A Victim Treats His Mugger Right

[sonamdhargey]

It is nice to read stories and hear encounters of such acts of fearlessness, compassion and kindness. How many of us here can react in this manner? Most will fight or flea to protect their belongings or to run in fear of thier life.

What wound you do?

This is the amazing story of social worker, Julio Diaz, who was on his way home one evening. His normal routine was to get off the train one stop early, to visit his local diner.

The station platform was empty, but as he was walking towards the stairs something dramatic and unexpected happened.

Suddenly a young teenager came up to Julio, pulled a knife and demanded money.
Julio just handed over his wallet, saying: “Here you go”.

But as the teenager turned to go, Julio said: “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The story unfolds with Julio offering to take the teenager to the diner to eat with him. He explains: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money… I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

When they have finished eating, Julio asks for his wallet back in order to pay for the meal. He then offers to give the teenager $20 in exchange for one thing…
His knife.

Source:http://www.zenmoments.org/victim-treats-mugger-right/

[RedLantern]

This is a touching story but not all criminals are simply folks that are down on their luck.Many suffer from lack of conscience,sociopatic behavior.People should not assume that all incidents will end up in the heartwarming
way that Mr.Diaz case did.His approach may not work in all situations,but it can certainly work in some and should be used whenever possible.
It takes a lot to continue to be kind despite the whole world and the people in it.May this one act make an impact.Sometimes all it takes is one person doing the right thing at the right moment.

[fruven]

Definitely this person has a lot of compassion and wisdom. He is not a victim. I don't think he is seeing himself as a victim. He is thinking of helping the teenagers more so than about his own safety. I observed that he is exercising very skillful means to help this teenager. The lesson here is that compassion can break the perception of what others' perceive us instead of letting circumstances control us and us becoming a victim. By being a victim we suffer the karma manifesting on us and thus increasing the potential of this negative to manifest in future many times and bigger. Therefore a change of compassion can make an impact on our own wrong perspective of what things should be.

[vajrastorm]

The thing which sets Juiio apart from most of the rest of us is that he reacted with spontaneous kindness and care towards the teenage mugger. His reactions clearly shows this. Without hesitation, he handed his wallet over to him , seeing here a being whom hunger and poverty had driven to an attempt at crime.Seeing that the poor boy was hungry, he took him to the diner. After  the meal, he skillfully, and out of genuine care, gave the boy $20 in exchange for the knife.

This kindness resonated well with the young would-be mugger. Here was genuine love and care. Hence he allowed himself to be taken to the diner for a meal which he badly needed. From his experience as a social worker, Julio was able to immediately assess this teenager as one who would only resort to violence if he needed to .

Here's a lesson on kindness and how kindness does help stop the vicious cycle of negativity. If Julio had typically reacted out of fear and in defense, there might have been a struggle to wrest the knife from the young man. In the scuffle, someone would have been hurt. Also a spiral of negativity would have been perpetuated, with Julio may be hurting the mugger or being hurt in the process. This cycle of negativity would have carried negative karmic consequence for both Julio and the mugger.

Instead now, two good things came out of Julio making the right choice of the course of action. Julio collected 'merit' points because he responded with compassion. The would-be mugger didn't perpetuate his crime, and was saved from the negative consequences of his originally intended action.

[Rihanna]

Julio’s action had possibly shocked the mugger, in a positive way.  Nobody would believe what ensued including the mugger himself.

Julio’s compassion would have a big influence on the mugger’s future as he demonstrated compassion and love even towards someone who mugged him. This act of compassion obviously touched the mugger when he went to dine with Julio and gladly returned the wallet. I felt the nicest part of the story is where Julio offered the 20 dollars for the knife. I always believe in acting out compassionately and things that is bad will eventually touch somebody’s life as portrayed in this story. The mugger’s life from now on would never be the same.

Kudos to Julio too, for your courage in taking a mugger for dinner! Would any of you have done the same?

 

 

[Big Uncle]

Another perspective of this story is that people who behave in ways that is damaging are themselves in a lot of suffering themselves. If we can see that, it would be easier to develop compassion for very difficult people. This is illustrated in this story because the teenager just needs some care, love and a bit of money to break through to him and find the softer side in him. Of course, it doesn't work for everyone but it did for this young guy. However, when people don't reciprocate kindness doesn't mean kindness does not work. It means that we have to be more skillful because kindness is not just about smiling, giving, hugging and kisses. Kindness could be a direct and honest words and advice and for some even a slap.

One thing is for sure, people who are younger would be easier to amend our habits because the older the person gets, the harder and stronger the habits are. It doesn't mean younger people are easy nor does it say older people are more difficult. It just means that the longer one perpetuate a particular habit or pattern of thoughts and actions, the harder it is to break it. However, it doesn't matter how long it takes to change, what's important is the understanding of why we want to change and actually doing it.

It's amazing how this little story had diverted to about habituation, which is basically an aspect of karma and the way our minds operate.

[bambi]

“If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money… "

I the above statement. Like what Fruven said, Julio is not thinking as a victim. He actually pity the kid who has to risk so much just for a few bucks... It could have been dangerous but Julio did not think of that. Instead he wants to help. I do hope the kid will repent and spend his days more worthwhile.

[Jessie Fong]

Julio in an extraordinary being; who among us would have stayed calm and give up our wallet to a mugger, then offer him your coat and bring him for dinner. And to top it off, offer him money is exchange for the knife that was used to demand for money.

That would-be mugger turned out to he luckiest mugger that night, being treated so nicely by the victim of his robbery.

His life would have really changed for sure.

And the report ended by stating that the kid gave up his knife to Julio.