Post the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975, and the ensuing autogenocide, Theravada Buddhism has been credited in playing a major role in the reconstruction of the Cambodian state and culture. However, in less than ten years I’ve noticed a shift away from the traditional mainstays of family and religion toward a more popular cultural orientation, heavily influenced by the internet. On my first trips here, I brought over numerous iPhones and handed them out to the family I was taking care of. Now, I almost wish I hadn’t. Not that they couldn’t have easily obtained smart phone in the following years. As Vivo and other popular brands seemingly sprouted ‘durasap’ shops on every corner.
Traditionally, there has been only two broad, catch-all continuums one can belong to in Khmer culture: the Anachak or Podichak—the worldly vehicle and the Bodhisattva’s vehicle. Now in Cambodia, as in the rest of global Internet imbibing cultures, there are countless siloed, virtual realities—endless continuums mixing facts, fantasy, conspiracy, and ‘news’ in a distracting stew—into which one can become completely absorbed. In the more ‘fortunate’ countries, untouched by the devastation of war and natural calamities accelerated by climate change, dinner table dramas of economic survival for one’s family has been replaced by entertaining dramas of purely fictional people, generated by an artificial intelligence, turned up loud, and wasting everyone’s time. ‘Togetherness’ has been mitigated almost everywhere. The age old questions that rocked the world at the time of Gautama—Plato, Sun Tzu, and other earth shaking philosophers—initiating a shift to thinking about the cosmos and the way it works, rather than just taking for granted that it works. The great thinkers of old, and what they said, are now in an age of sound bite memes, are not taken too seriously. For example, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” now seems ponderous and well, Socratic.
What’s considered the Axial Age, at least in Indic culture, was also a profound questioning of life’s purpose. But seen within an endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Prince Siddhartha went outside, took a look around and saw only the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death. This prompted his deepest examination of existence, powered by the yogic techniques of his place and time.
One might think today, isn’t what the Buddha came up with about the suffering nature of existence, just like saying, ‘life sucks and then you die?’ Yes, pretty much. This cycling within the cycle of suffering—Samsara—is the very basis of the above mentioned anachak (a word that literally means, the ‘king’s wheel of authority’). But in turning the wheel of Buddha-Dharma, one is saved from the nihilistic cynicism of thinking life sucks because in renouncing the anachak and adopting the podichak, one works out one’s own salvation—and then, hopefully, help others to do the same—all by penetrating the pith of Buddha’s teachings.
This pith—the essential meaning—has been revealed over time to accommodate an evolving understanding of his Enlightened wisdom, in teachings always suitable to the time and place it’s delivered. A new practitioner advances from hearing teachings, to applying them and seeing all things through their transforming lens, at the final stages of accomplishing the Eightfold Path, what was once experienced as three poisons becomes the single taste of indescribable nectar. This mirrors the advance of Buddhist doctrine from the Shravaka, or Hearers’ monastic path, to Mahayana Sūtra Path, with new philosophical developments and possibilities of enlightenment for laypeople, and lightening quick thunderbolt path (Vajrayana), where mantras, mudras, and meditation extract bliss out of worldly suffering. Renunciation always in the forefront, the Vajrayana Masters move in one lifetime through a series of abandonments and realizations—much as the Buddha left his worldly kingdom—to seek and find enlightenment.
It is said it took the Buddha three incalculable eons to become the Buddha. In his time, the Buddha not only renounced worldly pleasures and powers of a kingly life, but also preached against the evils of the caste system. He wasn’t just about how to save oneself from suffering the three existential marks—oneimpermanence and instability, two a constant reoccurring of baseline dissatisfaction, three no self-same soul, or essence, as a last salvic resort—but he also had a revolutionary social agenda. That of transcending the demeaning structures of the caste system and creating a community that could spiritually grow—emotionally and ethically—while being supported by patrons from the anachak. In this way, its members could practice the Eightfold Noble Path—the compassionate Buddha’s graded path and complete program for sane living—within the above mentioned existential parameters, while also conquering the sufferings of samsara.
Are there any figures on the internet today, who even come close to matching the compassion and wisdom—the renounced majesty—as possessed by the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni? Yes, once we understood that today’s teachers, teaching us the authentic Dharma, have qualities equal to and greater—because of their timely appearance in this world to teach us—than the Buddha of another time and place who taught others but not ourselves. One’s own teacher is always the supreme Buddha while turning the wheel personally for us. In that way, we are all immeasurably fortunate for the presence of His Holiness Dalai Lama, His Holiness Kyabje Sakya Gongma Trichen, and other authentic Buddhist teachers, teaching us through various mediums today.
Still, a description of Shakyamuni Buddha in the Dona Sutta, reveals another dimension of the Buddha not to be seen on the internet or anywhere else:
Upon the appearance of the Buddha before him, Donal asked,
"Master, are you a deva [a god)?"
"No, brahman, I am not a deva."
"Are you a gandhabba [a being ready to be born; or, more likely, a celestial musician]?" "No," replied the Muni.
“A yakkha [protector or trickster spirit]?"
"No."
"A human being?"
"No, brahman, I am not a human being."
"Then what sort of being are you?" "Remember me, brahman, as 'awakened."
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