Most serious students of Zen have had some kind of crisis moment in their lives when they are moved to practice the Way. They have realized that over time things will only get worse. Supposedly, this happened to Prince Siddhartha when he left his sheltered palace life and was first shocked by the sight of a decrepit old man with the weight of his upper body supported by his stick.
Then as Siddhartha’s charioteer continued they came upon a man suffering from disease who was suffering greatly as he lay in his own urine and feces.
Eventually, the charioteer drove by a dead man who had reached his end. Siddhartha saw the corpse lying on a stretcher, covered by a cotton cloth. It was surrounded by a group of relatives who wailed, cried, and lamented.
Finally, Siddhartha and his charioteer came upon a wandering ascetic. He learned that these are people who sought release from suffering. With these sights he felt a deep urgency to become, also, a wandering ascetic so as to avoid such suffering.
What a beautiful story, but we live not in a world like Siddhartha's. Our world is one dominated by attachment to the flesh, sexual excesses such as pedophilia, conflict, violence, self-assertion, and self-aggrandizement (i.e., pathological narcissism). We use drugs and other intoxicants more than often to excess. This indicates only one thing, that we have been taken over by the Asura force. The bulk of mankind are not budding Siddharthas or Bodhisattvas they are in one degree or another, Asuras.
Hindu lore tells us that the Asuras have been present for thousands of years when the greater materialistic era began. According to Chan master Hsüan Hua, Asuras are human beings who like strife and war. Modern culture is heavily influenced by the Asura force. Everyone from the average person trying to make a living, to media personalities, athletes, actors, politicians—even religious leaders can become possessed by the Asura force and often are.
Blessed are those, I dare say, who are moved like Siddhartha was moved; who then decide to leave the madding crowd to practice the Dharma. But what has happened, instead, is the Asura force trying to do good creates deranged minds, disunity and revolutions. Let's not forget that Stalin was a bank robber not a wandering ascetic. Che Guevara was a cold blooded murderer not a Bodhisattva. The Communist revolution of 1917 ended up murdering millions of innocent Russian people. Communism still continues to this day only this time in the guise of Globalism and social justice. It is totally destructive.
Interesting.
I've been enjoying Hsuan Hsua's commentaries lately, finding them very helpful for engagement with the sutras in our modern age. Here is a little excerpt from his commentary on the Heart Sutra and on various retributions (in Chinese I understand this can mean both reward or retribution in the negative sense) experienced in this life. The first example below describes to my mind at least one world leader, who seem driven to conflict like Asuras:
"Perhaps a particular person really has wisdom, or another really has good roots. With respect to good roots and wisdom there are two types of people. First are those who have wisdom and no good roots. What are those people like? Most of them are weird ghosts and monstrous demons who have come into the world as people. They were mountain essences who after a long time as old spirits and ghosts became capable of eating people, and when they died, they were able to be reborn as people possessed of a little bit of intelligence.
Compared to most people they are intelligent, but they muddle up everything they do – their activities are not at all intelligent. They do whatever is harmful, and, without exception, they lack propriety. Everything that is most harmful to people and disruptive to the order of society is what they want to do. Such people, the ones who have some wisdom but no good roots, seem only to be afraid that the world won’t be in disorder."
"The second kind, those who have good roots but no wisdom, are those who in their lives exclusively performed good deeds but did not study the sutras. As a consequence they don’t have much wisdom; in fact, they are very stupid."
Posted by: n. yeti | February 14, 2018 at 11:55 AM