(Monks Patrol Meikhtila As Military Watches)
Alders Ledge:
March 25, 2013
Love? What Love?
(part of The Darkness Visible series)
When Buddha was a young man he sat at beneath a large
tree and watched as the peasants prepared the fields for the planting. Instead
of worrying about the hunger of his people, the Buddha thought to himself about
the plight of the worms in the soil as the plows turned over the land. If the
crops were not planted the people would starve to death. But that did not cross
the Buddha's mind as he worried about and animal that can survive being cut in
half. To the Buddhists of today this is supposed to represent his love for even
the least of these. But I ask what love?
It is hard to imagine any person, regardless of his
supposed deity status, thinking that the life of a single worm was more
important than the lives of millions of starving humans. It is a self righteous
behavior that has become characteristic of the Buddha. While he had everything
provided for him the people beneath his "enlightened" state died of
hunger. So once again, what love?
(Helix058 Is My Account On Instagram, This Is Burmese
Hate)
"Parasites"... "Termites"...
"Cockroaches"...
Is this the love of which Buddhists speak? Is this the
compassion which Buddha supposedly held for the worms? What if the worms had
been called "parasites"? Would the Burmese still refer to Rohingya
and other Muslims as such?
When a people forget the morality that helped shape
their culture they forget the soul of their culture. Stepping away from love
and compassion brings us to the brink of catastrophe. It takes us beyond the
point of no return... it drags us to place where we no longer recognize the
people we once were. This is the hate with which Burmese Buddhism has been
poisoned. What love was once there is trapped beneath it's heel. The hatred for
their fellow man now replaces the love of which Buddha spoke.
The parable of the worms and Buddha was much more than
mere self righteousness. It was meant to show that at times when we think we
are helping others, performing a task greater than ourselves, we often hurt
others without knowing. Buddha showed that with other ways of doing the same
task we can often avoid the casualties of even the least of these (those
society rejects or abandons).
If Buddhism is to ever heal in Burma it will have to
learn to exercise resistance to the hate that has worked it's way into
Myanmar's culture. The racism, bigotry, and intolerance must be dealt with in
ways other than the killing and ostracizing of an entire portion of the
population. Those who have introduced this disease must be dealt with also. The
sickness must not be allowed to govern the politics of a nation. In approaching
this problem in this way, Myanmar must recall that the illness of one man
changed the way Europe thinks today. Had Hitler's disease not been permitted to
take hold, Europe and America might have been able to avoid the Nazi's
"Final Solution".
But none of this can be accomplished or even worked on
until the country of Burma decides to first abandon its policies of
extermination and religious bigotry. Until the blood stops flowing this disease
cannot be contained. The love that Buddha tried to spread can not be achieved
as long as hate is allowed to rule the hearts and control the minds of the
Burmese.