Question on Dhammapada 124

Question

That is a question that emerged from a previous discussion, but here I would like to focus on this story.

From the background story:

"Venerable Sir, is the wife of the hunter who is a sotapanna, also not guilty of taking life, if she has been getting things like nets, bows and arrows for her husband when he goes out hunting?" To this question the Buddha answered, "Bhikkhus, the sotapannas do not kill, they do not wish others to get killed. The wife of the hunter was only obeying her husband in getting things for him. Just as the hand that has no wound is not affected by poison, so also, because she has no intention to do evil she is not doing any evil."

Question: Does it mean that if you work for a company that sells weapons or intoxicants and you do not directly sell or produce it, you also had no opportunity to find another job (it is what you got to pay your bills), you are blameless like the wife of the hunter?

Answer 1

It seems this was already answered sufficiently here:

https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/1421/18

(Posting as an answer just to get this resolved)

Answer 2

Intent is everything. .. The key.

Answer 3

I think you answer your own question by using this story. Let me take out the answer from the story;

"... just as the hand that has no wound is not affected by poison, so also, because she has no intention to do evil she is not doing any evil ..."

Intention is the keyword here. If you do not have any unwholesome intentions then you have done nothing wrong. There is another Dhammapada story in which this is clearly stated by the Buddha. This is the story about the blind monk Cakkhupala, Dmp. verse 1, p. 59.

In short the story goes that one night Cakkhupala was doing walking meditation and accidently stepped on and killed a bunch of insects that were covering the path where he did walking meditation. He did not know about it. The next day some other monks came to see Cakkhupala to receive teachings from him. They saw all the dead insects and became angry about it. They then went to the Buddha and asked him how that a monk could do something like that. The Buddha then told this verse. He said that because Cakkhupala had no intentions of killing the insects he had done nothing wrong.

I gave here only a brief part of the story. You should go look it up yourself and read the full story.

Lanka