(05-26-2015, 01:33 PM)Stranger Wrote:(05-26-2015, 11:35 AM)Tan.rar Wrote:(05-26-2015, 10:23 AM)Stranger Wrote:Have you ever been in a fist fight? Even blocking an opponent may potentially harm them, it's something you have to accept when you choose to defend yourself. The other option is to martyr yourself. So you only block, what if they break your guard and proceed to harm you because you are only guarding?Quote:When the attacker attacks, I believe in the offer of infringement they are opening themselves to whatever it is that they offer. In otherwords if you were to harm them as a result of self-defense it would not be an infringement on their will because they already invited themselves to engage in harm and so when they receive harm it is actually already within their free will, they have accepted this the moment they decided to harm another.
I understand this differently. I believe there is a distinction between self-defense and retaliation. Self-defense is protecting the self by blocking the attack or leaving the interaction. Retaliation is inflicting harm on the attacker. Any time we return harm for harm, it damages us (karmically) and provides catalyst to the other party. It doesn't matter if it's in retaliation or if we're the original instigator. What others do is their karma, what we do is ours.
The other level of this topic that hasn't yet been mentioned is emotion. Emotion is the essence of our being, it's how our consciousness experiences and channels the Creator's energy as it flows through us. At that level, there is a vast difference between unconditional love and indifference. They are entirely distinct states of being with nothing in common, energetically/emotionally.
This is relevant to self-defense also. Positive self-defense includes transforming our instinctive negative emotional reactions into love and acceptance for the attacker. Learning to react to catalyst with love and acceptance is the essence of the positive path, and all kinds of good things happen when we learn to do this. We have the examples of Jesus, who showed us that it is more beneficial to die than to cause harm to one's attackers, and even Socrates, who said we must "improve our enemies". Someone else - I don't recall who - said, "If I've turned my enemy into a friend, have I not defeated my enemy?" All of those express the same idea.
One of the most useful things I've realized so far is this: there is no external reality. All reality is internal; it's all about consciousness interacting with consciousness. The rest is just props - which are simply ideas held in consciousness. So, what happens or does not happen externally matters only insofar as it affects one's own consciousness and the consciousness of those around oneself, and those effects take place primarily through emotion, which is energy. And the highest energy in all circumstances, as far as I can tell, is love, the universal healing and integrating force.
I certainly appreciate your reasoning philosophically and ideally, but it doesn't always seem to relate to actual experience.
Let's see some love for the fist hammering your face.
Tan, here also I see intent as important. Is your intent to limit harm to yourself, or to destroy the attacker? Those are different energies and states of being, and create a LOT of space to move in between retaliation and martyrdom.
Also, in the course of a fight/argument/conflict negative emotion can often rage, but the trick, I find, is to transform that into love and forgiveness for self and other as early as possible afterwards, once the animal instincts recede. Ideally before going to sleep, because of my strong suspicion that the day's karma gets consolidated into our personality configuration during sleep.
Funny you should mention the fist in the face. I've had that exact situation, and not all that long ago. Some negative entities (not incarnate) were trying to prevent me from taking an important trip, and with the help of some thugs created the catalyst of a fistfight. I recall distinctly the moment where I could have brought a chair down on my attacker's head, and was certainly tempted, but chose not to because I did not want to harm him. Afterwards, one of the STS organizers of this event growled, "how did you enjoy that?". I calmly replied, "It was helpful. I probably needed it on some level." He almost exploded with frustration. In a large part because of the way I handled it emotionally/spiritually, I was able to get over the whole thing very quickly to the point where it did not bother me at all.
That is where my point comes up though, even if there isn't intent to harm, harm sometimes happens in the course of events. Even if your intent is to limit harm to yourself and your attacker, the fact is that their intention may still have been to harm you, and so if in the process of attempting to limit harm you harm them it would not be considered an infringement. If you had've brought the chair down, knowing the harm to be in excess of the limit of harm, then you would have gone beyond the law and then been infringing yourself.
Also, where's the place for the people who genuinely enjoy fighting for fun? For example, I know plenty of LARPers who are very in to mock-combat. I think there has to be a line drawn between actual malicious antagonism, violent intent and the use of martial arts (key word arts). Many people who are in to martial arts aren't interested in harming others, but many will gladly exchange blows with another martial artist for enjoyment. I think that violence isn't always so clearly defined as negative.