In middle school I listened to Jay Chou. One of his lyrics says, "We all have sins, each committing a different kind." I didn't quite understand it then, and I still don't quite understand it now—taken on its own, the song carries a Christian undertone. But I did glean one simple truth: none of us is as far from committing a crime as we'd like to think.
Day and Night 3 is a TV series adapted from Death Notice. Two of its episodes tell the story of a young gamer who treats reality as a video game, killing people as though clearing levels. The plot is a bit far-fetched, but there's something to it on reflection. This potential to mistake reality for a game is something we all carry within us—when you're dreaming, for instance, you likely don't realize you're dreaming. The possibility of treating reality as a game is enormous, and it hinges on a single thought. To treat something as a game is to believe that what you do carries no real consequences, just as killing someone in a dream incurs no criminal liability. But how do you know you're in a dream? So the safest, surest approach is to never go to extremes in any situation—never say extreme things, and ideally never even think extreme thoughts. That way, even if you develop a mental illness and can no longer distinguish reality from dreams, you won't produce evil. In this sense, "be lenient with others and strict with yourself" is ultimately for your own good. Don't even entertain the thought; think rightly, and you will stay far from evil and affliction. Of course, this is not something ordinary people can fully achieve. But refraining from doing and saying is achievable. For example, those indiscriminate killing games in the TV show—just don't play them. If you know it's criminal, why would you? And then there's observing your own thoughts—what's called self-reflection. "This person is rotten to the core, I wish I could kill him"—it's natural to have such thoughts. But knowing that thinking this way is wrong keeps you from making a grave mistake. The question is: how do you arrive at the realization that such thinking is wrong?
This is why you should watch crime dramas. Watching crime dramas often makes it easier to "be lenient with others and strict with yourself." Everyone in this world has their own karmic burdens. Watch enough, think enough, and it becomes easier to cultivate equanimity and compassion, and easier to see how close you yourself are to crime. Having a higher education and a bright future and thinking you'd never commit a crime—that's not how it works at all. Take Wu Xieyu, for example. Thinking that Wu Xieyu probably had parent-child issues, that your own family relationships are fine, and that you'd never have such problems—this kind of thinking is the very root of delusion. Because everyone has problems, this kind or that kind. Just as every step from the North Pole is a step southward, every problem slopes toward crime. If we look carefully, nearly every criminal and every crime has its reasons, each deserving some degree of sympathy. But by the same token, precisely because of this, none is worthy of sympathy either. Take Wu Xieyu: perhaps he killed his mother because of an unhealthy parent-child relationship. Unhealthy parent-child relationships are bad, and his misfortune in being trapped in one is pitiable. But whose parent-child relationship is entirely without problems? Of course, saying this invites the accusation of armchair philosophizing. But I believe this way of thinking is ultimately more helpful for life. The Third Young Master in Gu Long's novels is somewhat like Wu Xieyu—perhaps even worse, since his father forced him to kill to maintain the family's standing in the martial world. The Third Young Master chose to give up on himself and become the useless "A-Ji"—a comparatively better choice. Wu Xieyu's mother and the Third Young Master's father were both bad, and both possibly guilty. But they too suffered great misfortune, and their crimes (speaking in the religious, ultimate sense) had much to do with that misfortune—just as Wu Xieyu's and the Third Young Master's crimes have their causes. What is sinful is the karmic burden that falls upon them, not they themselves; they are people suffering in such an unrelenting hell. Thinking this way, you won't feel that killing is justified. And if you don't feel killing is justified, then solutions can be found. Take parent-child issues: Day and Night 3 has a story about exactly this, and it ends in unspeakable tragedy. There's a character named Xiao Fei, a juvenile delinquent from a young age, who later helps a schoolboy kill the boy's controlling mother. Setting aside everything else, this way of solving problems is actually a form of displaced revenge—projecting one's own misfortune onto another similar person. Can this solve one's own problems? This is precisely the behavior of someone still trapped in parent-child dysfunction. For Wu Xieyu, the Third Young Master, and Xiao Fei alike—they were all adults. If they simply stopped caring about their parents entirely, that would be enough to solve their problems. Their problem was that they resented their parents for not being different—which is exactly the same as their parents, who resented them for not being different. And what is this problem, really? Is it because of the other person's nature? No—it's because of one's own misplaced expectations. Children could turn out this way or that; parents too could be one way or another. Each person has their own confluence of circumstances and does not exist solely to fulfill another person's expectations. If someone else makes me unhappy, they have their reasons. If it doesn't work, I'll keep my distance. Don't let it breed resentment, don't let it produce evil. That's what's best for yourself.
A bit more compassion on top of that foundation would be even better, because nobody has it easy, and everyone has something wrong. Within each person's difficulties and failings lie the seeds of crime. Economic hardship, for instance, contains the seeds of theft. The way I can be defeated by a single coin is the same way a thief begins to steal. Female swindlers cheat money because we are lustful; male swindlers cheat sex because we love money. If we were neither lustful nor greedy, they wouldn't become swindlers—so in the crimes of con artists, we are all complicit. This compassion ultimately returns to ourselves. We sympathize with our own hardship and strive to earn money, relieving both our own and others' hardship. We sympathize with our own failings and strive to correct them. Compassion and looking inward—perhaps this way, there would be a little less crime.