kindness with knowledge, otherwise we can use kindness with people in the wrong way. And it may even have consequences worse than that. We might be taken advantage of. There is a Chinese story which provides us with a good example of kindness and knowledge. Here is the story:
In Jiang Lin province, there was once a hunter who killed a deer. That deer happened to have a young baby. The hunter took pity on the baby and brought him home. He raised the young baby deer with great care. He noticed that his dogs would have liked to eat the young deer. He thought to himself, “To take care of the young deer day and night is not a good idea, so I must make the dogs my friends”. So then he started to raise them together and when the dogs went to attack the young deer, he punished them so they knew that this deer was untouchable.
As time passed by, the young deer and dogs became friends, grew up and lived together in peace and harmony. The deer did not know that he was a deer. He just thought he was a dog. He could not distinguish the difference between himself and the dogs. One day the deer went out alone, he saw another group of dogs. He thought that they might be the same dogs with whom he associated at home. He went with them and played with them in a friendly manner. The dogs knew that the deer was quite innocent, so they lured him to the forest. And there they bit him to death and ate his body.
This story teaches us that kindness without knowledge is dangerous. The deer in the story was without knowledge, so he was killed. He did not even know why he died. What was the cause of his dying? The hunter was kind to the deer. That was really good. But he did not educate the deer. So it was through being uneducated that the deer was killed. As you can now see, kindness must be accompanied by knowledge. Otherwise it will be dangerous. Without knowledge, kindness can turn and be harmful in our life. Think about it!
