I had been debating this quandry in my mind lately… and I wrote about it over here already, but I wanted to write more about this issue here in relation to Buddhist teachings.

Here’s the thread on Rice Bowl Journals: Honesty is Stupid?

And here’s the news article:

Philipppine Driver Returns Lost Money

MANILA, Philippines—He needed the money for his sick wife and overdue rent, but honesty prevented a motorcycle taxi driver from keeping $17,000 left behind by a passenger.

Iluminado Boc returned the money to police in Tagbilaran city on central Bohol island last week, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported Monday. The woman who lost the bag of cash had just reported it to police when Boc showed up at the precinct.

“It was not mine,” Boc was quoted as saying.

Boc, 45, said he was struggling financially because his wife was taken to a hospital the same day he found the money, and they had unpaid rent.

The owner rewarded him with $32—about seven times what a motorcycle taxi driver makes a day.

Basically, my first inclination would be to return the money to the authorities, if I couldn’t easily find the owner who lost the money. I just feel it’s not wise to use the money for one’s own needs, however important it might be, because one doesn’t know the consequences that can result from taking the money and using it for one’s self.

And I wouldn’t want to risk any trouble to me and my family if I ended up taking the money, and by taking the money it ended up causing more harm than good.

But, my quandry was in the situation of the cab driver, whose sick/ailing wife was in the hospital and he really could’ve used the money for medical expenses and paying back rent from what he’d mentioned.

I feel he did the honest and noble thing, and that was to return the money, despite his need for the money because of his family’s hardships and his sick wife. That act itself has been done and I commend him for his actions.

But also… could one reason that maybe he had the right to take the money if it were to keep his wife from dying in the hospital, if that were actually the case? Then, could he be justified in using the money?

I did a search about the Buddhist teachings on google to see if I could find something that would help me explain my quandry with this situation.

And I came up with one of the Buddhist precepts:

the second Major Precept, “A disciple of Buddha does not steal,” or as we often say it, “does not take what is not given.” Traditionally this precept referred to appropriating anything belonging to someone else without first getting their permission, and it includes acquiring things through fraud or deception.

Okay, for me, here’s the piece of information I’d been looking for….

appropriating anything belonging to someone else without first getting their permission

So, this would include finding money that belongs to someone else, and using it for one’s own means without first asking permission from the owner.

And this was pretty much how I had felt all along. The if I did find a lot of money that someone else had lost, then the correct thing to do would be to return it to its owner. I had felt that deep down, that it wasn’t right to keep that much money especially, and to use it would pretty much be the same as stealing… mainly because of the fact that the money belongs to someone else. And karmically, that money has to be returned and that would be the true resolution for that money.

But what if the man’s wife was really dying?

That would definitely make the matter more complex….

I don’t really know what I would do. My inclination is always to return such a large sum of money to its rightful owner, rather than risk some karmic resolution in the future that is negative, had I kept the money for myself.

What do you think?