The story of the Master who beat the deer is about the nature of compassion, and the different ways in which this can appear. It also reminds us that we should try to understand the whole situation, including seeing things from the perspective of others, not just basing our actions on our own desires and preferences.

In Ancient China there were a very large number of Buddhist monasteries, and many of them were in rural locations. They were often on mountains, and it was common for the monastery to be named after the mountain that it was on. There was one particular monastery which had very large grounds extending to many acres, and these grounds were also surrounded by forested hills. Because of this there was a lot of wildlife around, and over the years the monastic community had developed a real fondness for all of the birds, mammals and other creatures that they shared the mountain with. Just as people do today, they put out bird feeders and food for the animals, and tried to do what they could to help and support the wildlife. As a result, the monks felt that they were really living in harmony with the world around them, and had a close relationship with the plants and animals that lived nearby. Amongst the many animals that lived around the monastery were a herd of deer, who particularly liked being on the monastery grounds as there weren’t any hunters there, unlike the rest of the mountain.

The monks certainly weren’t hunting them, and the deer had become so used to being around them that they would come right up to the buildings looking for food. The monks in turn would put out food to attract the deer, as it was a wonderful experience to see these elegant creatures at such close quarters. Eventually the deer became so used to being near people that they would even eat out of the monks’ hands. They were so tame that they almost seemed to be domesticated. Even though they were still wild animals, they had no fear of humans.

If you doubt that deer could ever be so trusting of humans, try going to a stately home that has a deer park which is open to the public; the deer can often be so unafraid of humans that they come up to you and quite aggressively try to get your picnic off you. Generations of deer have lived there in safety, with thousands of people visiting the deer park each year, and so the deer have no sense of being in any danger.

In the monastery, the situation with the deer seemed ideal to the monks, as they really felt that they were connected with nature, and had an opportunity to be kind and compassionate to their fellow beings. Eventually however, the Abbot of the monastery, the Master, heard how friendly the monks were getting with the deer. One day when the monks were feeding the deer he came out with a large stick and went up to the deer and started beating them. The Master beat them enough that they ran away, and after that day they never came back again because he had scared them so much.

As you can perhaps imagine, the monks who had been feeding the deer were appalled by the Master’s behaviour, which to them seemed callous and heartless; with no warning he had just come out and beat up on the poor defenceless deer! The deer were so nice, and now they were gone! They really didn’t know what to make of the Master’s actions. On the one hand, he was the Abbot of a large and important training monastery and was well thought of throughout the country. On the other hand, he seemed to be acting in a way that was very cruel and uncompassionate.

Those in the monastery who were quite new to Buddhist practice, who didn’t know the Master that well and perhaps didn’t have all that much trust, in him, were inclined to think very poorly of him. They thought that he was setting a terrible example, and that this wasn’t Buddhist practice at all. They even began to think about how they could remove him from office and replace him with someone a bit kinder, and a bit more compassionate.

The more senior monks, however, who had been training with the Master for a long time and who knew him much better, had more trust in his teaching and didn’t come to the same conclusion. They suspected that there might be a deeper reason for the Master’s actions and they thought that it would be a good idea to go and ask the Master to explain why he had beaten the deer. They realised that because they couldn’t completely explain the situation, there might be something there for them to learn.

So next time the community got together, some of the senior monks asked the Master if he would be willing to explain to them why he had acted in the way that he had. And so the Master explained to them why he had beaten the deer. As he was explaining, it gradually became clear to those who had doubted him that they had been making all sorts of assumptions about his state of mind and his motives, and about his Buddhist practice and his understanding. They also realised that they had assumed that they themselves had understood the situation, and had assumed that they had known what was good to do and that the Master hadn’t.

The Master explained that, even though the monastery had very large grounds on which the deer were safe, they weren’t so large that the deer could support themselves without needing to go off the property and forage on the surrounding hills. Of course, the deer themselves wouldn’t know when they had left the monastery grounds, and so might think that they were still as safe as when they were close to the monastery buildings. But as soon as they left the monastery grounds they would be in danger of being shot by hunters, and if they had no fear of human beings they would be easy targets as they wouldn’t run away from the hunters. Without fear of human beings they would very soon be killed; they would walk right up to the hunters, who couldn’t really miss them. Perhaps they wouldn’t even need to get out their arrows as the deer would be within easy reach.

The reason that the Master beat the deer was that he was acting out of his great compassion for them. He wanted them to be able to live peacefully and stay alive, and realised that it was very dangerous for them to have lost their natural fear of humans. What this story is about is the difference between kindness and compassion; it shows us that they are not necessarily the same thing. To act in ways that appear to be kind is not necessarily compassionate and not necessarily wise. The monks who fed the deer and enticed them to come close thought they were being kind, and it was certainly their intention to be kind, but to condition the deer to lose their fear of humans wasn’t wise from the point of view of helping the deer to stay alive. From the perspective of the deer it was not a compassionate thing to do. This reminds us that if we want to act compassionately and wisely we need to widen our vision beyond what is immediately in front of us, and consider the bigger picture.

The Master on the other hand was acting out of a wish to do what was best for the deer. His motivation was not to give the monks a sense of inner glowing warmth that they had done a nice thing in feeding the deer, but to do what would be the best for the deer themselves. Although he was acting out of compassion, you could argue that what he actually did wasn’t a particularly kind thing to do. It was certainly not what we usually think of as kindness. If we were to ask someone how to be kind to deer, and they were to say that we should go up to them and beat them, we would be probably be quite shocked by that. That’s not what we think of as kindness, and of course it is not always the appropriate response. But in this case it was the most compassionate thing to do.

You could also argue that there might have been other less violent ways of encouraging the deer to be wary of humans, but perhaps once wild animals have got a taste for the easy life of eating nuts and berries out of a person’s hand it’s hard to discourage them without doing something fairly extreme. It’s important to note that the master didn’t kill the deer, or even seriously injure them beyond perhaps a few scrapes and bruises. It certainly wasn’t his intention to harm them at all, he just wanted just to scare them enough that they would then be cautious about coming too close to human beings. He wanted them to realise that they couldn’t always be sure that they were just going to get an easy meal, so that whenever they saw a human being they would think twice, and stay at a safe distance.

For the monks who were feeding the deer, they were acting in a way that was driven by their own desire to have a feeling of being helpful, and their wish to have a sense of direct connection with nature. It probably all felt very nice when they were feeding the deer, and in terms of what was directly in front of them, there perhaps wasn’t really such an issue with that. But what they hadn’t considered was taking a step back and thinking of the deer’s whole life, thinking about what else they would have to experience and put up with. For the Master on the other hand, it was not just about seeing the animal in front of him; he was also widening out his vision to see not just the direct consequences of these actions, but the indirect consequences for the deer too.

We too need to widen out our vision when we are considering how to act in a situation. We can’t make ourselves do that, in the sense that there is no way that we can see every possible direct and indirect consequence of our actions. But it is important that we are willing to consider the possibility that there might be other consequences that we haven’t yet thought of, and to allow ourselves the opportunity of becoming aware of them. We shouldn’t engage with life in too simplistic a way, whether that is in our relationships with animals or with other people, or in any other situation. It is important that we be willing to have that sense of widening out our vision, and that we are willing to see a bit more of what might be going on.

We also shouldn’t be too quick to make assumptions about others. An important aspect of this story, which we see in the monks’ different reactions to the Master when he beats the dear, is that we shouldn’t assume that we completely understand another persons motives based on what we see them doing. It is important in these situations that we don’t assume that we are right and they are wrong, but also that we don’t assume that they are right and we are wrong. If their actions seem unreasonable to us, then perhaps we should ask them what is going on in the situation, and how they see things, rather than jumping too easily to our own conclusions. We might just learn something important about life, and about our own reactions and our own understanding of things.

The story of the master who beat the deer is, on the face of it, a very simple story, but it raises important questions about how it is good to act in the world. Acts that at first glance seem to be harmful may have a deeper motive, and may have other consequences in addition to what we see, either in negative ways or in positive ways. It is important that we engage with the question of what is the most helpful, compassionate and wise way to live in the world, both for ourselves and for all beings.