The apology of Burmakin Va

Synopsis of The apology of Burmakin V:

A thousand hundred years before Buddha rose up in Mizzima, a debate happened between Marga, the King of angels, and Paharada, the Chief General of Asura Demi-Gods during their two kingdoms’ war to decide whether the act of Bodhisattva Vesanntra in the act of offering his own children to the old Bhramin, Jujaka, could be justified or not.

Burmakin: To be human is to love and to be loved that is humanity. How could Great Bodhisattva divest himself of such affectionate love? Moreover, here is what Buddha confirmed with King Pesandi for his suspense upon Queen Mallika who argued she love herself the most.

Our awareness
Travels all directions
Could not find
One dearer than oneself

Sentient beings love themselves the most. How come your highness comes with such specious remark that the greatest enemy is one’s self and nothing else? With your majesty’s words, Buddhism is betrayed!

King of Angels: All right, my son. To love and to be loved is a human and that is humanity. I fully agree on that. However, there certainly is a sort of adhesive love towards someone, who lives within, splits you human into duality and drives your characters into dehumanization.

Burmakin: In Great Ocean, there is only one flavor. That is the flavor of liberation is that Buddha declared about humanity! Who is this devil living inside our human flesh, dualizes us and opposes us from our liberation? Who could stop us from discerning our taste of freedom?

King of Angels: Well, my son, the main problem with all of us is what we know for sure isn’t so. The problem of duality is to be understood before you Buddhists are showy about yourselves in knowing Anatta. Queen Mallika was one of the wisest women that I had ever observed in my so long paternalistic life of Heaven. Well, her thought experiment about humanity could well explain to us about duality.

Burmakin: I see, this thought experiment is so illuminating, your majesty. Well, King Pesandi said he loved Mallika the dearest among all beings. The Queen said she loved somebody else the most, not him and asked his majesty, “Will you cut my head off then?”

King of Angels: How the loser king who felt so humiliated responded?

Burmakin: The King felt so oppressed by her words. After his straying thought that his manhood being emasculated by those words cursed upon him by his so beloved Queen, he responded, “Of course, I will decapitate you if you do so”.

King of Angels: This is the point, my son. This question is such a recondite one that discovers the reality that we are never a singular person. He thought he loved her the most; however, this same person was ready to immediately behead his dearest in a moment. Just a few seconds ago, he was such a tender pet to the queen and now he became such a killer monster so untendering.

Burmakin: I think I could learn something from it, your majesty. We couldn’t reason ourselves as the same person by observing the regular normal situations. We think ourselves we are so kindly, sympathetic, and friendly ones. Those reflections may not come true when we are facing callous situations as in Queen Mallika’s thought experiment.

King of Angels: Well, my son. One of the harshest words to your royal military government and you highly cultivated Buddhist Burmese is the word, “struggle”. Your humanness is to be tested when you are experimenting with the struggles, not with the normally happening situations.

Burmakin: Of course, a true experiment is the one which is not certain about the outcome. We can’t denote something as an experiment if we claim in advance this experiment will generate such and such results for sure. In light of this consideration, the majority of our Burmese seems never having an experiment in life since most of us have already expected the definite outcome of their doing something in most situations.

King of Angels: I love that you got my point, my bright son. No matter you are military dictatorship, chaotic democracy like India or authoritarian China, you have the pauperizing mind root of socialist planning, which expects the definite formula results from the beginning. Without uncertainty, there is no struggle of humanity. No matter how numerous ways of sophistication in Buddha’s teaching, there is only one single instruction of the Humble One. That is the struggle: the road to liberation, Magga, is the struggle for truth.

Burmakin: The struggle for truth is emphasized because the truth is that we, human beings, are so vulnerable; while we are never certain about living a better tomorrow, it is always certain that we are so vulnerable to evils of life, ignorance, sickness and death.

King of Angels: Well, my son. Vulnerability, the Dukkha truth, was the main point of disparity between capitalism and socialism. Capitalism understands from the beginning the risk of doing something no matter how excellent an investment strategy seems reasonable is. Socialism assumes from the beginning the Lokka Nibban, the perfect society, from their grand strategy of utopian social engineering, which never wants to hear fallibility so never assumes that people on their perfect way are supposed to struggle.

Burmakin: If it is the socialist mind root entrenched in us, obsessing with the perfection of a process and results, then it is more reasonable to assume that we Burmese Buddhists have superficially understood the Dhukka truth, the truth of vulnerability to various kinds of suffering in our human life, which are inevitable. Well, your majesty, I came to understand more why Buddha pushed forward actualizing the situation of our vulnerability, the cognition process of the Dhukka truth before the truth of struggle, Magga since without such mindful fear for our vulnerability and our fallibility as imperfect human beings, we will not be systematic, laborious, cautious and more important not be curious and critical in our struggle for freedom.

King of Angels: Well, at this point, I have a very important message to you all Buddhists. The illustration of Sama that means right in the Eightfold Nobel pathway is just the right, and there is no point beyond. The right doesn’t mean true: the right thinking doesn’t mean true thinking, the right talk doesn’t mean true talk, the right awareness doesn’t mean true awareness, you Buddhists should be limited yourself in that. To be right is to struggle, and nothing else. There is no sense of utopia universal liberation formula in the Eightfold noble path, as you most Buddhists have such conventional illusion.

Burmakin: So dazzling your majesty. That is why; Buddha confirmed that there is only one way to liberation because the way of liberation is the struggle, not by Platonic ascriptive categorization of birth, race, religion or merit, all of which hallucinated as the matter of success in life are in fact, those violent manifestations of Sakkaya ditthi (wrong view of life). I do sense that your majesty, Buddha wants us to be systematic in our struggle for freedom that is to align ourselves to be right, definitely NOT grasping something as true. In this light of the Lord’s wisdom, the illustration of Sama means to be curious and to be critical in our thinking, our speaking and our situational awareness and work hard to be as right as we can. Self-development process is gradual in its transformation process for transcendence. It is definitely not a pond appearing suddenly as created by Sakka, the King of Angels. The only solution is we have to work hard; otherwise we will be the same charlatan Buddhists as we usually are.

King of Angels: Well, my son. I am glad that you are convinced more and more. As I elucidated before, the problem is the method of your way for liberation. While self-awareness is the start of the final defeat, it is so important that you first gain conscientiousness about the situation; the situational awareness is to be put before first; that is to understand first the vulnerability of your human beings as empirically observed by human experience or the thought experiment of Mallika. Well, that is the demarcation between you worthy human mind of honor and those hairy non-honorable creatures of brutal animal kingdom.

Burmakin: Could you elaborate more, your majesty? Perhaps, you start to explain human has mindful fear for their vulnerability that renders their human life as so honorable, but animals lack of this attribute.

King of Angels: Well, my son. It is more than that. Remember that I always speak relentlessly about the method. The difference between humans and animals doesn’t start at the point of fear, but mindful fear because animals also do have the fear while they don’t have much mindfulness for their fear. The subtle and dramatic point of difference is how humans respond to those fearful situations. Well, this is also the critical starting point of Buddhism, my son. In fact, Buddhism is just a humane response to our fear for such vulnerable situations, which might be unexpected or you don’t want to expect. Of course, Buddha never taught us Buddhism, just advised us the way of the struggle for freedom from fear; certainly, it is the way of a right response to fear which distinguishes humans from animals. I may say the universal and timelessly true teaching of our Teacher starts at situational awareness. Of course, the Teacher’s Dharma wheel for humanity starts at this point, my son. I put forward Mallika’t thought experiment because I want to explain you more on these things how Buddhist philosophy is founded on social relationship as well as for self-liberation. Especially, I need to be apologetic for His teachings as The Teacher delegated this duty of apology to me just before his withdrawal of human life, and I pledged Him my promise which is inalienable. Eventually, I will soundly give you sufficient reasons for the core Buddhist principle of non-violence, in other words, the requirement of non-oppression for humanity.