Fwd: Buddha was a nut too

[Guest guest]

Allegedly, according to Buddhist scholars, Buddha was a megalomaniac

and

abusive control freak with his followers, demanding impossible

obedience and

appalling living conditions. See for example the article by

Masefield

at http://www.wie.org/j18/masefieldintro.asp and

http://www.wie.org/j18/mase2.asp .

[Extracts :

'That is to say, the radical change in personality induced by the

Buddha's

progressive talk inevitably led to broken homes and the abandonment of

family responsibilities ......... we are told that on one occasion

some

former wife is reported as having sought out her ex-husband monk,

placed

their young son on the ground before him and demanded that he support

her

and his child. The monk, however, completely ignored them both,

and ......

the Buddha, who had " beheld her rudeness from afar, " uttered a verse

in

praise of the monk's steadfast detachment.'

'Monastic rules dictated every moment of waking life: monks were

obliged,

except when discussing the Buddha's teachings, to maintain

the " ariyan**

silence, " whilst they were also told how they should walk, stand, or

sit,

how they should urinate or defecate, and when and how they should

sleep. It

was not even open to the monk to decide when he should eat—and when

he did

so eat, he was obliged to mix up everything he had managed to receive

in his

almsbowl into an unpalatable mass, and then consume same in small

lumps, all

the time noting, as he did so, that he was only eating in order to

sustain

his body until liberation was achieved.'

'Spiritual success is therefore not without its price—and one may

feel that

the price demanded by the Buddha far exceeds the so-called

austerities that

some maintain is demanded of the followers of present-day modern

cults.'

'Delight in worldly activity, chatter and gossip, sleep, in keeping

company

with others, being with the senses unguarded, and lack of moderation

in

eating all lead to the downfall of a monk. (A III 116, 173, 292f,

309f; IV

22; It 71) Such failure can be prevented only through the adoption of

a

lifestyle of excessive sensory deprivation. One must, as we have

seen, sever

all connections with family and friends, dispose of all possessions,

and

embark upon a solitary and nomadic existence in the jungle, living at

the

feet of trees and clad only in robes made up from rags gathered from

rubbish-heaps, and sustaining oneself on whatever scraps are to be

gained by

begging on the streets. Monks are expected, except when discussing

matters

of doctrine, to observe the " ariyan silence " (Ud 11); they must

practice

strict chastity and sleep as little as possible. (It 41) They are, in

addition, required to frequent funerary grounds, meditating on the

rotten,

bloated, and stinking corpses in an attempt at freeing themselves

from all

lust and attachment for the human body—a practice which, on occasion,

apparently had disastrous consequences ........ " Nay, as many as ten

monks

did so in a single day; even twenty, thirty of them slew themselves

in a

single day " .......... '

'The fiercely austere and isolated lifestyle of the solitary monk was

devoid

of any comforts, and was thus one designed to smash out Mara by means

of

almost total sensory deprivation ........ Some, it is true, elected

to take

on additional hardships, such as dwelling under a given tree and

sustaining

themselves entirely on windfalls that fell within their reach. But

this

should not be allowed to obscure the fact that, apart from these

additional,

and voluntary, hardships, all else—every aspect of daily life—was

strictly

dictated by the Buddha.

So strict were the rules, that a good many monks did not make it,

falling by

the wayside, or even, as we have seen, committing suicide as a result

of

having to meditate in the cemeteries on rotting corpses in various

stages of

decomposition. And it is therefore little wonder that, immediately

following

the death of the Buddha, at least one monk is recorded as having

expressed

his relief, saying:

" Enough, friends! Don't weep, don't lament! Well rid are we of the

Great

Recluse—we, who were oppressed with his " This befits you, this befits

you

not, " may now do what we wish and not have to do what we do not wish.

(D II

162) "

'It is quite clear that, in the Buddha's day, it was only the select

few who

could cope with the lifestyle demanded of them, yet such a lifestyle

had to

be adhered to if liberation were to ensue. Liberation does not, after

all,

come easily. Perhaps it is not surprising if, since the Buddha's day,

there

has been a decreasing number of those able to endure such rigor, and

the

history of Buddhism is such that, over the centuries, it has tended to

become so relaxed that it is today difficult to find any monk whose

lifestyle even approximates to the former ideal, most having

abandoned the

middle way in favor of a lifestyle more akin to that of the materially

minded religious elite against whom the Buddha and his contemporaries

had

been protesting.'

'It was held by many in the Buddha's society that those who adopted

such a

lifestyle had done so through fear of kings or robbers, through debt

or

having lost their relatives or means of livelihood (M II 66, It 89)

and

perhaps for this reason alone the Satanic figure of Mara*** had no

difficulty in causing house-holders to revile, abuse, vex, and annoy

monks

........

Nor does it seem that much effort was required for certain religious

rivals

to put it about that a female wanderer had been slain by the Buddha's

disciples following numerous sexual adventures in the depths of the

Jeta

Grove.'

'Why anyone in their right mind should have willingly elected to join

him in

following such a lifestyle, and endure similar hardships, is perhaps

difficult to fathom. Indeed, it is well known that the Buddha,

immediately

following his enlightenment, initially hesitated whether he should

bother to

share his discovery with anyone at all .......'

'Any rescue would require great skillfulness if Mara's devious

tactics were

to be countered, which skillfulness was precisely the reason why the

Buddha

had, prior to his enlightenment, spent many hundreds of thousands of

rebirths attaining all the various perfections that would eventually

qualify

him for the task now in hand.'

'This newly acquired vision had a number of profound effects. With

his brain

now washed of attachment to sense-pleasures, he may be considered to

have

undergone a spiritual rebirth, subsequent to which he is no longer

slave to

Mara and his bait in the form of sense-pleasures. A good many of such

converts, though not all, elected at this point to take refuge in the

Buddha

and to go forth into the homeless life of a monk.

With this rebirth, old values, once dearly held in common with the

world,

are now rejected in favor of a completely new set.']

Maybe in a thousand years Scientology will occupy the same place in

public

esteem that Buddhism does to-day. I find it strange that Buddhism has

come

from such a dubious start to be widely associated with pacifism and

good

deeds to-day (at least with white middle class escapist idealistic

New Age

audiences). As far as I'm concerned it's still one of the harshest,

least

attractive, most cult-like and hypocritical of world religions.

Chris

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