• Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk
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    1 day ago

    Monk was passing through. Some villagers saw him pissing on a statue of Buddha so they grabbed their pitchforks and went to pitchfork him. “Show me where Buddha is not, and I shall piss there.” said the monk.

  • MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    The hungry tiger jataka is my favorite

    "One day, the Bodhisattva and one of his disciples decided to take a stroll in the forest nearby. This had become a regular practice. They often went for strolls.

    While they were walking, the Bodhisattva notices something extremely terrifying. He saw a tigress, which looked weak and hungry. The tigress was about to devour her own cubs. Now, that moved the Bodhisattva’s heart. He did not want the poor animal to suffer the guilt of eating her own cubs. So, he came up with an idea.

    He sent his disciple back to do something. The Bodhisattva had decided that he would offer himself as food to the starving tigress. He simply could not let her eat her cubs. And he knew if his disciple had seen this, he would definitely stop the Bodhisattva from offering himself. You may also like to read, The Tiger And The Golden Bangle.

    After the disciple is gone, the Bodhisattva approached the tigress. With the utmost compassion in his heart and no malice, he let the tigress devour him. The tigress ate him and fed the cubs as well. After a while, the disciple returned. When he saw the Bodhisattva’s blood stained clothes, he realized what had happened.

    He knew the Bodhisattva well. So, he knew the hermit had offered himself to save the tigress. He went back and told his fellow disciples of the Bodhisattva’s sacrifice out of love and compassion. "

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        13 hours ago

        While they were walking, the Bodhisattva notices something extremely terrifying. He saw a tigress, which looked weak and hungry. The tigress was about to devour her own cubs. Now, that moved the Bodhisattva’s heart. He did not want the poor animal to suffer the guilt of eating her own cubs. So, he came up with an idea.

        He sliced the disciple’s throat, and enjoyed the remainder of his walk in silence.

    • EightBitBlood@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      Fasting grampa wants his life to matter, so feeds himself to Tiger instead of just bringing in another food source. Tiger gives no shits. But Grandpa lovers think his sacrifice was beautiful instead of unnecessary.

      Not the Buddhist teaching. But my interpretation.

      And one MAGA supporters should definitley read.

      • ryedaft@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        Nah, they just get reborn. Like, ping

        The problem is that tigers have a taste for Bodhisattvas now.

    • drolex@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      Upon seeing the blood stained clothes, the disciple said ‘Hey I was hungry, too! Fucking weirdo.’

      The disciple was named Colonel Sanders and this was his inspiration to invent the hamberder and never be hungry again.

    • Juliee@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      Yeah well this is why I think that kind of shit is not for me. Sounds cool and all no judgy but you know I have few other things on my mind other than being animal food

      Enjoy yourselves however if that’s your thing (or rather let others enjoy you)

      I think I am gonna focus on pleasantries of today thank you very much

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    My favorite Buddhist tale is that of the Chinese monk Birdsnest, so called because he always hung out in a tree.

    Now, Birdsnest was famous and highly regarded, and a governor heard of him and decided to seek him out. The governor travelled for days to reach birdsnest, and when he arrived, he asked “hey, birdsnest, what was it that all the Buddhas taught?” Basically, dude was asking for a one sentence summary of religion, like the famous tale of economic study resulting in the one sentence summary of “no such thing as a free lunch”.

    Birdsnest answered “Don’t do bad things, only do good things.”

    The governor scoffed, and said “my three year old nephew knows that!”

    “Easy enough for the three year old to understand,” Birdsnest retorted, “but still very difficult for the sixty year old to do.”

    • FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      A monkey was in a tree above a river and plunged into it. He came out with a fish and scurried up a tree. Once safe in its branches he said to the fish, “Holy shit, good thing I was here. You were about to drown!”

      Intention without awareness can be harmful.

      Another one is the two monks.

      Two monks are traveling. Their sect of Buddhism doesn’t allow them to touch women. They came across a river and when they crossed it they saw a woman who capsized her canoe. The elder Monk swam to the woman and helped her to the shore. She hurt her leg so he carried her to the rest of her party.

      Once they were traveling again, the younger monk continued to badger the elder Monk on why he thought it was okay to touch that woman. The elder Monk said, “I am no longer carrying that woman. Why do you insist on continuing to carry her?”

      • gcheliotis@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Finally some good ones, so far down the list, relayed by Fender Rinpoche no less. The best of these parables should be a bit of a brain teaser imo, have an element of surprise at least. Open up new ways of thinking about the world, and leave some room for contemplation.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        I’d never heard the former, but I adore the latter. I also really enjoy the tale of the horse that came back.

    • rainrain@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Add meditation and thats the succinct version of the 8fold path.

      Meditation might be implicit tho, and therefore not worth mentioning.

  • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Bible stories are the same way, we’ve just heard them a million times so they don’t seem weird

    “Hey Jesus what toppings do you want for pizza?”

    “Plain with cheese”

    Later the disciples are eating pizza with Jesus

    "“Hey Jesus why did you say you like cheese pizza when you normally order pepperoni?”

    “You dumb fucks how dare you not understand my hidden meaning, I am the true pizza and you are the pepperoni, the grease is my blood”

    “Oh of course, sorry boss”

    • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      … And one day, Jesus saw a fig tree. It was not the season for figs, and so there were no figs on the fig tree. But still, Jesus wanted a fig. He was upset there were no figs, and so he cursed the tree to never bear fruit again. If he couldn’t have a fig, no one could! Probably bathed its roots in a thin stream of uric acid, I don’t know.

      Point is, that fig tree never made another fig, and when his followers asked how, Jesus zipped up his pants and said “if you believe in me, you can do anything. Not only can you totally curse trees to death, you can fuckin’ teleport mountains into the ocean. That’d be sick, dude.”

      • The Book of Dave, 69:66-6
      • deathbird@mander.xyz
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        2 days ago

        Thought that one always tied back to the whole “you shall know them by their fruits” thing.

        As in those who talk nice but don’t produce anything useful (like a fig tree that doesn’t produce figs, just leaves) are not really doing what Jesus said. Don’t be like the Pharisees hollering out in the streets, just love God and do good in the world.

        • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca
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          13 hours ago

          There is a story in the Apocrypha (decanonized Bible books) where childhood Jesus turns another kid into a tree. I like to think it’s the same tree.

        • Kate-ay@lemmy.world
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          Yes but it’s still weird because it wasn’t the right time of year for it to have fruit. The tree would have if Jesus hadnt been a dick.

          • deathbird@mander.xyz
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            1 day ago

            Well then you’re back to Ecclesiastes. Everything in its season etc.

            Idk, I was just trying to put the best argument forward, but l’m not really a fan of the New Testament in part because of its inconsistency.

      • ddplf@szmer.info
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        I think you’re confusing the testaments, Jesus was ultimately a great guy as far as I can tell. The God used to be extremely cruel and vengeful in the old testament, though.

        • otterpop@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          This is a common misconception, if you dig into it you’ll see that God is basically the same in both old and new testaments. Nobody talked about hell more than Jesus.

          • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca
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            13 hours ago

            You mean Gehenna, the literal place that was just a garbage dump around the corner? “Don’t go to that place, man, it sucks. Somebody lit a trash pile on fire two weeks ago and it’s still burning now. It’s gross.”

            Or did you mean Hades, the place John (no, not that John (probably)) wrote about many years after Jesus’s death? In the book of Revelation, the whole of which is full of obvious symbolic imagery? A) not Jesus and B) still not “hell”.

            Ohhhhh you were talking about Dante Alighieri, the guy born twelve hundred years later, who invented our modern concept of hell whole cloth.

            “Hell”, a translation of any of the three words Gehenna, Hades, and Tartarus, show up anywhere between 13 and 23 times in the entire new testament. That wide range is due to differences in translations and source texts.

            Nobody talks about Jesus talking about hell more than modern preachers who profit off of making people fearful. You know, the exact people Jesus would have thrashed out of the temple with a whip.

    • Ostrakon@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Its almost like nonsensical parables are a recurring theme in religions in general and we shouldn’t be assuming a bunch of mystical morons from a thousand years ago knew any better.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        A lot of the “nonsensical” comes from translation issues.

        You’re not a Hebrew farmer living in the middle east 2000 years ago, and the parable has been translated from ancient Hebrew to Greek, then to Latin, then finally into English.

        The same goes for buddhist parables

        I’ve read that some of these parables originally had clever word play.

      • doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Clearly you just failed to grasp Jesus’s message. And truly I say unto you, there shall be no pizza but through him, and occasionally at work to prevent unions from being discussed.

    • tetris11@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      “Jesus… when you say ‘get me off this fucking cross, so help me God’… is that a test? Or should we actually get you off the cross?”

      ( More ranting and screaming and moaning )

      The disciples nod wisely at their leader’s self-sacrifice for… their sins maybe? And he will always be immortal in their hearts, because they’ve already eaten him or something.

      The disciples go home, wiser and holier and warily eyeing each other in confirmation of the deeper meaning behind their saviour’s last words: “Guys, please, I’m not fucking around, get me down, please, I’m so fucking thirsty… Jesus fucking christ”

    • Caveman@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      In response to calling a prophet bald:

      “So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.” -New King James bible, 2 Kings 2:24

      This is the real way to turn the other cheek

  • Allero@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    I felt a bit sympathetic to Buddhism up to the point when I actually visited a Buddhist temple and listened to the speeches of monks.

    The amount of brain rot disguised as wisdom has made me feel Christianity ain’t that bad after all.

    Sorry in advance to any Buddhist out there, but it struck me how the common perception of it differs from the actual thing.

    • drre@feddit.org
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      Late to the party, and no offence to buddhism, but i always loved this quote from Terry Pratchett

      “Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?"

      Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: “A fish!”

      And Clodpool went away, satisfied.” ― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

      (copies the quote from https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/46982-thief-of-time?page=2 but i’m rather sure its correct, so i didn’t check my copy).

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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      It depends really. I grew up Buddhist and things were chill. Speeches I heard at temple were just telling us to be good people, be nice to people no matter their race or gender stuff like that, don’t do harm to people or animals.

      Even Abrahamic religions have good and bad spiritual leaders, some are cult like and others are just trying to get people to have decent morals.

    • deathbird@mander.xyz
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      2 days ago

      Out of curiosity, which Buddhist tradition was this temple out of? I’ve had similar experience, but I get the feeling like Buddhist thought might be about as diverse as Christian.

      • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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        It’s much more diverse than Christianity, actually. Buddhism isn’t so much a religion in the judeochristian sense as a characteristic that many religions have. There are Buddhist traditions that worship gods, there are godless Buddhist traditions that worship the Buddha, and ones thay don’t even worship the Buddha but just think he was a pretty wise dude. Some require you to meditate daily, others to chant some mantras, and there are Buddhist traditions like Zen that worship nothing and are all about getting your head out of your ass.

        • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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          13 hours ago

          Isn’t that just like the various branches of Christianity? Unitarianism, Quakers, etc.

          • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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            Sort of but not really.

            All branches of Christianity believe that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God and that the Bible was written under divine inspiration and is the literal Word of God, among other dogmas. They only differ in how they interpret the sacred scriptures.

            Not only is there no centralized textual source for Buddhist teachings (there are several different sutras and each “kind” of Buddhism gets to pick and choose), and therefore no dogmas universal to Buddhism other than “what the Buddha said was true”, but as I said some believe in the Hindu gods, some in other local gods and some in none; some believe in reincarnation and some don’t; and some believe that the Buddha himself was born special like Jesus (though not from a virgin) while others believe he was just a regular Joe for his caste but who was brilliant enough to figure out a way to cease suffering.

            So you could make a case for there existing Buddhist Hinduism, Buddhist Shintoism and even “atheist” (in the literal sense of not believing in the supernatural, not in the acquired sense of not being a religion) Buddhism. This last kind views the Buddha’s teachings as basically brilliant psychology lessons masked in mystical language to be more accessible to the audiences of the time.

        • deathbird@mander.xyz
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          Aye, perhaps not in the “Judeo-Christian” sense, but a religion nonetheless.

          But actually it strikes me that “Judeo-Christianity” is more about theme or literature than form. The Christians claim a common God with the Jews, but that’s mostly it. In form Christianity seems more Greco-Roman than Judaic to me.

          “Greco-Romo-Christan” maybe?

          • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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            How does a monotheistic religion whose prophet explicitly claimed to be part of the succession of Jewish prophets and to have “come to confirm” their teachings seem more like a polytheistic religion where gods aren’t known for using prophets to send messages to the people to you? Serious question. I’m intrigued.

            • nickiwest@lemmy.world
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              20 hours ago

              There are definitely elements of Christianity that mimic Greco-Roman (and other, older) mystery religions. Down to celebrating their deity’s birth at the same time and commemorating his death and rebirth by having followers share bread and wine.

              My favorite theory of the origin of Christianity is that it was a Jewish attempt to mimic the mystery religions that were popular at the beginning of the Common Era.

              • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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                19 hours ago

                The central point of mystery religions like the Eleusinian Mysteries is to cultivate the mystical experience. In judeochristian theology, that experience is considered sacrilegious. Some Jews let Jesus have it and became Christians, but nobody else is allowed. And the ones we call Jewish today didn’t even let that one guy have it.

                The similarities between Christianity and Greco-Roman mysticism are only surface-level and were a marketing ploy to gain followers. In its core, Christianity is still Judaism, just packaged for export. Hence why two thousand years later, Christians are still quoting the Old Testament to justify bigotry, even though they claim to be followers of the guy who said “love each other as I have loved you”.

        • MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca
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          Plain Buddhism was kind of a downer so they made stuff like pure land buddhism that is more of a fun afterlife version instead of hardcore OG Buddha which is like kill yourself and stop existing forever because the world is just an eternal cycle of pain and reincarnation into more pain forever.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      I kinda lost my interest in Buddhism when I learnt that according to traditional Buddhist lore, women can’t reach Nirvana.
      When they’ve collected enough good karma, they are reborn as a man.

      • Cordyceps @sopuli.xyz
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        I mean aint that different from what the old testament teaches. Not saying the choice is between Christianity and Buddhism, but I’d assume most religions have patriarchy vibes baked into them. Not that I agree with religion, I see them all as means of various levels of crowd control for the masses, and somebody trying to benefit from it, be it a spiritual leader or an orange clown.

        • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          As a Jewish person what on earth are you saying? Im pretty sure the words say that women have souls that are acturally closer to god (which is why they have less commandments). That obviously doesn’t mean Judaism (or the old testiment) isnt patriarchal, it is (extremely) but its not comparable.

    • Donkter@lemmy.world
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      A classic cult tactic tbh. Convince people that they can divine meaning from random nonsense and they’ll convince themselves that they are more enlightened and above those around them who don’t understand.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
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        I’m not super good at remembering things I don’t need or accept, so I’ll speak a bit generally, but, for example, the cosmology and all the quasi-gods are extremely intertwined, excessively overcomplicated, but actually simple and repetitive;

        Also the pretentious way it poses as a way to direct you in life (monks went so far as to say Buddhism goes far beyond modern philosophy and psychology and is at the forefront of knowledge in life of dignity and happiness), while really it can be condensed to “endure pain and man up, feelings don’t matter, just do what needs to be done”, which is super toxic and not really effective (and I wonder if it’s also contributing to the toxic work culture in the Far East).

        Also, as in many religions, it’s full of stories about miracles happening every day (like, the man who was terminally ill, was set to die within a month and barely walked, but then decided to go 8000km by foot through entire Eurasia to the main temple, and he lived, and succeeded, and lived as a monk ever after).

        Etc. etc.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    One story that stands out to me is there were these warriors who fought a hundred dudes consecutively and then one guy who fought 100 of those warriors consecutively and then Buddha killed him instantly.

  • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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    Buddhism’s “Life sucks? Be nice and die and you’ll get a better one” sucks but it’s still better than “you should be nice to others, but that’s too much to ask so go be as awful as you want and just regret it later and that’ll be fine”. But even that was better than whatever the fuck people are interpreting from religions these days.

    • Comment105@lemm.ee
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      Before Christianty it was also a lot of “killing people is just really fucking cool, actually”, which even as an atheist I still admit was worse.

      Not that Christians didn’t.

      But they made some sort-of-safe havens.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        The Spanish missions have entered the chat. They actually sent people back to Spain when they said “yo, maybe Jesus wouldn’t be cool with us enslaving and murdering the locals”.

      • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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        Yeah. Personally I don’t see life as being “sacred” or anything and I think people should ultimately be free to choose to end their own if they really want to (provided they also get good support for trying to deal with whatever leads to that choice) - but it kinda scares me that this “sanctity” that is attributed to life is the only thing stopping people from being casually OK with murder.

        • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Perhaps it depends on your definition of sacred. Life is the only mechanism that we know of by which the universe understands itself. If you ascribe to free will, life is the only mechanism able to change the course of events that were initiated by the Big Bang. If you don’t ascribe to free will, then it is the only mechanism able to witness the course of events that were initiated by the Big Bang.

          That seems like something worth preserving in large, even if an individual life should be ended for compassion or justice. A life doesn’t have to be sacred, but Life seems pretty sacred to me.

      • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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        Christianity was revolutionary for suggesting that we are all equal in the eyes of the divine and suggesting that you can be forgiven.

        • BlueFootedPetey@sh.itjust.works
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          Not a relgious scholar, but which religion taught that people are not equal in the eyes of the divine?

          I could believe the forgiveness thing maybe. Again, not a scholar.

          • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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            Many of them as at the time notions of the divine backing whomever was in charge was common. Christianity explicitly states we are all equal in the eyes of God which includes everyone from the unwashed beggar to the emperor of Rome.

        • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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          Excuse me, if you actually understand the path and believe the point is being “nice”, then why the fuck are you talking to me like that? And if you don’t understand the path, then again, why the fuck are you talking to me like that?

          The eightfold path concerns “right” or “wise” or “virtuous” action… but what do those have to do with being “nice”?? Haven’t you heard that light and dark create one another?