“Skillfulness doesn’t focus only on pleasure or happiness. It has to see where that happiness comes from and what it’s like. You have to use your discernment to see what it comes from.
Some people think that gaining a lot of wealth is goodness. Not gaining a lot is bad. It doesn’t matter to them how you gain it, just as long as there’s a lot. Suppose that after a while they decide that human skin fetches a high price. One kilogram fetches tens of thousands of baht. So another group goes out looking for human skins. Where could we live? We’d be killing one another all over the place simply to get skins to put up for sale—because human skin fetches a high price.
These days we look for our livelihood, thinking that the more we gain, the better. But if we gain it in a way that’s not moral, would it be right?
Every form of goodness has to be done with discernment. Any form of goodness done without discernment is harmful. Any form of goodness done with discernment is free of harm. Any form of goodness done without discernment is goodness outside the Buddha’s teachings.
It’s like a person advertising poison for sale. He says, “My poison is good.
If you feed it to a dog, the dog will die. If you feed it to a person, the person will die. If you feed it to a chicken, the chicken will die. Whoever you feed it to will all die. So buy my poison. It’s good poison.” If it’s really good, you should try feeding it to the person selling it. But its goodness is that it kills.
Whatever eats it dies. So he says it’s good. If it’s good, you should try feeding it to the person selling it—but would he eat it? He wouldn’t eat it. He’d be afraid that it would kill him.
That kind of goodness is goodness outside the Buddha’s teachings. It’s harmful goodness, filthy goodness, unclean goodness, goodness that’s not peaceful. Goodness in line with the Buddha’s teachings is goodness without harm. This is why, when you look for happiness in line with the Buddha’s teachings, you have to do it with discernment.”