Burmakin: Your majesty, I am rather suspicious that you are the creator behind this Burmese Tsunami.
King of Angels: My son. Why are you accusing me as the culprit of the cyclone? There are five main universal principles that happen naturally in the universe. Karma, Mind, Weather, Genome and Dhamma.
If there is a cause, there will be an effect. Nothing is coming and nothing is going. Only cause and effect are there.
Burmakin: Your majesty, in one of the Buddhists’ traditional stories, a white-robe monk got into somebody’s corn field. He plucked the maize and opened up the husks. However there were no corn fruits inside. He was very hungry. Lacking of any food to eat, he became very angry and cursed the benign god of the corn plants, “Damn this useless spirit who guards the corns. He even couldn’t make his crops grow well into grains.”
Related post: Burmese junta “Descending Star”
http://paraussies.blogspot.com/2008/05/burmese-junta-descending-star.html
King of Angels: Yes, this complaint also arrived at my court in the heaven. I know this case very well. Being afraid of my punishment for not taking his responsibility, the benign god of the corn plants blamed the guardian spirit of the soil for not making the soil well-fertilized. Without fertilized soil, he couldn’t nurture the plants into well-grained fruits. So I asked the soil guardian, who later became the main helper of Buddha in driving out the Saturn. The soil guardian said that there was no rain and without rain, his dry ground couldn’t be a fertilized soil. So I called the rain guardian spirit and asked him why he had not done his responsibility to pour down the rain to earth regularly.
Burmakin: By the way, your majesty, in the story I read, the guardian spirits (your warriors) appeared in front of the white-robe monk to explain why they couldn’t perform their responsibility.
King of Angels: Actually they are facing me in the Su-dhamma Court but the white-robe monk in his illusion thought that the spirits were reporting to him. He cursed my men one after another. Why you can’t make grains sprout, why you can’t make the soil fertilize, why you can’t make the rain regularly. Seemed to be endless curses to heap all faults to we divine.
Burmakin: The rain guardian is quite smart. He counter-sued the white robe monk. Without Sila (obedience of people to moral principles of the universe), he couldn’t afford the rain to trickle down to earth. The white-robe monk, who should be the gospel of Sila for the people, himself tried to invade the private property and was trying to curse the divine with ruthless words, that is showing the obvious violation against the universal moral principles, was the real culprit eventually.
King of Angels: Right. It was a very funny scene. My smart man, the rain guardian spirit, (who was also the benefactor to your Burmese Pagan empire with his endorsed jewel rain), upon the approval of my exoneration to him as absolutely non-guilty, threatened this hypocritical white robe monk.
I still remembered his words. “When the universal laws are violated yourself by you men as the leaders and gospels of people, there is no reason for the divine to act harmoniously with the nature. So if I don’t rain, there is no rain at all. If I rain, there will be over-rain with also the bonus gift to you hypocrites. A gift of thunderbolt to crack your head up into eight pieces. The white-robe hypocrite ran away of fear. Ha.. Ha..So funny still even though this incident has lasted millions of years ago.
Burmakin: Thus, your majesty, I am curious that your men are used to be involved in creating such kinds of disharmony of the universe when the moral principles are grossly violated.
King of Angels: Not always, we are also very busy with many heaven affairs. You know I have 500 angels on each side. Imagine your Burmese king, Than Shwe, has only one wife and your whole country of 50 million people is overturned. In common sense mathematics, my Savadainta Heaven is 1000 times more probable to be upside down than your country. You Burmese also have a proverb “one girl daughter is equivalent to controlling 1000 cows.” So I am also looking like a cowboy to control 1000, 000 cows(a million of cows).
You can imagine how busy I am. Thanks to my relativity speed in comparison with your human life. Actually, as I have 100 human years available for my one day of Heaven, I have enough time to manage to finish both the divine affairs and human affairs.
I am sometimes jealous of Einstein, this super genius who disclosed my secret that our speed and time in the universe is relative. Otherwise you human still can’t imagine how I am controlling 1000 wives, heaven affairs and your human affairs.
Let’s me tell you some secrets of our divine world, my son. Even though I am not that much involved in your human affairs, oft times I am seriously involved when there are crisis to your humanity. Like the revolution in France, like the annihilation of slavery in America, to the Russians in the Second World War, so and so when there is a critical situation. Sometimes helping through the people like Abraham Lincoln. Sometimes my men made disturbances by moving the stars and planets to adjust the weather conditions and to affect the brain waves of the people.
Burmakin: Your majesty. Your first word and the second word are incoherent. First you said nothing is coming and nothing is going. Then you said your men are moving the stars to affect the human lives if there is crisis in humanity.
King of Angels: My son, even though our choices of deciding whether to move the stars and planets depend on our free will, our choices are also deterministic in the fundamental universal principles. If my guys move a planet from its orbit, even though this is nominally his choice, there is always an urge to do this choice. Without this pre-assumption of deterministic nature of the universe, sciences in your human realm could not build up the equation concept of mathematics. 2+2 will be 4 and never be 5 in this deterministic principle in your mundane world. We divine either.
Burmakin: If you don’t mind, your majesty. Could you tell me directly you divine forces create this Burmese Tsunami, probably one of the worst miserable events of mankind?
King of Angels: My son, you yourself believe that recycling is the essential concept in Buddhism. Why are you still asking me this question?
As you know, there have to be alternate cycles of your human world in Buddha’s universal laws. When morality of people declines, your human age will also decline throughout. In the last, there is always a holocaust as the nature couldn’t tolerate any more when the human nature becomes the dirtiest extreme to defame the moral authority of Dhamma.
Burmakin: I think you are unfair then. We Burmese are one of the best-minded people in the world. They are good-hearted, simple and not materialistic. We are relatively very unselfish people in this materially avaricious world. It is very unfair to assume that Burmese society is morally the dirtiest extreme.
King of Angels: My son, do you know the basic Five Precepts of morality all laymen should obey?
Burmakin: Of course I do, why not?
King of Angels: Did you see any word or similar meaning like good-heartedness in these Five Precepts?
Burmakin: No.
King of Angels: Did you see any word or similar meaning like simplicity in these Five Precepts?
Burmakin: No
King of Angels: Did you see any word or similar meaning like not to be materialistic in these Five Precepts?
Burmakin: No.
King of Angels: Then why are you arguing that we Burmese can’t be the dirtiest to the moral principles? I agree with you that Burmese have such kinds of good hearts, simplicity and non-greediness in comparison with today material-dominated societies. But they are not the deciding factors for adherence to the moral principles. What do you think? What is the most important in these Five Precepts?
Burmakin: Of course, not to tell the lies is the most important in all moral principles of the universe. As this is the most important universal principle not to be violated, there was a direct lesson from the universe to punish would-be-Devadatt when he committed this moral crime of telling the lies.
King of Angels: Then what kind of lies could be the worst crime in the universe?
Burmakin: As Dhamma is the highest moral authority in the world, if somebody says Dhama as Ah-Dhamma(justice as injustice), and/or somebody says Ah-Dhamma as Dhamma(injustice as justice), this is the worst crime in the universe.
King of Angels: Then what do you mean by Dhamma?
Burmakin: I like to define Dhamma only by a negative direction. By pronouncing Dhamma, I mean the judgment of the God for reasonableness of the universe order. If somebody is immoral, this is to be punished. If there is no punishment, everybody will be ready to commit the evils. When stealth first happened to the world, people offered a social contract to Maha Tamatha (the would-be- Gautama Buddha). “By our willing consent, we like to elect you as our government, a brand new institutional structure in human world at that time. As our government, please enjoy one tenth of our production of crops, don’t take care of your regular farm work this time. Today onwards, your duty is to guard Dhamma, that is to protect the people from stealth and punish the immoral perverts as accordingly".
So Dhamma in its strict sense for the human society is the punishment for the immoral deeds. I don’t like to define Dhamma in the positive direction of rewards for the moral deeds. For the best morality is the one without the expectation of any reward. Logically, Dhamma can’t be defined in the positive sense.
King of Angels: Great, my son. You yourself has given me the answer now. You Burmese monarchs have many names of Dhamma Tatt ( Men who guard Dhamma).This also reflects your high Burmese philosophy of assigning the King’s main responsibility for punishing the evil acts for fairness, justice and security to people in society. As devout Buddhists, you will also agree that the most fundamental principle behind the social contract between the people and the government is to lay down rules and regulations to take action against the immoral doings coming out from human nature that some of your human philosphers believe in this way:"Human nature is essentially evil"
Burmakin: Now the Burmese regime is also trying to legitimize his home-made morally unacceptable and immorally unprecedented social contract as the most perfect laws for society, shamelessly telling the lies. This can probably be assumed as saying Ah-Dhamma as Dhamma, the most inferior crime to humanity.
King of Angels: The soverignity of the people is the laws only. Not any individual or any group. Laws should express the will of the people, not the whims of kings, dictators and your military officials. In our divine perception, there is no personal ruler in the rule of Dhamma. Only Dhamma is the sovereign itself.
The primitive people made a plea to Maha Tamatha because they are willing to obey the laws of Dhamma of human society. They didn't make Maha Tamatha as the Dhamma himself.If Maha Tamatha himself made a violation against the rules and regulations of moral laws of Dhamma, he should also have been prosecuted accordingly.No special promise was granted to Maha Tamatha that he was not under the laws of Dhamma even if he was the would-be-Gautamha Buddha acting for the sake of the people.
My son, you are wise to reject the positive reward of Dhamma in the counter direction. In moral authority of the justice of Dhamma,not a single person is to be sacrificed for the interest of the majority or any collective society. Let's see what your self-made Burmese government say in his home-made social contract? “No action shall be taken against the military officers for any transaction of his duty operations during their mandate period”. By this, they are saying that the military is the laws themselves. The military is above the rule of Dhamma, that you say "justice is only in the negative direction" for punishing the immoral doings. Of course, there is no positive reward of an immoral deed that can compensate and outdo against immoral violation of any moral principles of Dhamma.This is the beginning of everything, my son. That is one of the dirtiest extreme forms of violation against the universal principles.This is the worst crime against humanity in our divine perception. In their extreme arrogance, your military people are now claiming that the military should be granted divine rights to freely sacrifice the minors for the majority, that is the greatest insult to the humanity principle of Dhamma.
Even at the time of his perfect enlightenment, Buddha promised to us that he was not still above the rule of Dhamma, the real absolute ruler of the universe. In respect to Dhamma, he appreciated Ven. Kuttapa as a better person than Buddha himself in many attributes. He himself was shy for the fact that he went inside a house and sought comfort to get the alms, that Ven. Kuttapa didn't take such privilege. He himself was shy for the fact that he lived in the well-sheltered Jettavona Monastery and sought comfort for a good place, that Ven. Kuttapa stayed only under one tree after another and didn't take such privilege.
My son, you should agree with me for the fact that only Dhamma principles could decide who is good and who is bad. Not because you are a Buddha or a monk or a leader of a community.
Buddha himself confessed that he was not that good in many respects. Your Burmese military supremos are now claiming to the whole world that no Dhamma principle is able to decide a military officer whether he is bad or not. They have now reached their highest form of ignorance, highest corrupted form of evil human nature, and overruled even Buddha to say that they are all good in every respect. In our divine perception, your Burmese military has been revolting against laws of Dhamma throughout. We could tolerate up to this point, not any more at this watershed when they are trying to annihilate Dhamma by legitimizing Ah-Dhamma as Dhamma at this time.
If this self-inflicting regime (I mean the government who will drive the people to the ugliest violation of moral principles) could institutionalize this Ah-Dhamma concept, the next Burmese generation will come to believe that the wrong doings are never to be punished in terms of communal interest. It is perfectly legitimate to discount any moral principle if the duty-holder thinks there is fruitfulness to the community from his action . The Karma doctrine of Buddhism is no longer the moral authority. The next Burmese children will believe this pervert concept as the universal laws, bad deeds never render the bad results.Or they even believe that there is no bad deed if you serve for the interest of a group or an ideology. So why you are afraid of choosing the deeds as whether good or bad? Let’s do any deed that will endow the most profitable results for "Us". Lokapala Dhamma (shyness from doing bad deeds, afraidness from doing bad deeds) that are the protectors of the harmony of the universe, are no longer able to have any role in this completely dark Burmese society.My son, you Burmese will use the mantra of "we" as absolute truth in the next generation. If you dictate the mantra of "we", there is no bad deed, there is no bad Karma; only there is fruitfulness if you have a mandate of "we". The people who dictate the mantra of "we" have to be crowned as Bodhisattvas or divine. Upon citing "we", any pervert action of these hypocrite Bodhisattvas will become an unrivalled mandate of moral order of Dhamma in your coming stumbling society. This is the most dangerous happening to the universe, Ah-Dhamma is legitimized as Dhamma with people's willing consent in your next Burmese society.
Burmakin: Yes, your majesty. I now realize that this concept is the worst violated against the moral authority of the universe. It also means that if you are a uniform person, all you do is always fair and no law can't be strong enough to punish you because what you do as you wish is perfectly right when you are wearing a trouser.
They are blatantly claiming that even the god has no legitimacy to punish a uniform in Burma. Everything what the uniform man does has to be assumed as perfectly mature and balanced, and has to be accepted as completely fair. This is the crisis of humanity that no country seems to be aware of. Burmese are now coerced to agree to this Ah-Dhamma as Dhamma; have to live up with this Ah-Dhamma as Dhamma for their whole life. They have to accept this Ah-Dhamma lie for the whole life; later they themselves are willing to believe Ah-Dhamma as Dhamma. As if Winston Smith fell in love with the greatest Lier, Big Brother at last, Burmese will finally fall in love with Ah-Dhamma as Dhamma. The future Burmese will adore and worship trouser people as divine and would-be-Buddhas because they act the best for "We". These Burmese divine will displace three jewels from our Burmese altar." We" is the only altar Burmese have to worship as "We'" is the supreme Dhamma of the universe. They will put "We" in place of Five Precepts. They will also throw away the Precepts of ten Ah-Dhamma sins. There is no sin if there is "We". Only "We" will be echoed in the next Burmese anthem, only "We" will be the idol of the next Burmese Shrine, only "We" is the absolute Dhamma of the Burmese. For "We", there is no deed that is not fair. "We" is the justice. "We" is the morality."We" is the entitlement. "We" will be god. "We" is everywhere. Ah-Dhamma is everywhere but the next Burmese believe it as Dhamma. They like it as Dhamma. They worship Ah-Dhamma as Dhamma as Ah-Dhamma will become the only way of survival for them.
King of Angels: My son, as I said, we don’t move the stars and planets by ourselves. Nothing is coming and nothing is going. You human should not be such extremely arrogant to defame our divine forces. Even we divine forces can’t be arrogant against the moral order of the universe. Recycling of this evil matrix of Burma has to be done at last. Something comes and something goes. But nothing is coming and nothing is going either.
This message soothes many tense souls of the sufferers.On the other hand, we shouldn't neglect the passivity arising from the extreme end of this message.We could be on the eccentric end to believe that "try to inure with the evils of this world as it is the evil world,we have to live up with".
If somebody falls onto the ground of earth,he shouldn't quarrel with the earth as this is the earth he stands his feet on.This message is important in this aspect to extenuate the violent nature of we humans. Instead, he should be curious why he falls onto the ground while others do not. Is his ground uneven?Is he careless and strayed in his thoughts?Is he in a rush?Or somebody trusts him? Or it is an earthquake force as happened in China that makes him stumble down? Or it is just his Karma to fall onto the ground?
My opinion for this peaceful message is explored on another aspect of a piece of wisdom,namely prudence.If we know that falling onto the ground is not good, we should be mindful about such unfortunate risk. We need to take the measures for preventing ourselves from falling onto the ground.
The mis-happening occurring today in Burma and China are somewhat related to this example of falling onto the ground. I like to explain it in the moral aspect.For me, it is like the story of a beggar and a wealthy tycoon.In front of the great mansion and the grandiose park of the tycoon, a beggar was walking. As the road is uneven,the beggar without the foot-wears, also already devastated by malnutrition fell onto the ground.The tycoon saw this event.Nonetheless, it was not he who fell onto the ground. He was also not interested at rebuilding the road to be even as he didn't have such kind of risk the poor beggar faced as he always used his chariot for coming in and going out from his park.
One day, the tycoon was robbed by the rebels.Being afraid of his life,the tycoon tried to run away.But this time, he couldn't use his chariot.He couldn't even have time to take on his footwears. He stepped on the uneven road.He slipped on the thorny pebbles.Then he fell off onto the ground as if happened to the beggar before. The rebels caught him easily and executed his life.Before his last breath,the tycoon repented of "ignorance of his inaction" at the time of his sight of the beggar's accident.Why he was so ignorant of the fact that there was ALWAYS a risk against him for falling onto the ground that he thought it shouldn't be him who would fall onto the ground.
Especially, I like to address such kind of last breath thinking of the enlightened tycoon to Burmese population.When we, a Burmese, see another Burmese falling onto the ground, we like to think that it is not we,who will not fall as we don't have such risk.The person who falls onto the ground is worth falling as he has bad Karma for this incident.When somebody is suffering from TB, we like to think that this person is bad and we like to just get away from him for not to be infected.When the Muslims in North Western Burma were deprived of many fundamental human rights, we liked to differentiate ourselves that as they were Muslims, they took the wrong views and were worthy for such sufferings. When Bangladesh faced many natural disasters in 1980s,we liked to believe that these wrong viewers should be punished by Buddhist gods like this. One month before this natural disaster in Burma, some government mouthpiece columnist wrote in the junta's newspaper that we as a Buddhist country would always be free from three kinds of great mis-happenings: famine,pestilence and natural disaster. However, this is also a traditional belief that validate majority of Burmese to hold a positive attitude for their oppressed living under this wicked military dictatorship.
Under the 46-year military rule in Burma, we Burmese are looking like this ignorant tycoon seeing the falling of one beggar after another.The social structures of our Burmese society are falling one after another under the crush down of this self-overprotected government.Many unfair trials,many unjustified verdicts were executed. Many lives were vainly lost in carelessness as well as intentional deprivation of this totalitarian regime.The living Burmese today, in this continuum of a ghostly atmosphere where people around him were lost one after another day and night, tried to imagine that my Karma should not be that bad to fall onto the ground.Eventually,no matter how they tend to shun away from the bad Karma,the vicious moral cycle of the triumph of evils in Burma, has now got its greatest hit on millions of lives of Burmans now.At this time, they should think about the fact that why they have already let a person falling onto the ground.Why they never have thought that why this person should fall onto and why he can't?
The principle of morality is very strict for the need of coherence.If we say the first precept,"not to kill and use violence", it does not mean violence is defined only when a million people are killed. Unfair violence against even an animal is the breakdown of this moral principle.Very bad examples of illusive Burmese thinking are- as they are Muslims, they should be treated like this; as they are non-educated barbarian Karens, they should be treated like this; as they didn't have good Karma, they should not enjoy this. As they were not Buddhists, they were not worthy of it.
There is no reason for Buddha to say that beating a Muslim is fair and beating a Buddhist is not fair. If you beat a human with violence, this is, of course, violence and you violated Buddha's rule of moral conduct.Buddha will condemn you for this immoral doing,your unfair thinking and your shameful self-proclaimed honor as a Buddhist.
Buddha ever taught Rahula, " My dear son,if it is for the principle of not telling the lies, even a funny piece of humor should not be talked".We have irresponsibly allowed countless moral misconducts of this Burmese regime;we thought in self-optimism that that still is not bad.That is a small measurement. That is not my circle of concern. That is not my circle of influence.This social passivity, tremendously ignorant validation for allowing people falling onto the ground and triumph of the legitimacy of immoral happenings strangling our society day by day,all these- finally made the stakes of million lives in this disaster.It is looking like a Buddhist story of the king caught by a Genie. The King had promised the Genie that he would reimburse the flesh of human every day for pardoning his life.First,he used the prisoners under death sentences.The public ignored that as the victims were criminals who were already dead.When the prison ran out of criminals,the king used the elderly men on the ground that they were not productive to society any more.Some suffered for their old parents but majority didn't. When the elderly were fresh out,the king used the neonates on the ground that they were not ready for production of society.Many cried in agony for their sons and daughters but still it was not them who would be fresh meat to the Genie.Then what was the final result,when all neonates were depleted? A "countrywide death lottery" every day and if you won that unlucky draw, you had to give your blood and flesh to the wicked demon for sake of the luxury and existence of this long-live brutal king.
The Western social contract theorists are essentially pessimistic in nature,meticulously defensive to fairness and justice in every available effort and assertiveness.For John Locke,it was fully legitimate to overthrow any form of tyranny.For Hayek,any form of violation of individual liberty will lead finally to the total serfdom of mankind.For Rawls, people in original position has only one key word-"finding a compromise for your minimal worst and justice as fairness" is the only outlet.
When a Burmese falls onto the ground,we have never thought what kinds of unfairness drive him fall onto the ground.When the criminals were taken away for sacrifice to demon,people in ancient East never thought that they should revolt against this brutality and unfairness.By contrast,western enlightened philosophers tried to trace forth and back for origin of any piece of evil happening to their dark ages giving birth to the rise of democracy, the ability to overthrow any government who let their people fall onto the ground .They were non-Buddhists.But they were full of mindful fear.I was shy for the fact that we Burmese were never centered on mindful fear that was the greatest word uttered by Buddha in his enlightenment of India.
Thanks,
Burmakin
ps:
my related writing on traditional beliefs of Burmese Buddhists and morality:
Recycling is the essential concept in Buddhism
http://burmakin.blogspot.com/2008/05/recycling-is-essential-concept-in.html
Burmese Junta –Descending Star
http://paraussies.blogspot.com/2008/05/burmese-junta-descending-star.html
Why some animals are more equal than others: Episode I
http://burmakin.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-some-animals-are-more-equal-than.html