Johnny_Lim posted the following.
Came across an article – Nine Meals from Anarchy
Inside the article, 2 things are worth mentioning:
1.After only nine missed meals, it’s not unlikely that we’d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbour with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, “I’m sorry, you’re a good neighbour and we’ve been friends for years, but my children haven’t eaten today – I have to have that bread – even if I have to shoot you.”
2.Fear of starvation is fundamentally different from other fears of shortages. Even good people panic.
It became clear to me that we as buddhists, might sometimes think we have attained this stage of ariyanhood, that stage of ariyanhood. But unless we are faced with extreme difficulties under very trying conditions, we cannot for sure know that we have attained any magga phala.
The recent Wuhan coronavirus has rocked HongKong very badly. Many supermarkets are empty because the hongkongers panic-buy everything off the shelves. If the crisis continues to worsen into an anarchy, would a Sotāpanna bend on his/her morality?
It also serves as a big reminder to me that a person cannot have a never-changing self. Circumstances can change a person’s behaviour. Only Dhamma is our refuge.