DEDICATION
This book is
dedicated to the suffering people of Tibet and their
non-violent struggle to regain their independence
from a ruthless occupying force. May they soon
succeed and live in peace forever!
When we call
ourselves by a religious brand-name (Jew,
Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, etc.),
or a nationality (English, German,
Thai, Australian, Indian, and so
on)—at the same time we are saying, without words,
what we are not. In this way, we limit ourselves and
deny ourselves the possibility of drinking at the
well-springs of many sources.
If we were not so attached to and preoccupied
with names and labels and saw, instead, our basic
humanity, the wealth of the world’s wisdom would be
available to us in incalculable amounts, and we
would feel no shame or hesitation in picking up gems
wherever we find them; after all, a diamond is a
diamond no matter where it is found, is it not?
We could avoid religious and racial conflict
and antagonism if we realized that we do not live in
water-tight compartments, shut off from people of
other races, nations, and religions, and that we are
now well-into a world culture; our lives touch and
overlap those of others like tiles on a roof or the
scales of a fish. Even if we never travel abroad, we
depend so much upon people from all over the world
simply because of the global economy. These are
things to be considered.
I
have chosen for the cover of this book a painting by
a Renaissance artist entitled Old Man and a Child,
to illustrate that, even though the outside might be
quite ugly, inner qualities can and do shine
through. It is my own interpretation or evaluation,
of course, and is open to challenge, but in this
picture, I see a wonderful rapport taking place
between the subjects (I don’t know who they are;
maybe they are grandfather and grandchild; it looks
like). The child is gazing into the other’s eyes
with ...... what is it?—is it wonder, amazement,
curiosity, love, or what? The innocent manner of the
hand laid lightly on the other’s chest suggests that
there is no fear or aversion but a complete
acceptance of him as he is—warts and all! And
the old man returns the gaze with a look of
compassion and understanding. He has seen life, has
suffered, and knows that the child is in for its
share of difficulties and pain.
Have you ever seen a particularly ugly
person who is happily married to someone quite good
looking and thought to yourself: "How could anyone
possibly love such an ugly person?"? It may be
because the other was able to see something inside
him/her that more than made up for the ugly
exterior. If we love someone for what they are, the
exterior ceases to be of great importance.
It is said that beauty is in the eye
of the beholder. If we have a beauty-base inside
us—a sense of beauty, or an appreciation of it—then
we may see beauty outside, and the more beauty there
is inside us, the more we will see outside, even in
things that other people find unremarkable or
perhaps even ugly. If, on the other hand, we lack
such a sense, how shall we see beauty outside or in
others? If we have only ugliness inside, what we see
outside will appear ugly, too.
Another old proverb runs: Handsome is
as handsome does, meaning that, ultimately, our
actions are our measure, not our appearance; there
are plenty of good looking people who behave in very
ugly ways, and ugly people who behave very well.
Most people would like to have a good
looking partner, but there are those who bitterly
regret marrying a beautiful woman or handsome man.
Beauty is often its own worst enemy, in that it
deceives us into thinking that the external
appearance is of paramount importance, so we rest
content, and look for nothing more. And ugliness is
often its own best friend, in that we are forced to
look beneath the surface, where we might discover
more durable and valuable qualities than just the
ephemeral skin-deep aspect.
If we are unaware of the world within,
unaware of the importance of the spiritual life,
what is left but to live on the material level? We
lose touch with ourselves—if we ever had
touch with ourselves to begin with—and live largely
to impress others and look good in their eyes (which
is what fashion is all about; if we were honest
about it, we would recognize that we follow fashion
more for others than for ourselves). If we are ‘good
looking’, pride of appearance easily arises, and is
often accompanied by disparagement of others less
handsome. This is dangerous, and invites
retribution, and it would be wise to keep in mind
the case of Johnny Weissmuller, the actor who played
Tarzan in the old movies: he had a splendid physique
and was an Olympic champion swimmer, but that did
not prevent him from becoming a quadriplegic, unable
to do anything for himself, or even to speak, but
having to depend upon others to do everything for
him. It is said that ‘pride goes before a fall’. I
don’t know if he was proud before his fall,
but in his position—as a star adored by his fans—I
guess it would be hard not to be proud.
Now, no-one chooses to be ugly; neither
do people become handsome by choice; these
things—like everything else—are results of causes,
most of which we had/have no control over. So there
is no reason to be proud of being handsome and to
look down on others, but every reason to treat it
cautiously, for—like everything else—it is subject
to change; moreover, it is a mixed blessing.
I called the first printing of this book
WARTS AND ALL is because we all have ‘warts’
of various kinds—not on our skin, but on our
character—that is, negativities and deficiencies,
which again, are not of our choice (who would
choose to have such things?), so there is no
need to feel too bad or guilty about them, as there
are plenty of others with the same faults and
failings as us; we are not alone, and knowing this
makes it easier for us to bear our insufficiencies
and imperfections, until eventually, we may throw
them off and leave them behind; if we were the only
one, we would be in very serious trouble, but we are
not, so it makes it ‘not so bad’ or hard to bear.
But we are ashamed of our imperfections
and would like to be free of them. This often leads
us to disguise and try to cover them up, or deny
that they exist. But if we do not acknowledge and
accept them, we will never be able to deal with
them, as it is hardly likely that they will go away
by themselves. So, first of all, we must recognize
and admit the existence in ourselves of our ‘warts’
and imperfections, and be open about them—not in an
exhibitionist way, but honestly and fearlessly. As
I’ve just said above, we’ve all got them, and if we
would see them as human or common
failings rather than as personal faults, we
would be able to assist each other in dealing with
them.
If, in places, I have been rather blunt,
it is because I considered it necessary, so I make
no apologies. If we are shocked by straightforward
words and ideas in this day and age, how shall we
deal with the much-more-shocking realities of life?
Where I have criticized anyone in this
book, I have not done so maliciously, but with the
purpose in mind of drawing lessons therefrom. And I
would now like to express my gratitude to them for
providing me with things to write about. It should
be noticed, however, that I have named no names (I
find that kind of thing distasteful), and it should
not be thought that I am making a thing of
personality of it all. I have just said that the
things I have criticized and drawn attention to are
human failings, and they are useful in that
we can learn something from them; it is therefore
that I am grateful. Eventually, everything might be
regarded as Dharma, and not just things that we
think of as ‘good’. So, thanks for being imperfect,
everyone! Thanks for your ‘warts’ (and mine)!
I
came across the following article in 1994, and found
it so open and refreshing that I requested the
author, Venerable Visuddhacara, for permission to
reprint it herein. He kindly gave it, and I am
grateful to him for both this and his words.
Venerable Visuddhacara was, at the time he wrote
this, the resident monk at the Malaysian Buddhist
Meditation Centre in Penang, which is where I stayed
prior to and shortly after my ordination there. He
is a Theravada monk, while I am not (I left
Theravada a long time ago), but, as he said or
implied below, as human beings we all have many
things in common and can all learn things from each
other, without subscribing to each other’s
viewpoints in totality].
HOW TO READ A BOOK
"When you read a book, you must keep an open mind.
Do not allow prejudice to cloud your judgment.
Instead, try to read and understand what the author
is trying to say. Try to give him a sympathetic ear.
He is trying to convey something he seriously thinks
about and which he seriously believes in. At least,
give him a chance to say his piece. You need not
agree with everything he says, but you may find some
common areas of agreement, or you may find something
new, something you can actually learn from him. Then
you can pick out what you can relate to, learn
something from him, and as for what you cannot
relate to, and concepts you cannot agree with, you
need not accept them, you can reject them, or just
let them be. Or in areas you are not so sure about,
you can say without rejecting or accepting, Well,
I’m not so sure about this; it may or may not be;
who knows? I’ll just keep an open mind and see how
it will all eventually work out, and you can
read on.
"But at least now you know about his
point-of-view, about another’s point-of-view. In
that sense you are not so ignorant; you have some
understanding of others’ concepts or viewpoints,
some of which you can agree with, and some of which
you just cannot; it doesn’t matter. What matters is
that you have learned something about others’ views,
and when you give talks and have discussions, you
will be better able to discuss and relate with
others. You can speak with more knowledge and
understanding. You can point out both the
differences and the similarities, and you can also
appreciate the goodness in others’ traditions, for
they too are trying to practice compassion and
transcend the ego. And oftentimes, their compassion
and practice put us and our own practice to shame,
do they not? For we may claim to know, but how much
of what we know do we practice? How wise and
compassionate are we? Do we really know what we
claim to know? Do we not have doubts sometimes, and
if we have, can we admit them? Can we say we don’t
really know fully as yet, that our understanding is
still incomplete, and therefore we should not think
or behave as if we know everything, as if we are an
authority, or that we hold the monopoly of truth,
wisdom and compassion?
"It is good to have knowledge of each
other’s religious views as this will foster
religious tolerance and understanding; it is also
good to have knowledge of other Buddhist schools and
traditions so that we can understand our differences
and still have respect for each other. Sometimes, as
I said, we can learn wonderful things from another.
For example, reading a non-Buddhist book about dying
entitled FINAL GIFTS, I learned a lot about
death from people who have witnessed it first-hand;
yes, from hospice-nurses who with great compassion
tended to the dying, and who related for our benefit
their experiences with dying people. I learned a lot
about compassion from that book, how, by just being
present, by giving a gentle squeeze to a hand, by
tenderly stroking a forehead, by saying a soothing
and comforting word, one can bring relief to a dying
person. I learned how a dying person can die
peacefully—with understanding, love and comfort from
his loved ones and friends. I marvel at the hospice
nurses who, in their great compassion, sacrificed so
much of their energy and time for the dying,
something which I myself cannot do. It makes me more
humble, more appreciative and respectful of others
and the wonderful work they are doing.
"Reading a book entitled HOW CAN I
HELP? by Ram Dass and Paul Gorman, I learned
some more about compassion, about how people from
all walks of life serve society, each in their own
wondrous ways. It was a very eye-opening and
touching book. It made me feel humble and wanting. I
know we are all here to serve. Why, even the Buddha
asked the Arahants not to just sit back and
relax after attaining their goal. No, He asked them
to travel all over the place to spread and share the
beautiful Dharma.
"Today, many people are serving in their
own ways. Mother Theresa cares for the sick and
destitute in Calcutta; the Dalai Lama preaches peace
and non-violence throughout the world; Thich Nhat
Hanh asks us to be mindful in our everyday life and
shows us how in very simple and delightful ways. For
example, we can be mindful when answering a
telephone call or when we are stalled at the traffic
lights. He says: Don’t look at the red light as your
enemy, as something to beat before it turns green,
but look at it as a mindfulness-reminder, as if it
is blinking at you and telling you: "Hey there! Be
mindful!" And when we wake up every morning, he asks
us to wake up with a smile on our face and a
resolution to live every precious waking moment
fully and to look at all beings with eyes of
compassion.
"Yes, I always say we can learn from
others, if only we don’t close our minds and hearts
altogether. When I read the Dalai Lama, I see that
here is a very compassionate and wise person, and a
very humble one, too. When he is questioned and
doesn’t know something, he says so openly, even to
an audience in an auditorium; he’s not afraid to
admit it. He’ll say: "This beats me; I don’t know.
You tell me". He can speak to psychiatrists and
psychologists on their own level. He can ask
incisive and profound questions which reveal his
depth of understanding, concern, sincerity and
compassion with regard to whatever is being
discussed.
"True, I may not agree with the Dalai
Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh with regard to certain
Vajrayana or Mahayana concepts, but I respect their
rights to their views, and I can appreciate how
through their concepts and school of thought, they
too express wisdom and compassion in their daily
lives and practice in ways which show that they live
what they preach; they are not just talkers but
doers. And more, they have won world recognition and
acclaim for their work of propagating peace,
non-violence, mindfulness, understanding and
compassion. Their significant accomplishments and
contributions as Buddhists to the world at large is
something which we all, as brothers and sisters in a
big Dhamma family, should be proud of.
"I can appreciate their skills in
relating to and communicating with people, their
genuine love and compassion for all beings. Why,
they too are teaching people to be mindful, to
uphold the five precepts, to have love and
compassion for all beings. And, more importantly, it
would appear that they live up to what they teach. I
learned a lot from their ways of expression,
especially Thich Nhat Hanh’s skills in communicating
the mindfulness practice in the context of everyday
life, in the mundane activities of everyday routine.
"Yes, what I am trying to say here is
that we should not close our minds totally; there
are things we can learn from others. We too must
realize and concede our own limitations—that we are
not perfect and our understanding is still
incomplete. As Theravadins, we should not think that
we have a monopoly on wisdom and compassion, that we
know best, that we are superior to others in both
theory and practice. We should recognize, appreciate
and respect the goodness in other traditions too;
otherwise we might just be caught in another ego or
conceit trip.
"If we nurture a humble attitude we
stand to gain a lot, we open up, we are not so
narrow or dogmatic, we can begin to learn from
others, a whole new wide world will open up. By
opening up, it doesn’t mean that we throw away what
we already have. No, on the contrary, we reinforce
what we already have. How? We’ll learn how to apply
our own beliefs and understand more skillfully. We
take what is helpful from others, their skillful
ways of practicing which do not conflict with ours,
and with those views or ideas which we cannot relate
to or agree with, we just leave them alone, just let
them be. After all, you cannot expect when you read
a book to agree with everything in it, can you?
There will always be some differences in opinions
and interpretations. We can acknowledge the
differences and adhere to our viewpoints, but we can
now understand another’s viewpoint. And we can see
where we share similarities, and we can learn how
skillfully others apply the practice, especially in
the areas where we share similar viewpoints and
understanding. We can learn from them skillful ways.
And we can appreciate and be grateful to them for
teaching us those ways.
"If we will read only what we consider
as 100% Theravadin books, then we will have closed
our minds, and how can we then learn from others?
Have others nothing to teach us? Do they not
practice compassion and wisdom in their own ways,
too? Can’t we see the beauty and goodness in their
practice and work, even though we may not agree with
certain of the religious concepts they subscribe to?
And do you know that even Theravadin writers have
their differences in opinions and interpretations of
Theravadin doctrine and meditation? Yes, as students
of Dhamma, it is for us to read intelligently, to
think for ourselves as the Buddha wanted us to, not
just to accept or reject blindly. So, having
understood somewhat our Theravadin Dhamma, we should
be able to read others’ viewpoints too, and decide
for ourselves what we can accept and what we cannot.
We need not throw everything out. We can see common
principles that underlie different techniques and
approaches.
"In this way, we can study more
intelligently and maturely; we can have a more
intelligent and mature approach. This way we have
nothing to lose but everything to gain. I, for one,
can tell you I have learned and gained a lot by
listening carefully to what others have to say, by
reading with an open mind, taking what I can relate
to and leaving alone what I cannot. I trust and pray
that I will continue to grow in humility, compassion
and wisdom as I try, according to my ability, to
apply as faithfully as I can, the spirit of the
Dhamma as taught by the All Compassionate and Wise
Buddha.
"May all beings be well and happy. May
they keep open minds. May they know how to take what
is good and leave what might not be so good. May
there be tolerance, loving-kindness, compassion,
appreciation and understanding. May all sincere and
compassionate seekers and practitioners, by whatever
path they may have chosen to travel, eventually
reach their goal of wisdom and happiness, of Nibbana
and the cessation of all suffering".
Visuddhacara. 27 September 1993.
Outside,
on a clear night, more than in the daytime when the
stars are hidden from us, we can feel the infinity
of space. Apart from the beauty of it—which is
merely our own subjective judgment or opinion—what
does it do to us? How do we feel? Appalled and
intimidated by the inconceivable vastness that
surrounds us on all sides, we have created religions
and philosophies to console us in our tinyness and
give meaning to our brief lives. Have these attempts
to make sense of things withstood the test of time,
however? That which might have satisfied us hundreds
of years ago—does it continue to do so? Are we
content with such explanations? Or are we
sufficiently mature to say, "I don’t know", and
courageous enough to face the fact that this life
might be all that there is for us? I am not saying
it is, mind, but can we face the possibility that it
might be?
For thousands of years—yearning for
personal immortality—men have sought a meaning to
life, but might it be that there is no meaning other
than that which we ourselves give it? What is the
meaning that you try to give life by your living? We
must, I feel, constantly review our living, keeping
in mind our aims and values. We worry about the
meaning of life only when we are not sure what to do
with our lives, when we are not actively
participating in life as component parts. It is like
when someone has been out of work for a long time,
though he might have diligently sought for work:
having been unable to find anything, he might
eventually conclude that he is not employable, and
lose his vital sense of self-worth.
He came to see me one afternoon, this
tall Australian, and said his name was Tom, and that
he felt confused and adrift since he lost his
Catholic faith eight years before, and had found no
replacement for it. He complained that, though he
was quite successful in business, he had so far
found no meaning in life, and had become aware of
the existence of evil in the world which he felt
should not be there.
Awakening from illusion can be, and
often is, somewhat of a shock, and some people wish
they had remained asleep, for illusion is warm and
comforting, like the mother’s womb, and frees us
from a great deal of responsibility, which we have
to face, along with the harsh facts of life, if we
wake up. Is it that some of us wake up too soon—in
the middle of a pleasant dream, as it were—and
resent it? It would seem so.
Does your religion ‘deliver the goods’?
In order to answer that question, you must first
understand your religion and know what it
claims, promises and holds out as an inducement,
otherwise you will never be sure if you are living
in a castle-in-the-clouds—a mental construction—or
not.
If we begin to question what we’ve been
taught for centuries, and lift a corner of the
tapestry that has been draped before us, to peep
behind, we might find that it conceals something
quite different. Are you ready to look? Dare you? Be
warned first, lest you see that which, in your
complacency, you do not wish to see!
The ‘truths’ that religions put forward
should not be viewed as things irrefutably
demonstrated and established for all time, not to be
questioned, but as things to be discovered and
realized by the individual. To adopt and conform to
a system or set of theories in its entirety, and
regard it as true, is a mistake, for it is
not, and cannot be true for us unless and
until we have verified it for ourselves by our own
experience, and for this there can be no substitute.
Just as no-one can eat for us and satisfy our hunger
thereby, so no-one can vicariously discover truth
for us; that is something that each person must do
for himself. For example, how do we know that sugar
is sweet if not by our own experience? It is not
enough to be told so, to be assured that it is, or
to believe it.
The following four paragraphs are
extracted from Thich Nhat Hanh’s highly readable
rendering of the story of the Buddha in his book,
OLD PATH, WHITE CLOUDS:
"The Buddha once said that if a person
is caught by belief in a doctrine, he loses all his
freedom. If he becomes dogmatic, he believes his
doctrine is the only truth and that all other
doctrines are heresy. Disputes and conflicts all
arise from narrow views. They can go on forever,
wasting precious time and sometimes even leading to
war. Attachment to beliefs and opinions is the
greatest impediment to the spiritual path. Bound to
narrow views, one becomes so entangled that it is no
longer possible to let the door of truth open.
"To illustrate this, the Buddha told a
story about a young widower who lived with his
five-year-old son. He loved his son more than his
own life. One day, he left his son at home while he
went to work, but while he was away, a band of
brigands robbed and burned the whole village and
kidnapped his son. When the man came home from work,
he found the charred corpse of a young child lying
outside his burnt house; he took it to be the body
of his son. Overcome by grief, he cremated what was
left of the corpse. Because he loved his son so
much, he put the ashes in a bag which he carried
with him wherever he went.
"Several months later, his son managed
to escape from the brigands and make his way home.
He arrived in the middle of the night and knocked at
the door. At that moment, the father was hugging the
bag of ashes and weeping. He refused to open the
door even when the child called out that he was the
man’s son. He believed that his son was dead and
that the child knocking at the door was some
neighborhood child mocking his grief. Finally, his
son had no choice but to wander off on his own.
Thus, father and son lost each other forever.
"The Buddha concluded: If we are
attached to some belief and hold it to be the
absolute truth, we may one day find ourselves in a
similar situation as the young widower. Thinking
that we already possess the truth, we will be unable
to open our minds to receive the truth, even if
truth comes knocking at our door".
When people adopt and embrace a system
in totality, there is often a tendency to try to
make everything conform thereto, and if something
does not, then it, rather than the system,
might be regarded as being at fault. This is
notoriously so with new converts or those ‘born
again’; it is common for them to come with a zeal
that is usually lacking in those who have been born
into and raised according to a particular religion,
and who have therefore, for the most part, accepted
it without question. Such zealots might object that
our knowledge of life is insufficient to measure,
judge, confirm or disprove ‘revealed religion’ by
(and by ‘revealed religion’ is meant religion that
is based upon so-called ‘divine-revelation’ or the
‘Word of God’). But is it, really? Have not many of
the claims of ‘revealed religion’ been debunked by
discoveries and proofs to the contrary? Just one
outstanding example of this: the Christian Church
had for centuries taught that our planet was the
center of the Universe, around which everything else
turned, and when the Italian scientist, Galileo,
stated that this was not so, he was persecuted by
the Church authorities, made to recant his ‘heresy’,
and put under house-arrest until he died. It is only
within the last few years, under Pope John-Paul II,
that the Church has acknowledged its error and ‘very
kindly’ exonerated Galileo, 350 years later!
It is the Church that needs Galileo’s
pardon, not the other way around!
There are numerous other extravagant and
preposterous claims made by religion, but which are
considered fundamental and indispensable, like
virgin births, resurrection from the dead,
infallibility of the Pope, etc., which cause
religion to be held in contempt by many people, and
its adherents regarded as simpletons. The lives of
countless people are built on such fallacies.
We must not be too sweeping, however,
and deny that there is beauty in religious forms and
ceremonies—something impressive in the pageantry and
solemnity, the melodious and inspiring hymns, the
sonorous chants, the gorgeous priestly vestments and
trappings, and the profuse symbolism. In every way,
in every country and time, man has lavished his best
on expressing his religious feelings, and the
resultant art, architecture and music are truly
magnificent testimonies of man’s devotion to his
beliefs. But, while marvelous edifices were built,
and priests maintained in luxury, the masses starved
in the shadows of the churches. The marvelous
buildings remain, while both the priests who lived
in luxury and those who starved in their shadows
have long ago gone back to the elements, but what
does it all mean? Is there substance behind all the
symbolism? Is it anything more than expression of
ignorance or fear of what we do not understand, of
attempts to propitiate, cajole or bribe the imagined
gods, spirits, or personified forces of nature? If
man had not feared such things, his creative energy
would no doubt have been expressed in other forms,
for we can see that religious structures are not the
only beautiful structures in the world. Therefore,
people who are not the least religious in the formal
sense can enjoy and appreciate the art and beauty of
churches, temples and mosques without subscribing to
the beliefs that inspired them. A thing of beauty
can be enjoyed by all, regardless of religious or
political affiliations, or lack of such.
If, when the Industrial Revolution had
begun in Europe, the West had had a religious
philosophy to suit the times, instead of a set of
supernatural concepts that science was in the
process of tearing to shreds, things would probably
have gone in quite a different direction. As it was,
however, there was a reaction against religion in
the West that continues until now (it is known as
Materialism), and Karl Marx’s famous dictum:
"Religion is the opium of the masses", was eagerly
embraced by many people and applied indiscriminately
to religion as a whole, rather than to that aspect
of it which laid stress on the ‘afterlife’ as a
palliative for the ills and misfortunes of this
life and was used by the rulers and priests to
keep people ‘in their places’. We can understand why
Marx denounced the corruption, venality and amassing
of wealth that went on under the cloak of religion,
but was he against those aspects that stressed
practical morality, charity, social involvement and
justice? Or had these been relegated to the attic by
people in power, in favor of supernatural and
unverifiable things, and no longer formed a
prominent part of religion? Thus, when religion was
shunted aside and rejected in totality as
anachronistic, ‘the baby was thrown out with the
bath-water’, and the succeeding system became more
monstrous and oppressive than that it replaced. And
now that Communism has suddenly collapsed, great
numbers of people, taken by surprise, and not
knowing how to use their new-found freedom, turn
back to their old superstitions and are spiritually
little better-off than before the time of Communism.
The ‘morality’ of the Communist system was imposed
on people by the State, instead of something they
chose through understanding. And the morality that
people embrace when they turn back to religion is
also an external morality, undertaken through fear
of God, desire for Heaven, and so on. But how long
will they obey an external authority without wanting
to rebel?
Buddhism, too, is priest-ridden and
afflicted with superstition. Using our imagination a
little, it is not hard to understand how the
Buddha’s final exhortation to "Work out your own
salvation with diligence", and not to look for a
refuge outside of oneself, was not very appealing to
the masses of the people—most of whom were
illiterate and uneducated at that time—because the
masses in any age tend to look outside of themselves
for help and salvation. It was not long, therefore,
when the Buddha was no longer around to discourage
this inevitable tendency, before He came to be
thought of as super-human or divine, rather than as
someone who had developed His human potential and
had shown others the way to do this, too. It then
became more important—and easier, of course—to
worship Him as a savior rather than to practice what
He had taught. Today, many Buddhists are under the
erroneous belief (but it is nothing new, having gone
on for a long time), that explaining the Dharma is
the prerogative of monks, and that only monks, in
fact, are able to fully understand Dharma, while
‘ordinary householders’ are not. Now, that is
something that the Buddha never taught; He never
made understanding of Dharma conditional on wearing
a yellow robe and having a shaved head. While He
did design the way of life of the monks to make
it easier for them to follow the Way (free from the
emotional entanglements of family life, the
necessity of earning a living, and so on), He never
said that anyone who is not a monk or nun could not
understand the Dharma or become enlightened. Dharma
is not narrow and restrictive like that, but is open
to anyone with a heart and mind who will make an
effort.
Imagine how this world would now be if
Christians had tried to apply what Jesus was talking
about and Buddhists had tried to experience what the
Buddha tried to indicate, instead of merely
believing. We can be sure that it would be quite
different than it is now.
Once in a while it is good—and
necessary—to step back a bit and detach ourselves
from our search—to unyoke the oxen from the plough,
as it were, and let them graze a little—for by so
doing, our vision might be refreshed and renewed,
and things seen in clearer perspective. It should
not be considered a waste of time to do this but
rather an investment, because if we stand long with
our noses against a picture that covers an entire
wall, we may forget the complete picture and see
only the few details and colors before our eyes.
So, Tom, take a look around you, and you
might realize that you are not the only one with
troubles in the world, you might realize that this
is the common condition and has always been like
this. The reason you didn’t see it before is not
because it wasn’t there, but because you were living
under illusion, convinced that ‘God’ was in control
of everything, and that therefore everything should
be alright. And now that you have discovered that
everything is not alright, what can you do
about it? Nothing? No, there is something
that you, and we, and everyone can do, if we realize
that most of the suffering and all of the evil comes
from people like us and that therefore it is
unnecessary and can be avoided. And if we consider
that religion is something that inspires us and
helps us to become active participants in the world,
and put something back into it, instead of as a
means of getting more out of life than we have
already got, it will take on quite a different
meaning, and we will probably find things coming to
us as a matter of course, without looking for them.
If, however, we focus on ourselves in isolation—as
many of us do—we will indeed feel despondent and
lost, for the fact is we belong, like pieces of a
jig-saw puzzle that have their places in the overall
picture, and can only be understood in context—can
only understand ourselves in context—not as
separate, isolated units.
It is therefore, in the midst of the
ecological mess that we have inherited and added to,
that many of us are awakening to the fact that we
are connected to and dependent upon other
things—indeed, everything—and are not, as we
hitherto thought in our ignorance and arrogance,
independent and in control.
There is no need for belief in all
this—people have been shackled and blinded by belief
for aeons, and where has it got us?—but of seeing
clearly how things are.
When,
in 1984, I went from the Philippines to visit the
Vietnamese Refugee Camps in Hong Kong and eventually
got permission to do so, I was approached in one of
the Camps by a government official—(my activities in
the Camps until then had almost surely been
monitored and approved, otherwise they would soon
have been terminated)—and politely asked if I
could/would visit the Camps on a regular basis, or,
failing this, if I knew of any monks in Hong Kong
who would do so. He said that there were numerous
Christian missionaries visiting the Camps regularly,
but so far no Buddhists.
Sadly, I had to tell him that not only
was I unable to visit the Camps regularly myself—as
I was only passing through Hong Kong—but I did not I
know of any Hong Kong monks who would do. I didn’t
tell him—because I was ashamed to—that the previous
year, while I was staying in the Bataan Refugee Camp
in the Philippines, I had heard of the neglected
plight of the Buddhist refugees in the Hong Kong
Camps, and had written to a prominent Hong Kong monk
about it. My letter to him is here reproduced:
"Philippines.
29-March-1983.
Dear
Ven. ..... (name omitted here),
Allow me to introduce myself: I am
the monk in charge of Buddhist affairs in the
Philippines Refugee Processing Center. I have been
here for three years, during which time we have
built two small temples for the Buddhist Refugees.
I have had the pleasure of meeting you
on two occasions—once in Bogor, Indonesia, in 1978,
and again, in Taipei in 1981—though probably you
will not remember me.
My reason for writing to you now,
Venerable, is to ask for your assistance: you are
well-known for your compassion, and I am confident
that you will help. The problem is this:
I have heard, from several refugees who
arrived here from Hong Kong, that there are two
Vietnamese Buddhist monks in two separate Camps
there; they are very much in need of help since,
apparently, no-one is allowed to go in to see them.
Somehow, though, it seems that Christian
missionaries are allowed inside the Camps, and are
very active trying to convert the refugees. What a
shame for our religion that no-one is allowed to go
there to minister to the needs of our
co-religionists! (Even in Thailand, where there are
about 300,000 monks, the Buddhists just sit idly
back and permit the endless streams of Christian
missionaries to commit their outrage against
Buddhist refugees—buying them, and otherwise
influencing them to change their religion).
Ven., please try to help these two
monks; they need Buddhist books, Buddha-pictures and
other articles for distribution to their faithful
followers; ceremonial instruments such as a
wooden-fish, gong and bell, would be very much
appreciated. I also understand that they are
personally in need of clothes. More than anything
else, though, they are in need of care and moral
support from local Buddhists. [The names and
addresses of the two monks were included].
Many
Thanks and Sincere Regards—
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
There was no reply to this, but that, I
since learned, is not unusual. I have written to
several monks about different things since then, and
was not graced with replies. Although I spent many
years in Asia, I am still a Westerner, and look at
things from a largely Western point-of-view. Perhaps
I’m a bit old-fashioned in this, but I consider it
ill-mannered not to reply to letters of a personal
nature. In Asia, however, the standard seems to be
somewhat different.
Anyway, I was rather disappointed at the
non-response of this Hong Kong monk—hence my writing
about it now—as he had probably been a refugee
himself years before, fleeing Communist oppression
in China; there is also the possibility that he will
become a refugee again in the near future, when Hong
Kong reverts to China. He likes to print photos of
himself in his Buddhist magazine, in the act of
releasing fish, crabs, turtles, etc., as an act of
compassion. Did I expect too much of him to think
that his compassion might extend a bit further than
to such dumb creatures and the pages of his
magazine, to refugees like himself? Obviously, I
did, because he did nothing about my request, and
when I tried to see him the following year in Hong
Kong, he made an excuse for not meeting me. So much
for his compassion!
Now, the refugees were of a different
nationality than this particular monk, but so what?
Was he not a Buddhist? And does Buddhism not help us
to see beyond such things as nationality? We had no
control over where we were born; we might have been
born elsewhere than in the place of our nativity,
but we can be born in only one place per life. There
is really no reason to be proud of our nationality,
as it is not something we achieved by our own
efforts; if it were a matter of choice—as some
reincarnationists believe—who would choose to be
born in countries which suffer regularly from
famine, drought, pestilence and war? No, nationality
is a consequence of being born where we were.
However, if we understand something of Dharma, it
enables us to look at this matter somewhat
differently than most people do, and see it in
clearer perspective. This idea is one of many that
we become liberated from as we go deeper and our
consciousness expands. Therefore I say that although
I was born in England, and cannot deny this, I do
deny that it makes me English. I don’t want to be
English, because I have found something bigger and
better than that; if other people consider me
English just because I was born in England, that is
up to them. Of course, before anyone asks, I should
say that I cannot dispense with the formalities of
passports and so on, and still travel on a British
passport, which identifies me as ‘British"; I am
also a citizen of Australia now, so have an Aussie
passport, too. What I mean, however, is that I do
not think of myself as ‘English’, and when, after
the ceremony whereby I became an Australian citizen,
someone said to me: "So, now you are an Australian",
I objected and said: "No I’m not; I’m a citizen of
Australia. I don’t want to be English, and am not
about to start thinking of myself as Australian". If
asked where I am from, sometimes I answer: "When?"
"No, where are you from?" they repeat. Again, I say,
"When am I from where?—this morning, yesterday, last
year? When do you mean? If you mean where I was
born, I was born in England—or at least, I was told
so, though I don’t remember it myself (to be more
accurate, I was born in my mother’s bed, and that,
as far as I was concerned at the time, could have
been anywhere). Since then, however, I have been to
and come from many places. But where I am really
from, I don’t know, any more than you know where you
came from!"
We learn to see beyond such artificial
divisions to the basic fact of our humanity. Shall
we therefore restrict our compassion to just one
group of people? What kind of compassion would that
be?
The Buddhist scriptures record the story
of a certain monk who was so ill and incapacitated
that he could do nothing for himself and was left
lying in his own filth by the other monks, who
wouldn’t go near him because of the smell and dirt.
When the Buddha heard of this, He called for water
to be heated and cloths to be brought, and went to
clean up the sick monk with His own hands. Of
course, when He did so, many monks rushed to help,
but the Buddha insisted on doing the onerous job
Himself, as an example to all. He explained that,
since none of them had mothers, wives or anyone else
to take care of them, they should take care of each
other when necessary, living as a community, in
brotherly love. This incident led Him to utter His
famous words: "He who serves the sick serves the
Buddha".
Before I went to Thailand in 1972, in my
naiveté I expected to find such a spirit of
brotherhood in the monasteries there, but was soon
disillusioned and found little or nothing of it.
Instead, I found that Buddhism had become merely a
thing of tradition, and no longer something to live
by. Fortunately, I had already realized the
difference between Buddhism as a religious
organization, and the Buddha’s Teachings, and so was
able to continue; had I not realized this I would
probably have abandoned everything in disgust and
gone on my way long ago. Since then, therefore, I
have been trying to share this realization with
others, as I consider it of great importance. It has
stood me in great stead many times, like when I went
to the Philippines in 1979, and stayed in the
largest temple in Manila. From the moment I went
there until I left five years later, some of the
monks never even smiled or nodded to me, but looked
through me as if I were invisible. True, the
language-barrier prevented verbal communication, but
even that was not insuperable. I might have
understood their attitude if, after I had been there
long enough for them to get to know me somewhat and
possibly conclude that ‘this fellow is no good’,
they had become cold towards me, but to treat a
complete stranger like that didn’t say much to me
about their understanding of Dharma. And my opinion
of them was not improved by their concentration on
performing lucrative ceremonies for the dead,
whereby they had their pious but gullible followers
‘over a barrel’. Such monks become very rich,
financially, by their activities, but one really
wonders about their spiritual wealth!
I must, at the risk of becoming tedious,
emphasize the vast difference between the Container
and the Contents: Buddhism and the Teachings of the
Buddha. If people are satisfied with Buddhism it is
alright, of course; but for those who are not, and
who want something more than mere name-and-form, it
must be said that though Buddhism—the Container—is
now old, tired and travel-stained, having come a
long way and suffered many vicissitudes, the
Contents—by which I mean the Teachings of the
Buddha—are still quite intact. However, these, too,
should not be looked upon as something magical in
themselves, that will produce miraculous effects
just by being believed in or recited, but should be
understood and realized, for they are only ‘a finger
pointing at the moon’, not the moon itself. So,
there are three levels, as it were: (1) Buddhism,
the organization, which deserves our respect for
having preserved the Contents thus far; (2)
Buddha-Dharma, or the Teachings of the Buddha; and
(3) Dharma itself, that which, upon realizing it,
Sakyamuni became the Buddha, and which He thereafter
tried to indicate to others. If we insist on
clinging to the Container while understanding
nothing of the Contents and making no attempt to do
so, it is rather a waste, to say the least.
Compassion is one of the central
elements of the Buddha’s Way, but so many Buddhists
obviously think of it as just something of the
scriptures—a word or concept—and seldom apply it in
their lives; we talk so much about it, and this
shows that we haven’t got the real thing. Some monks
have spots burned on their heads when they undertake
‘Bodhisattva precepts’ (some lay-devotees have spots
burned on their arms). Now, a Bodhisattva is someone
who dedicates himself to developing and acquiring
spiritual qualities which will better enable him to
help others, and he does this by—among other
things—devoting himself to the selfless service of
others, and the term ‘selfless service’ here is most
important, as such a person would not look for or
expect recognition for doing what he does; he would
not make a show, but would do good merely because he
sees it as the only thing for him to do; at that
stage, he has gone beyond choosing between good and
evil, and does good with an undivided mind full of
love and compassion. A person becomes a Bodhisattva
not by mere talk about compassion and ‘saving all
beings’, by having spots burned on his head or by
taking ‘Bodhisattva precepts’, but by serving others
and showing compassion towards them. Moreover, such
a person would never think of himself as a
Bodhisattva, and would not even know that he/she is
one. It is only upon complete enlightenment and the
attainment of Buddhahood when, looking back, that
person sees that he has been a Bodhisattva before.
We must be very careful, therefore, when
talking about compassion and Bodhisattvas, lest we
injure ourselves spiritually and set ourselves back
by casual and thoughtless words.
As an explanation for the condition of
the world right now, many Buddhists are prone to
saying: "Oh well, it’s the Kali Yuga now; what else
can you expect?", and with this they comfort
themselves and go back to sleep.
"KALI YUGA’ is a Sanskrit term meaning
‘Dark Age’, and signifies a period when Dharma, in
the sense of righteousness, declines and all kinds
of corruption flourish. Do we see such a state right
now? It is a matter of opinion, of course, because
while we cannot deny that corruption, terrorism and
injustice are rampant now—maybe more than ever
before, by reason of our vastly-increased capacity
for more-or-less anything—at the same time, in some
ways, the world is much better now than it was, and
there are many people who live responsibly and
caringly; if there were not such people, we would
not have organizations like Amnesty International,
Greenpeace, or the environmental movement—though
these organizations exist and are necessary only
because of the situation. The picture is not totally
black, as some people appear to think. And who would
return to ‘the good old days’, even supposing they
could? They were not as good as we like to think
they were; time has dulled the memories of the
things from those days that were not good, and we
tend to look back through rose-colored spectacles.
‘Kali Yuga’ is frequently translated as
‘The Dharma-Ending Age’, so it is necessary to point
out the error of this, for the purpose of
clarification. We must be careful what we say, lest
in repeating things that we do not fully understand,
we limit ourselves needlessly. I object to this
translation because Dharma, in the sense of
Reality—or how things are, which the Buddha
perceived and understood beneath the Bodhi-tree,
rather than invented or formulated Himself—has no
beginning and therefore will not end. What will come
to an end and disappear, because it did have a
beginning, is Buddha-Dharma, or the Teachings of the
Buddha—His attempt to point out what He had found.
As time goes by, Buddha-Dharma becomes more and more
obscured by interpretation, translation,
misunderstanding and superstition. Nor is this
surprising, but quite in accordance with what the
Buddha said about the universal law of Impermanence:
everything changes. So, the corruption and the
decline itself, being part of reality, is also
Dharma, is it not? This does not mean, however, that
we should accept things complacently, and do nothing
to try to change things. The Buddha’s Way is one of
strenuous effort to overcome the negative things in
our lives and to acquire and cultivate the good; it
is not a way of saying: "Well, that’s just how
things are; I can’t do anything to change it", for
it is not true that we can do nothing to change
things; in fact, it is just the opposite: that we
cannot not change things, because all the time,
moment by moment, merely by being alive, we are
doing things—consciously or unconsciously—to change
things, by adding drop after drop to the ocean of
cause-and-effect that is our world. We are involved
and responsible, whether we know it or not.
So, Kali Yuga is something that we are
all responsible for, we are all creating it; it
comes from our minds and appears in the world around
us. And if we create it, we can, with a little
thought and care, reverse the process—or at least,
put the brakes on it somewhat.
During
what was supposed to be the final week of a trip in
India, in January 1994, misfortune—or what might be
considered such—overtook me, in the following way:
I had just revisited the
cave-monasteries of Ajanta in Central India, and was
on my way back to Madras in the south. To reach that
city, however, meant a journey of 24 hours by train,
and I was unwilling to travel without a reservation,
as Indian trains are usually unpleasantly crowded. I
bought a ticket at Bhusawal junction, but was
unable to get a reservation for that evening’s train
and had to settle for one the next evening; this
meant that I had to stay overnight in Bhusawal.
Inquiring about accommodation, however, I was told I
might get a place in the first-class air-conditioned
retiring-rooms of the station itself, but when I
went there, I was informed that there was only one
place left, and that I would have to share a room
with someone else. Well, since it was for only one
night, and the rate not excessive, I agreed to do
so. This was my first mistake; I should have sought
out a room for myself. But if we knew, in advance,
that we were about to make mistakes, we would not
make any; it’s always easy to be wise after the
event.
I was taken up to the room, but the
other occupant was out at the time. When he
returned, we introduced ourselves, and he seemed to
be well-educated, decent and friendly, and gave me
one of his business-cards, saying that he had
traveled overseas on business, and had even stayed
in the famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore. He
said he had to meet a business-associate the next
morning, and would not be leaving until the
afternoon. Other than small-talk, however, we did
not have a lot to say to each other.
The next morning, I rose at my usual
early time and went into the bathroom, careful to
take with me the small bag containing my passport,
camera and Indian currency; my travelers’ checks
were in a waist-pouch, and my other bags were kept
locked beside my bed. Later, when I went out for
breakfast, he must have observed that I took my
small bag with me, and waited for an opportunity to
get his hands on it. This came later, when I went
into the bathroom to get some water and carelessly
left my bag on my bed. No sooner had the bathroom
door closed behind me on its spring-hinges than he
jumped up, bolted the door from the outside, and
made off with my bag and his own stuff, ripping out
the phone before he went. By the time my shouts and
bangings had brought someone running to let me out
it was too late for pursuit, of course, and I could
do nothing but go to the nearby police-station to
make a report.
When I finally completed this
rather-lengthy and slow process, I asked where I
might change money, as all my Indian
currency—enough, I had thought, to last for my few
remaining days in India—had gone in my bag; I had
not a single rupee left. One plain-clothes policeman
offered to drive me to a bank on his scooter, which
was very kind of him as it was not part of his duty.
The bank, however, would not cash a travelers’ check
for me, and told me that I would have to go to the
next town for this, but I didn’t want to do so. The
policeman then dropped me back at the
railway-station, but came running after me and
pressed 40 rupees into my hand, knowing that I had
no Indian money; then, without waiting for me to get
his name and address so that I might send him back
the money, he went off.
I then went over to the
reservations-office to report the loss of my ticket,
and while there, I met someone who was willing to
change some money for me, though at a very low rate.
Then I was sent back to the ticket-counter to get a
replacement ticket, for which I had to pay a 25%
fee. I also went back to the police-station, but the
officer who had helped me had already gone home, so
I left a sum of money for him with other officers,
trusting them to pass it to him.
All this time, I had not been feeling
very happy, of course, but I consoled myself with
the thought that whatever can be lost will
be lost, sometime or other. I also reminded
myself that I was lucky, as it was my eighth trip in
India and this was the first time anything like this
had happened to me, while I had heard of people
going there for the first time and losing everything
except the clothes they were wearing! It could have
been much worse, I reasoned; I could have lost
everything, too, and even been physically wounded or
killed, instead of losing just one small bag and its
contents.
My train was five hours late, and I
boarded it for the long trip to Madras, hoping to
find an Australian Consulate where I might get a new
passport. Arriving there, however, I discovered that
there was none, and so had to return to Delhi. To
save time, I reluctantly paid US$170 for a
plane-ticket, and flew out the next day. In Delhi, I
underwent the usual hassles of finding a taxi and a
hotel-room, but finally triumphed, and the next
morning, went to the Australian High Commission
where I was told a new passport could not be issued
that day, and that I should come back for it the
following day. I was greatly relieved to hear this,
plus being surprised at the friendliness of the
staff there, as I fully expected to have to wait
about a week for it.
The next day, when I went to get my new
passport, I met someone from Tasmania who was there
for exactly the same reason; his passport had
been stolen in Madras airport, just as he was about
to leave for Australia! With so much in common,
therefore, we decided to travel back to Madras by
train together, so we obtained tickets for that
evening’s express, at about $10, with sleeper
reservations for the 36 hours’ trip south.
Eventually, we arrived in Madras, tired and dirty
from the journey, and found a hotel before setting
about getting new Indian visas in our new passports,
without which we would not have been allowed to
leave the country.
Several days later, new visa in new
passport, I boarded a flight back to Malaysia, and
this was perhaps the happiest part of my trip in
India; it was so good to get back to friendly faces
in Malaysia!
This was not the end of the stolen-stuff
saga however; there was a sequel to it: Three months
later, while I was still in Malaysia, I received a
letter from my sister in Adelaide saying that a big
envelope—containing my old passport, address-book
and some other papers—had arrived for me from the
Aussie High Comm in Delhi. It had received these
things from the police-station in Bhusawal; how the
police-station had got them, I do not know, but I
presume the thief had felt some remorse at stealing
my stuff and somehow handed them in to the police,
because I’m pretty sure that if he had just
discarded them at the roadside or somewhere, they
would never all have come back to me like that. I
was very happy, therefore, because although the old
passport had been cancelled, and I had back-up
copies of most of the addresses in my address-book
anyway, it indicated to me that the thief had
learned something from it all; had he not stolen my
stuff, perhaps he wouldn’t have learned what I think
he did. It made my loss appear quite differently,
and I am, after all, in the business of trying to
help others understand things like this, am I not?
Can I expect any success without any outlay or
expenditure? And this is also probably not the end
of the matter; there might be further developments
yet.
Not
long before I wrote this, something happened in New
South Wales that sent shock-waves through Australia:
a six-year-old boy was so badly beaten by the
de-facto husband of his mother that he sustained
brain-damage and died shortly afterwards. When the
mother and her lover realized what they had done,
they concocted a story that the child had been
set-upon by a gang of teenagers while on the way to
the shops with his elder brother; they even coached
the elder brother to corroborate this lie. But their
deception was soon discovered and they were arrested
and charged with murder. Not surprisingly, this
crime provoked outrage in their community, and
indeed all over the country.
We hear of old people being bashed and
murdered for their meager savings, of old ladies
being raped and killed; violent crimes against the
very young and the very old—those least able to
defend themselves—are increasing, and terror
spreading.
The cry for the execution of people who
commit such crimes grows louder day-by-day, and it
is hard to imagine how the politicians will continue
to ignore it much longer; any polly who makes
it a point in his next election-campaign is almost
sure to get lots of support.
With horrific crimes like this not
infrequent now, and the judicial and law-enforcement
systems obviously unable to cope, more and more
people are calling for the reintroduction of the
death-penalty. In this article, I would like to look
at the controversial issue of capital-punishment.
It is only within this century that most
Western countries have abolished the death-sentence,
but it is still very much in force in the majority
of other countries for crimes such as murder,
drug-smuggling, treason, espionage, kidnapping
and—in some countries—adultery, rape and
prostitution. In countries where law has been
suspended by dictators, people lose their lives for
much lesser crimes, or merely on the whim of those
in power.
Capital-punishment has been meted out
for as long as people have gathered together in
organized groups, when it became clear that certain
laws and standards were necessary for the sake of
cohesion and social harmony; and as communities
became more organized and occasion required it, more
laws were enacted and rulers and judges appointed,
with others being assigned the task of enforcing the
laws, and of bringing to justice those who broke
them.
Serial-killings, shoot-out massacres,
armed-robbery, pack-rape, sex-crimes, child-abuse,
torture, burglary, township-violence,
aerial-bombardment, smart-bombs, nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons: the list goes on and on, and
paints a very grim picture of the human race. With
our amazing science, technology and widespread
higher-education, we are not, on the whole, as
civilized as we like to think, for a chain is only
as strong as its weakest link, and the chain seems
to be getting weaker and weaker and in imminent
danger of snapping; the forces of law-and-order seem
unable to contain or curb the rising tide of crime
and violence, and many people fear that we are on
the edge of another age of barbarism like that which
engulfed Europe for almost a thousand years after
the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century,
and which we appropriately refer to as The Dark
Ages. Moreover, the forces of law-and-order have
lost the respect and support of vast numbers of
people and become tarnished by the exposé of their
faults and excesses. The world’s richest and
most-powerful country, the USA, is no longer ‘the
land of the free’ but of the fearful, where it is
unwise to go alone on the street at night—or even in
the daytime in some cities! It is still ‘the home of
the brave’, however, because people have to be brave
to go on living there! The Western social system
quite clearly seems to be disintegrating.
The death-penalty has been meted out in
many ways over the ages, from burning, drowning,
strangulation, hanging, poisoning, decapitation, to
shooting, gassing, electrocution, lethal-injection,
and so on. Man has lavished all his ingenuity on
devising and using instruments of torture; the
fiendishness of them staggers the imagination!
Legalized mass-murder is called War, and the most
bloody conflict ever—the Second World War—claimed 50
million lives, and still we have not learned!
For many centuries until this one, the
moral and legal codes of most Western countries were
based on the Judaeo-Christian Bible, and the savage
"eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" justice
propounded therein. Thus, sentencing of criminals
tended to be vengeful and punitive rather than
educative and corrective. But even today we have not
advanced so far along the path of reform; many
prisons remain universities of crime, with drugs
readily available, where inmates are brutalized and
often become worse than they were before, and come
out with a huge grudge against the society that took
away their freedom and incarcerated them.
People who oppose capital-punishment
call it barbaric and inhumane, and reduces those who
support and advocate it to the level of those they
condemn. Moreover, they say that innocent people are
sometimes executed on wrongful charges and false
evidence, and that fresh evidence exonerating the
executed person and exposing the fatal mistake
sometimes turns up later, but too late, of course,
to bring the innocent person back to life. Also,
they maintain that life is sacred, and no-one can
create it, so no-one has the right to take it away.
But this is something that those who commit
premeditated murder should consider before taking
the lives of others, is it not?
If only we were taught in school from
childhood and helped to understand that our
life-span, at most, is brief, and to be honest and
fearless about what we do, so that when and if
confronted about our misdemeanors, we would not deny
them and lie about them, even going so far as to
swear on books regarded as sacred that we didn’t do
them. By denying the wrong we have done, we become
not only miscreants but also liars and cowards; we
are brave enough to do wrong, but not brave enough
to admit it. This is cowardly, and certainly nothing
to admire or be proud of.
Are we still morally and spiritually
children that we can claim credit for our good
actions but deny responsibility for our bad actions
or blame them on temptation or mitigating
circumstances? No-one is perfect and error-free, and
to pretend to be is just another error. We are
human, and so have the limitations of our
unenlightened state, though it is as humans that we
may achieve enlightenment, and should indeed strive
to do so. It arises through understanding ourselves
just as we are, rather than as we would like to be.
It means accepting our faults and failings without
trying to gloss over them and being honest about our
mistakes. We all tell lies at times, for example,
not necessarily to deliberately deceive, but simply
because it is often hard not to, and anyone who
claims that he never tells lies is probably lying
right there and then!
We could be taught and shown that it is
human to make mistakes and sometimes give way to our
negative inclinations, but that it is better and
more manly to admit them, honestly and fearlessly
and to accept the consequences thereof, than to
cravenly deny that we did them, and seek to escape
the results. "Yes, I did it", we might say, "I
regret it now, but I did it, and am ready to accept
the consequences". If we could bring ourselves or be
brought to this degree of maturity, we would live
much more responsibly and be more in control of
ourselves. So, once again, we are led back to
education: the education-system is to blame for most
of our ills, personal as well as social. It aims
only to make us academically successful and denies
us a moral basis for living; thus, we may be highly
qualified in a particular area, but dishonest,
ruthless and unscrupulous in our dealings with
others, and our education—or rather miseducation—is
largely to blame for this, for providing us with
knowledge, but not showing us that it is to be used
for the benefit of the community we live in, instead
of against it and for self-aggrandizement.
Must we be saints to be honest? Is
honesty beyond the average person? In the Buddhist
scriptures it is stated that a Sotapanna
("Stream-Enterer")—that is, someone who has reached
the first stage of enlightenment or sainthood—though
still capable of committing bad or unwholesome
actions, cannot and will not knowingly conceal them
or pretend that he didn’t do them, but will honestly
and fearlessly admit them—not in an exhibitionist
manner, of course, but as things to be given up. And
if a person of such attainment can still make errors
and do things wrong, we may derive some consolation
and feel that there is still hope for us.
But if we cannot live like this
completely, it is possible, I am convinced, to
create a mental climate educationally, wherein we
would be less afraid and more willing to ‘own up’ to
our misdeeds; we could be encouraged to be honest
and not to be dishonest, instead of the other way
around; by being realistic about ourselves as
humans, we would not impose impossible standards on
ourselves and others, and this, far from increasing
licentiousness, would, with proper guidance, inspire
and give rise to a greater sense of responsibility
and maturity. A lesson in this might be learned from
the attitude shown in the Netherlands towards the
use of ‘soft’ drugs like hashish and marijuana:
while not actually legal, the authorities and
general public turn a blind eye to it, and such
drugs are openly sold and smoked in many
coffee-houses. This takes it off the black-market
and removes the morbid fascination of the
‘forbidden-fruit’ aspect of it, with the result that
the Netherlands now has the smallest proportion of
people who use hash and marijuana, and the lowest
crime-rate attached thereto, of any country in the
Western world. Compare this with Australia, where
drug-use is on the increase, and possession of hash
and ‘mary-jane’ is a punishable crime, and hidden
plantations of ‘grass’ valued at millions are
frequently discovered and destroyed. But how does
such stuff—a weed—come to be so preposterously
valued?? To me, it is neither expensive nor cheap,
but simply worthless, as it is something I don’t
need or want. The value is totally artificially!
Years ago, when I worked in the Manila
City Jail, I was appalled to see young children
living there with their parents. I remember in
particular one little boy of about four (he would
now be about 22, if he is still alive), because some
of the inmates had trained him to draw his
forefinger across his throat—to signify
throat-cutting—whenever someone asked him the
question: "What are you in for?" What an
education!
From my work in that jail, I learned a
number of lessons, among them being not to think of
people as bad just because they had done bad things.
When I first went there, I used to recoil inwardly
when, upon asking people what they were in for, they
said "Murder". But upon reflection, I came to see
that it is not difficult to kill someone—we are all
capable of it; all we have to do is to become angry,
‘lose our minds’ for a moment, pick up something
lying nearby, like a knife, bottle or axe, and hit
someone with it, and that person could easily die.
It would then be too late to say: "Oh, I’m sorry!
Don’t die! I didn’t mean it! Please don’t die!"
I have strayed a bit, I know, from my
discussion of capital punishment (maybe some people
will say I’ve been beating around the bush), but I
must please myself with my writing, too, otherwise I
could never sit down to write, and my meanderings
herein have been both interesting (to me) and
enabled me to touch on various other points and
weave them into a pattern. But let us get back to
the main topic, and look at the arguments for the
reintroduction of the death-penalty for certain
serious and cold-blooded crimes.
Supporters of capital-punishment
maintain that the law favors the criminals over
their victims, who pay twice: once by suffering at
the hands of the criminals, and again through their
taxes being used to pay for the incarceration of the
perpetrators of the crimes. They hold that the
punishment should be made to fit the crime, and that
if the punishment for certain illegal activities is
the death-sentence, and if people insist on
committing crimes in full awareness of what they are
doing and the risks involved (drug-smuggling, for
example, which is done for the sake of
potentially-huge profits but which ruins the lives
of people who become addicted), they cannot
reasonably complain if they are caught and punished.
They know the law; they know the risks. They would
rejoice if they succeeded in their venture; they
shouldn’t protest if they fail and are caught, but
should accept it stoically and honestly, for it is
of their own making, and no-one else’s. And whoever
believed the naïve tale told by the two young
British girls who were caught attempting to smuggle
heroin out of Thailand a few years ago? They claimed
that they had met someone in a Bangkok nightclub—a
complete stranger!—who had asked them to carry
something out of Thailand for him. Now, everyone who
visits countries like Thailand, Malaysia and
Singapore—and most other countries nowadays—is
warned not to carry anything for anyone that they
are not absolutely sure of, and upon leaving the
country, at the airport, people are questioned about
this, and whether or not they have packed their own
bags. A large quantity of heroin—more than 20 kgs,
if my memory serves me correctly—was found in the
girls’ baggage at the airport, concealed in
containers of talcum-powder, of all things. They
were found guilty of smuggling, and given sentences
of 24 and 18 years in the notorious ‘Bangkok Hilton’
jail, and were lucky, some think, not to be given
the death-sentence. But, because of
behind-the-scenes intergovernmental negotiations,
they were recently freed on an amnesty of the King
of Thailand, and the press-people turned out in
swarms to meet them upon their return to London.
From being treated as criminals, they had become
celebrities, and there was talk of half-a-million
pounds sterling or more for their story! Who says
that crime doesn’t pay?
Freedom is a wonderful thing that we can
have too much of and which many people are obviously
not ready for. Without laws to live by, and without
enforcement of those laws, society would quickly
sink into a state of anarchy and chaos. We are
already in a mess and getting worse, and do not have
the luxury of time needed to educate people and get
them to understand the value of life. If the
death-penalty is reintroduced, and if it is proved
beyond reasonable doubt that people are guilty of
crimes carrying the death-sentence—and in many cases
it is clear—the sentence should be carried
out forthwith, rather than prolonging the suffering
of the condemned person by keeping him on death-row
for years. If the authorities waver and lose their
nerve and show unwillingness to carry through the
laws they have enacted, they had better not make
them in the first place, or they will not be taken
seriously.
And what about compassion?, some people
will ask. Compassion is something that the
perpetrators of crime should think about before
victimizing others, and not after they have been
caught and found guilty.
Jesus is reported to have said: "Let he
who is without sin cast the first stone", meaning
that no-one is innocent and in a position to blame
others. Thinking to have this applied to himself
during his trial, a man in America, upon being
convicted for terrorizing his former employer, told
the judge that at 54 he was too old to be sent to
jail, and asked for a public stoning instead. His
one condition was that only those without sin should
be allowed to throw the stones. The judge sentenced
him to 5 years in jail. (Culled from THE WORLD
ALMANAC AND BOOK OF FACTS).
To take a rather philosophical view of
it all: We are all under sentence of death,
for life is a terminal disease, and as Bob Dylan
sang: "He not busy being born is busy dying". To
ponder on this might help us understand the
importance of living responsibly. I said above that
we are all capable of killing, and of many other
things, but most of us restrain ourselves, and it is
herein that our morality lies: by not doing
things that we may sometimes feel inclined to do, or
by doing other things that we might not like to do.
It is important to know why we restrain ourselves
so. Is it because we fear retribution or being found
out? Is it because we hope for some reward for not
doing what we might otherwise do? Is it because we
want recognition and praise from others? Or is it
because we look on others as ourselves and identify
with them, so that we would try not to inflict upon
them what we ourselves do not like? Since most of us
have not reached the stage of motiveless morality
yet, it is useful to examine our motives for our
doings and not-doings.
And as for judging others, how can we
not do that? We all have standards for many
things, and measure people and things by these
standards. To say that someone or something is
‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘beautiful’, ‘ugly’, ‘nice’, ‘nasty’,
‘greedy’, ‘fat’, ‘thin’, ‘big’, ‘small’, ‘short’,
‘tall’, ‘wise’, ‘ignorant’, ‘intelligent’, ‘stupid’,
etc., is to pass a judgment or express an opinion.
Comparisons like ‘cheap’, ‘expensive’, ‘shoddy’,
‘good value’, ‘economical’, etc.—which we make when
we go shopping—are also judgments, as are opinions
of the weather: "Nice day, isn’t it?", "Terrible
weather today", etc. And when we say that someone is
polite or ill-mannered what is it but a judgment?
Concepts of good and bad, justice, honesty,
fair-play, brutality, callousness, indifference,
generosity, stinginess, and so on, are all
judgments, are they not? However can we live without
judging and assessing? While cooking we must judge;
while driving we must judge; while working we must
judge and discriminate. Judgment forms a vital part
of our lives, and we would not be able to function
without it. So, are not people talking nonsense when
they say we shouldn’t judge? Perhaps they are
unclear about the difference between judging and
prejudice, which is unwise judgment, or judgment
based upon insufficient evidence or without being in
full possession of the facts. Judgment based upon
the egoistic feeling of superiority, of feeling
better than others, is also wrong.
Footnote: Some years ago, I wrote the
following letter to a newspaper in Malaysia; it was
published, and received some favorable comments:
"In medieval Europe, criminals who were
caught were placed in the stocks in the
marketplace in full view of the public. A sign
stating their offence would be displayed so that
people would know what they had done and treat them
accordingly, with abuse, scorn, ridicule—and often
with over-ripe fruit and rotten eggs.
"Such treatment surely had a great
psychological effect on the offenders—and on
the bystanders—for who enjoys being publicly
humiliated and embarrassed? Many offenders, one
feels, would prefer a thrashing with a cane than to
be put on display in public.
"Stocks can be easily and cheaply
erected, with a roof to protect the offender from
the sun and rain. An officer of the law could be
stationed nearby to prevent undue violence on the
part of the public to the offender, who would be
made to stand or sit there and review the folly of
his misdeeds and perhaps resolve not to repeat his
mistakes.
"Is this kind of psychological deterrent
against crime not worth a try? It might have a great
effect on some would-be law-breakers (and we are
all potential law-breakers in the sense that we
have the capacity, and sometimes the inclination, to
break the law). With crime on the increase, all
preventative measures should be considered".
A
young woman had come to inquire about meditation,
thinking it might help her overcome the nervousness
she felt when she participated in karate
tournaments. Not surprisingly, a little inquiry
revealed that her motive for entering the
tournaments was to win, and while in other areas of
her life she was confident and relaxed, she felt
nervous and tense only when she was about to
participate in a tournament. A little research on
her part, a little objective analysis, would
probably have shown that hope of winning is
invariably accompanied by fear of losing, as hope
and fear are obverse and reverse sides of the same
coin. Is it possible to hope for something without
fear of