[[0:00]] [Music] [[0:07]] okay i wanted to raise some thoughts and you know see see what what you gentlemen think about it [[0:14]] as well about the buddhist approach or a dharmic approach to [[0:21]] international relations and there’s there are two [[0:27]] suitor references i want to expand on and one kind of general observation [[0:34]] the first is a suta on the the great mass of suffering [[0:39]] [Music]
i think it’s in the majima where the the buddha talks and one one [[0:46]] verse about um beings will put on armor pick up sword and spear and hack and hew each other [[0:55]] leading to grievous suffering and death and the reason for this is sensual desire just [[1:01]] sensual desire - so i think this can be interpreted as the buddha giving an economic causality [[1:07]] for war that wars are fought for resources [[1:14]]. it’s the real and uh any kind of um [[1:21]] justification that that the national governments give [[1:27]] is couched in high-minding idealism like like saving democracy or [[1:32]] you know whatever it might be but it really underneath it’s always [[1:37]] they want land or they want oil or they want [[1:43]] perhaps they want a strategic position to defend themselves but it’s always [[1:50]] a material resource based reasoning [[1:56]]
the other suture references is a very short suta where the buddha [[2:03]] is contemplating whether it is possible for a king to rule [[2:09]] justly without the use of stick and sword [[2:14]] that is without violence and mara overhears the thought in the buddhist mind [[2:20]] and suggests to the buddha well you have supernormal powers why don’t you turn the himalaya mountains into gold [[2:27]] and you and take over the world and use that wealth to benefit beings and rule justly without sticker sword [[2:34]]. the buddha says i hear you mara go away and the curious thing to me is that sort of [[2:40]] ends without the buddha ever answering the question whether it’s possible to rule without [[2:46]] sticker sword. so i think there’s a real meaning to him not answering the question because yes [[2:51]]. yes i think it’s significant well what do you think it means um i think it’s [[2:57]] it’s uh probably impossible for a king to rule without a sticker sort yeah [[3:03]]
and the third point i want to make is more of a general observation um [[3:09]] from my own uh study of history my my first intellectual interest was history [[3:15]] i have a bachelor’s degree in history and i specialized in [[3:20]] modern european particularly 19th century history and i one of the conclusions i drew from [[3:27]] studying studying that was that nation states in their relations with each other are [[3:33]] never moral they moral uh considerations [[3:40]] don’t really apply that they’re they’re kind of amoral actors [[3:46]] they like to pretend that they’re being moral for the benefit of their own populations [[3:51]] so everybody’s always presenting their side as being the good [[3:57]] guys and the other side is being some kind of evil bad guys that have to be stomped out [[4:04]] but it goes back to the first point these wars are fought primarily for resources for [[4:10]] territory for land or for mineral resources [[4:15]]. what have you or to or to in the case of say the case of rome versus carthage to destroy a [[4:21]] commercial rival there’s always a material uh [[4:29]] cause underneath which is goes back to sensual desire [[4:35]]. so i think as as buddhists our primary uh [[4:40]] if we have any influence whatsoever it should always be into the direction of encouraging peace [[4:47]] this uh any kind of warfare is going to be a violation of first precept [[4:54]] yeah yeah this
but then uh you know the buddha himself is uh reluctant to uh [[4:59]] to speak out you know his opinion on whether that’s even possible yeah yeah i’ve considered this a lot it’s [[5:06]] like um you know if you you have peaceful have a peaceful nation [[5:12]] and uh you know they they disband their armies you know they have no no armed forces any such thing [[5:19]] then uh all it’s going to take is just one ruthless horde of barbarians yes and [[5:25]] that’s it and that happened to some degree in india like when the the turks were [[5:30]] invading the the the buddhists were pretty much just exterminated the ones that didn’t run away or or convert to [[5:37]] islam the the the hindus still had some martial [[5:43]] ideals you know like the mahabharata you know even the the bhagavad-gita you know it takes place on [[5:50]] a battlefield so they had some kind of martial heroes and some ideals of just [[5:56]] fighting to defend themselves but um i think um to some degree it’s that’s one reason [[6:02]] why the buddha encouraged renunciation of society is that our society is just [[6:08]] practically of necessity uh a messy unpleasant thing [[6:14]]
i agree with that it’s like samsara is always going to be is always going to be imperfect it’s the [[6:20]] nature you know first noble truth that we’re all yeah and [[6:25]] human society is is can never be perfected [[6:32]]. you know the best we can do is is maybe have it uh use influence to encourage more [[6:38]] peacefulness and more uh harmonious relations but [[6:43]] it’s never going to get to the point of where there’s no violence and no [[6:49]] oppression occurring yeah of course the one famous example of a king trying to follow the buddha’s [[6:55]] precepts and just be the the dharmic ruler would be ashoka yeah and he [[7:02]] disbanded most of his armies and freed most of the slaves even set up like uh [[7:07]] free clinics for people and animals and so forth and um i think i mean he [[7:13]] prospered you know his his kingdom or empire prospered while he was alive i think largely because people were so [[7:19]] blown away by such a saintly king because they were so used to the other kind [[7:25]] his empire pretty much collapsed within a relatively short time after after he passed away yeah and also he [[7:33]] inherited from his father and grandfather uh almost the whole of india and then [[7:38]] before he converted to buddhism he conquered the last little corner so he had the whole of jampu deep under under his rule [[7:45]]. so he had no no real enemies oh [[7:51]] yeah other than maybe some hill tribes or something is your point that uh it fell apart in a [[7:58]] short period of time because they weren’t defending themselves enough from outside attack i’m i’m not sure exactly why the empire [[8:06]] collapsed the way it did i mean it could have been that uh without uh ashoka’s [[8:13]] you know morality you know his his uh faith and conviction and so forth that uh [[8:18]] subsequent kings just uh um you know it just didn’t work with them or or something i don’t know i [[8:25]] think it fell apart if i remember from internal dissension and revolts more than from external forces oh okay yeah i [[8:32]] didn’t know yeah yeah and then that was when the the greeks invaded the shortly after that oh [[8:37]]
yeah so yeah it’s like [[8:43]] a morality it’s um yeah just you’re mentioning the war of rome and carthage [[8:48]] it’s uh yeah the third punic war was just essentially just genocide yeah [[8:54]] yeah and it was i mean rome prospered it was uh that [[9:00]] the romans were ruthless early i mean just about any any powerful nation got [[9:06]] that way through just ruthlessness so i mean that is somewhat of a paradox [[9:13]] i mean you can move to some tiny island and have set up some utopian [[9:18]] system or some such try to just be anonymous just be under the radar so that uh nobody [[9:26]] you know just be poor i guess so that nobody wants to steal your resources that kind of a thing [[9:31]] but um yeah it is it is a problem like um so long as you’ve got somebody that [[9:36]] isn’t playing by the rules of morality then i mean you have to pretty much [[9:42]] defend yourself or just go extinct yeah it’s not it’s not possible for i [[9:48]] mean all buddhist countries have uh have standing armies it’s not possible to leave your country undefended [[9:55]] and the buddha never recommended that right he said you shouldn’t kill they never recommended kings just to disband [[10:00]] your army do not defend yourself do not have an army the buddha had never said that right no [[10:05]] no.
um there i know that i’ve heard in in thailand [[10:11]] some of the some of the thai soldiers who are [[10:16]] um good buddhists they they make the the claim that they [[10:22]] love their country so much that they’re sacrif they’re willing to sacrifice not only their life but their [[10:29]] future life yeah that’s what they’re doing yeah we should talk about the law of karma yeah yeah yeah i have considered [[10:36]] something along those lines like in a dharmic society one more dharmic than uh you [[10:43]] know the average that um i mean you’d still have to have standing armies but the the soldier could be seen to some [[10:49]] degree as a tragic hero who’s sacrificing his own virtue [[10:54]] for the sake of defending those who can’t defend themselves. yeah [[11:01]] yes complex karma and there
there have been cases historically of uh [[11:08]] um miss uh what would be the word like misa misapplication or misinterpretation of [[11:15]] buddhist teachings to to justify war yeah like uh the japanese during world war [[11:22]] two for example yeah that’s one another one is uh sri lanka with the fighting with the tamils which [[11:29]] has been like hundreds and hundreds of years on and off um [[11:34]] you you know about the the sri lankan texts i think it’s the maha wangsa that talks [[11:40]] about king dutagamini and it’s like a chronicle of sri lanka [[11:47]] and dutagomani is a national hero of of sri lanka because he he led a great [[11:54]] uprising to throw off the um uh indian was mostly you know the tamil [[11:59]] based uh from india uh oppression of sri lanka they’d conquered [[12:06]] sri lanka and he led a rebellion freed the country fought many battles and wars [[12:12]] and in this texas says when he was on his death bed he uh he felt uh [[12:19]] fearful that all the karma he’d made from killing and then and arahant monk apparently you [[12:26]] know as the text claims and arahan monk told him uh of all those people you killed [[12:34]] only one had taken the uh refugees and precepts and one [[12:39]] had taken the the refugees without the precepts so [[12:44]] uh instead of killing thousands of people you only kill one and a half uh no [[12:51]] yeah that’s kind of pushing it that’s still killing human beings so so killing [[12:56]] non-buddhists according to this text was like no karma involved i thought you’re going to say something [[13:02]] like his good karma for protecting teravata buddhism in sri lanka maybe some long-term benefit to that so it’s [[13:08]] all very complicated isn’t it the karma yeah oh yeah well there’s there’s there’s there’s comma that is mixed [[13:14]] right good cut that is both bright and dark with good results and bad results [[13:21]] yeah i think uh maybe the best that a ruler can do especially in in like uh [[13:27]] warlike times is just try to do more good than bad it is sort of like in uh there’s the
i [[13:34]] think it’s a suta where um you know somebody asked the buddha how to how to dispel bad karma [[13:40]] and he talks about the handful of salt if you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water it’s so salty you can’t drink [[13:46]] it but if you pour that whole that same handful of salt into a pond of water then after it dissolves you can hardly [[13:52]] taste it at all so just uh if you have to do some kind of bad actions you just try to [[13:58]] mix in as many good ones as possible to dilute it down [[14:04]] so i mean it could be that you have to have a war but uh you know it may be that uh you know your people are more [[14:11]] healthy and prosperous and you know better off because you defended them then having their their cities on fire [[14:17]] and so forth right and i think there’s also degrees of degrees of karma like any act [[14:24]] of killing is going to be bad karma but if you if the if the nation is forced into into a war-like [[14:31]] situation they have to to fight then there’s going to be a lot worse karma if [[14:37]] they kill civilians then you know like bombing you know [[14:42]] carpet bombing cities or or massacring civilians in any way rather than you know [[14:49]] warrior against warrior yeah yeah i might as well throw in uh
there’s [[14:56]] one uh it demonstrates the complete uncompromising um [[15:01]] attitude towards ethics that if you’re really serious in in dhamma and that’s [[15:07]] one of the few jadaka stories i ever read is the temi jataka where the buddha in a previous life is [[15:12]] the son of a king and one day when he’s like two or three years old he’s sitting on his father’s [[15:18]] lap and his father has some criminals brought before him and he has them you know he orders them to be executed in [[15:24]] really nasty ways which was the standard in those days and then he realized you [[15:29]] know if i’m going to grow up and be the king you know he was the next in succession he was going to inherit the kingdom from his father then i’m going [[15:36]] to have to do that kind of thing so he just made up his mind he was going to pretend to be a deaf mute for the rest [[15:42]] you know and and uh he just steadfastly pretended to be a deaf mute until his [[15:49]] father just gave up on him in despair and had him taken out into a forest to have him just put to death [[15:55]] and then he started talking and converted the the person that was going to kill him and people started coming to [[16:00]] him because he was so wise of course and wow pretty much everybody just renounced the world and moved off into the forest [[16:07]] and left the the city the capital city almost vacant [[16:15]] wow
i think a karma the big picture too if um see a virtuous country [[16:21]] was being attacked by another country uh in the big picture you can think of karmic results it could be the karmic [[16:27]] resultants from the past right you think of the big picture over hundreds of [[16:33]] years and over many centuries [[16:38]] i don’t really like the idea of uh collective karma like a [[16:44]] nation of people having a having a karma like because [[16:49]] you know the whole you know this nation did something evil [[16:54]] yeah 100 years ago and now they’re going to get their karma back i think it works on an individual level [[17:01]] you know anyway you can have the semblance of collective karma just by you know people would have to have a certain sort of karma to be born into a [[17:08]] certain society which they would you know there’d be like overlap of a significant amount of [[17:14]] overlap in their karma if they’re living in the same society yeah that’s true yeah they would have to have similar [[17:20]] comma to be reborn in similar circumstances yeah i know karma is only individual but a top but if there’s a [[17:26]] massive situation with millions of people dying i would say wouldn’t all those individuals have the individual [[17:32]] karma that it all played out this way right yeah yeah yeah that’s how i see it too yeah [[17:39]]
i think think of the example of ashoka this great kingdom like you said it wasn’t invaded but it falls apart um [[17:46]] yeah i’m just thinking like yeah with samsara and karma you never know karma is going to ripen within samsara and [[17:53]] the buddha saying the world is the average food agenda is basically insane like sorry just can’t be controlled and [[17:59]] karma ripe and so you’re like no human society can be perfect like you’re saying earlier right
yeah [[18:05]] and consider the um the the myth of the the checkout of the [[18:11]] the wheel turning monarch which in the in the buddhist tradition is this is like the perfect human [[18:18]] society it’s the this king who does rule without sticker sword benevolently [[18:25]] and provides largesse to the people and the only way this works is by really [[18:31]] super normal means first he has the wheel in the sky that follows him around wherever he goes [[18:38]] and the other kings are so overrawed by this wheel that they [[18:44]] submit to him without battle and then the way he gets the economy working he [[18:51]] doesn’t have to tax anybody which involves taxation is based on violence and oppression you [[18:57]] know you have you’re forcing people to pay something so he he doesn’t have any taxation but [[19:02]] he gets uh jewels with the wheel to power the wheel they get jewels from the bottom of the ocean [[19:10]] and that’s the royal treasury
that’s in your book do you have your book there to show the audience the [[19:16]] buddhist cosmos i can put a link beneath this video we should promote the book because i remember reading that in your [[19:22]] book that’s i uh how i learned it i don’t know if i’m going to copy here handy it’s good and future videos maybe [[19:28]] show it to your audience because there’s a lot of work how many years did it take you to write that well five [[19:34]] wow it’s like the only book of its kind really in caravan of buddhism the whole [[19:39]] cosmology in one book yeah i wrote an essay on the 31 plains [[19:46]] of existence but that’s as far as i got [[19:51]] yeah so what else about international relations what can we discuss [[19:56]] like they would have never selected any form of government like he talked to kings and they talked to republicans right he never favored a particular form [[20:02]] of government over another yeah the only he would talk about um the morality [[20:09]] that ruler should follow but not any you know so it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a republic or a monarchy or [[20:16]] democracy or whatever but if the people that are in charge should be following moral [[20:23]] behavior but one one other point that occurs to me to make about um [[20:28]] international relations particularly in times of war is the value of truth that [[20:35]] you know there’s an old saying the first casualty of war is truth yes we see this again and again that there’s [[20:41]] so much propaganda always flies around when there when there’s [[20:47]] uh conflict and it becomes you know it’s uh i i think as buddhist we should have a [[20:54]] um we should value truth highly and not uh [[21:00]] and we should have some kind of uh you know mental immune system against uh [[21:06]] propaganda yes yeah i think if you don’t if you don’t [[21:12]] uh you’re not faithful even to conventional truths i think your hopes of ultimate truth are [[21:18]] yeah good point very small yeah yeah and also and just from the point of view of politics it does it [[21:24]] would be good for you know any nation to to stick to its you know it’s treaties [[21:30]] and that kind of a thing yes yeah that’s that’s a base that’s a basic morality of the and they’re i mean [[21:37]] they’re the uh like i said the nation states are you know pretty much amoral but i [[21:43]] think there has been attempts to kind of remedy that you’ve got things like the [[21:49]] geneva convention and the hague convention and there are rules of war [[21:55]] and nations will sign treaties and they’ll have agreements and um so [[22:01]] i think there is some sense that it ought to be moral [[22:06]] but when we see the actual behavior of states in history they tends to be really completely immoral in their [[22:12]] relationships with each other yeah it’s more philosophical and civilized i think [[22:19]] and i think that’s in a way that’s that’s sort of the way that rome was i mean they were fighting off huns and germanic tribes [[22:26]] and so forth and they were they were just as ruthless as just that they uh had a more developed system [[22:33]] and and in in a way you know they had the pax romana where um at least they were peaceful within [[22:39]] their own borders when they were strong at least at least it was that [[22:46]]
but i would also mention with regard to politics in the the buddha i mean there is uh [[22:52]] um you know a lot of emphasis on kingship you know like the the the wheel turning monarch and so forth [[22:58]] but uh with regard to the sangha the buddha did prefer a more uh democratic yes [[23:04]] consensus-oriented uh system yes i can’t remember the name of the tribe [[23:09]] that he emulated with with regard to uh the sangha it wasn’t the was the the malas or the [[23:16]] the bhajis or something i can’t remember i think was the vaginas okay yeah the [[23:23]] the constitution of the same yeah and which is of which is uh [[23:29]] over the centuries has been kind of lost to a large degree is because most [[23:36]] of the buddhist countries have been monarchies yeah like in the thai a thai monastery [[23:42]] is pretty much an absolute monarchy with the you know that the top eye john is in charge [[23:48]] yeah it’s the same in burma i wasn’t quite aware of that thank you so that the head monk is in charge you’re saying [[23:55]] yeah as a westerner i knew that i mean if there’s a formal act of the sangha the most junior monk if he doesn’t agree [[24:01]] then it’s no go yeah but just unthinkable in in asia yeah they become sort of just like pro [[24:08]] forma they’re just kind of empty ritual the the actual constitutional basis of the [[24:15]] sanghas they just become hollow rituals really oh thanks for pointing that out i didn’t [[24:20]] quite get that like i knew against that power but how it contradicts the buddhist vinaya you’re saying [[24:26]] well it doesn’t you know that it’s not an outright contradiction but [[24:32]] it’s definitely against the spirit of it it’s definitely shifted the spirit of it [[24:37]] because they still follow they still follow the forms but as uh um [[24:43]] pano says there that they can’t the the junior monk would never dare to [[24:50]] use his constitutional power to uh that he has under under the vineyard to [[24:55]] object to to an act of the sangha okay he’s saying like say in thailand it’s been a monarchy for a thousand years how [[25:00]] about our tradition in charge tradition like stay with ash on omro and our head office [[25:06]] i find that with our westerners there’s there’s more of a consensual base yeah like the the the monasteries [[25:13]] they do they the abbot is still in charge but it’s more like a constitutional monarch and he’ll [[25:19]] you know they they will for big decisions they’ll they’ll have the you know [[25:26]] all the monks get together and discuss it yeah like all i give to shout out for asha and samado asha and ammo i feel [[25:32]] they’ve been doing a great job of leading our sangha i mean we’re the largest organization in the world of west western caravan monks right [[25:40]] yes by far probably yeah do you want to comment that i should put it on how how we’re doing as a as a real song [[25:48]] consensus democracy compared to thailand well i wouldn’t go i wouldn’t even go so [[25:55]] far as to call it a a democracy either i mean it’s a consensus right still there’s still [[26:01]] as there should be there’s still an emphasis on hierarchy that the senior monks are [[26:07]] are more respected have more authority than the junior monks but [[26:12]] but there’s also a much more of a a sense of things being done by consensus [[26:18]] and um and try to have a harmonious agreement on on major decisions [[26:25]] rather than just laying down the law from on high although we have a big respect for a [[26:31]] seniority like sustainability i guess that’s traditional as well like ashen’s tomato he’s been around since like 1966 [[26:37]] so he’s a senior monk right that is a lot right yeah i think that uh [[26:43]] emphasis on seniority that actually does go back to the buddha and the original vineya that respect the elder monks and i think [[26:49]] that’s a very skillful system because when you have any group of particularly men i think [[26:56]] maybe women’s similar but in maybe a different way but when you have a group of men [[27:02]] in an organization they’re going to be naturally [[27:08]] power struggles you know who’s going to be on top who’s going to be the boss [[27:13]] lyndon johnson and president kennedy yeah yeah [[27:21]] but the the uh the emphasis on the seniority kind of takes that the sting out of that because it says [[27:28]] you know if this if this guy’s senior to you he’s senior to you and you can’t change that [[27:33]] yes it’s more stable for centuries that way you’re right in other ways there would actually be coup d’etats some say [[27:39]] i’m i’m better i’m the younger guy i’ve got better ideas i’ll take over the place and this is my idea i’ll put some [[27:44]] shop right yes you know sometimes in burma it does uh you’ll have just a more famous monk [[27:51]] who is uh actually the abbot and they’ll be like old retired monks you know who are kind [[27:57]] of dimming in their faculties or something that stay there that just because they’re senior monks they’re they’re [[28:03]] still sitting in back oh yeah behind the the seatto [[28:09]] in bueno it’s like i mean there was a certain precedence you know it’s like the the senior monk is you know he walks [[28:15]] in front and he gets first pick of the katina cloth and that sort of thing and yeah and of course if you’re going to be [[28:20]] the preceptor of monks then you’re pretty much their master like their father [[28:26]] i mean there there is that but yeah what sometimes happens in thailand if [[28:32]] you’ve got a uh old monk who’s starting to you know he’s gone beyond his prime let’s say [[28:37]] he’s losing his faculties you know and he’s he’s still the senior one in the in the monastery he’ll still sit up [[28:44]] front and he’ll be paid like uh differential attention [[28:50]] but uh the second monk who’s who’s [[28:56]] younger and still you know still vital he’ll be the ones making the decisions and actually running things [[29:05]] that’s good
i was thinking more of a case of like um like there was chad miyata in in [[29:13]] was still alive and it was it like the the land was bequeathed to him [[29:19]] so it was like his monastery and then like older monks would come and stay there but still i mean it was his [[29:25]] monastery the land was donated to him and so i mean the the the corporate [[29:31]] um you know the entity of the song of the four quarters really kind of broke down [[29:36]] because you you had you know the leader who was the designated leader no matter who else came to the monastery who [[29:42]] happened might happen to be senior dan [Music] but in burma it’s is there is a lot of [[29:49]] uh uh sort of ethnic corruption you might call it like like the pawarna ceremony [[29:55]] you know the at the end of the reigns where you invite other monks to admonish you and [[30:00]] in burma is is almost unheard of that anyone would actually admonish another [[30:06]] it’s just yeah that’s the same in thailand it’s just a formality it’s just [[30:12]] recited in poly inviting admonition and no one says anything and i asked three times and [[30:19]] that’s it [[30:27]] young kid on the block yeah with regard to politics in general
i do think that um buddhism would uh are [[30:34]] the traditional theravada especially we just recommend that you avoid politics as [[30:39]] much as as much as you are able if you’re able to just completely renounce society then go ahead and [[30:47]] like when i was in my 20s i just lost almost all interest in politics when i finally realized that what is right and [[30:54]] good from a political point of view is not necessarily right and good from like a dharmic point of view [[31:00]] it’s just you know it’s amoral it’s just sort of a law unto itself and uh [[31:06]] yeah it’s like you try to apply genuine morality or ethics to politics and it [[31:12]] just messes it up and it fails because the ruthless people are going to win can [[31:18]] you relate that to our topic right is this dharma and like international politics right i guess this is what [[31:24]] you’re getting at there’s a there’s a tension there between dharma and international politics yeah yes [[31:31]] you know when i go back to the uh again that the very origin of the state [[31:38]] was kind of a social contract idea that [[31:44]] people had degenerated to the point where they were starting to steal from each other and and that led to violence [[31:51]] so they decided we can’t have this we’ve got to do something about it so they chose one amongst them to be the king [[31:58]] and gave him the authority to uh enforce enforce good behavior [[32:04]] so it’s kind of like a necessary evil like it makes sense doesn’t it if people [[32:10]] weren’t stealing from each other and and uh misbehaving they wouldn’t need a [[32:17]] government if people were perfect they could just live if everybody kept the five precepts [[32:23]] you wouldn’t need any government you wouldn’t need a state you wouldn’t need anything like that you wouldn’t need [[32:28]] police you wouldn’t need courts do you want to comment on these golden ages in the past that would describe [[32:35]] these like peaks where everyone’s on the five precepts life spans go up to like 84 000 years what sort of government did [[32:42]] they have then do you think well it was before [[32:48]] i i don’t know about the intermediate ones like when the after it’s fallen [[32:53]] rose again it’s not really specified um although no it is for the the [[33:01]] the when um the next time lifespans go up to 85 4 [[33:06]] 000 years there will be a wheel-turning monarch in charge [[33:11]] so it’s again under that kind of perfect government but after that the monarch then purchased monarch yeah but at the origin [[33:19]] um when being started from this very high state they fell down from the brahma [[33:25]] world and they the abasara brahmas and they fell down to earth and they degenerated through several stages so [[33:32]] they started at a very high plain plane of consciousness and behavior and [[33:38]] immorality crept in and they kept losing their faculties and became you know [[33:44]] shorter lived and coarser and when they reached the point of actually [[33:50]] attacking each other and stealing from each other then they had to uh constitute a a government [[33:57]] to to keep order so it was seen like as a necessity because of the the [[34:03]] imperfect nature of man because people weren’t behaving naturally [[34:09]] harmoniously we need someone to keep order so the king has the authority he has the danda the stick [[34:18]] which the word danda literally means a stick but it figuratively is used to mean serenity or [[34:24]] authority and you still see like in the canadian parliament the the parliament is only in session [[34:32]] and legally binding if the mace is on the table yeah you have this whole ceremony when [[34:39]] parliament opens these these guys in 17th century outfits parade in carrying this giant mace [[34:47]] and lay it on the table and that means problem is in session and sometimes they actually remove the mace [[34:53]] so they give an informal discussion it’s not binding wow [[34:59]] that’s sort of like the the roman dignitaries that would have the fascist you know the the acts wrapped in sticks [[35:06]] guys for them it’s the same thing so sovereignty means the the right to [[35:11]] use violence. so ashamed can you give a dharmic [[35:17]] uh recommendation as a senior monk how do you how do you recommend the use of governmental force then in the sense in [[35:24]] the dharmic sense i would recommend that it be as [[35:32]] as minimal as possible and recognize that it’s it’s a necessary evil that they can’t escape [[35:39]] you know you you couldn’t you can the current state of society you couldn’t just disband the police [[35:46]] you know which of the you know the enforcement arm of the government how about the jails you can’t [[35:52]] just let everyone out of jail right i mean obviously there’d be chaos [[36:02]] but on the other hand if if people were encouraged to keep morality if people were keeping their precepts you wouldn’t [[36:08]] need any of that that reminds me of our previous video on uh uh how terrible buddhism is not [[36:15]] politically incorrect in some american cities the political correct thing to do is defund the police right gotta have [[36:21]] less police got to defund the police because that’s what i’ll be correct how well has that worked out [[36:27]] you know the closest american city to me is minneapolis and it used to be a lovely peaceful city and now they’ve got [[36:34]] huge because they did that they you know they put all kinds of restrictions on their [[36:40]] police and defunded their police and they’ve got carjackings and which they never had before you know so terrible [[36:47]] buddhism is not in favor of defending the police so that’s another way caravan bosom is not politically correct to [[36:52]] those folks well i i don’t know i mean that’s sort of such a specific political question [[36:58]] it’s hard to say what you know any kind of official teravata position would be i yeah [[37:04]] personally i think it’s a really foolish move but yeah yeah so essentially you’re just going to [[37:10]] have to have moral inferiors taking charge of that sort of thing [[37:16]] yeah you know like the the punishment of the criminals and so forth it’s just they’re going to be people that aren’t very dharmic and you know sort of like [[37:23]] the butchers the village butcher you know he’s just uh this is just what he does and that you [[37:29]] just stuck with that um there have been attempts at uh sort of [[37:34]] some attempt at like dharmic violence
and you know it’s obviously heretical [[37:41]] from the terra bottom point of view but sort of like the the rinzai zen you know the bushido [[37:46]] there’s like the story of you know there was this samurai swordsman and his his master was one of the [[37:53]] greatest swordsmen in japan and uh because he was one of the greatest swordsmen he was being challenged to duels all the time and [[38:00]] eventually he lost a duel and was killed and so his disciple um you know it was it was just a matter [[38:07]] of honor for him to to fight this person who had killed his master so he he searches him out and [[38:15]] finds him and challenges him to a duel and he’s winning the duel and he’s got this guy down on his back he’s about [[38:22]] ready to kill him and then the the guy who’s lying down there spits in his face [[38:27]] and then he gets angry and he’s really he’s really gonna finish him off now and then he realizes i’m no longer motivated [[38:34]] by honor i’m motivated by aversion and anger so he just stands up sheaths his [[38:39]] sword and walks away because he wouldn’t have killed him honorably so something like that maybe might at [[38:46]] least take the uh take some of the barbarism out of it i mean there have been you know even in [[38:52]] the west in europe you know there’s the ideal of the gentleman and you know you got the [[38:57]] the valor and you know courtesy and and you know chivalry and that sort of thing [[39:03]] so there have been attempts to have a kind of civilized violence [[39:08]] yeah yeah i mean it’s it’s still from the terrebonne buddhist point of view i mean it’s still you’re just better off just [[39:14]] abandoning the whole system and living in a cave somewhere yeah [[39:19]] so happy ending that no one got killed um
nothing like that though if [[39:25]] if there was a dharmic nation a totally buddhist dharmic nation and they had like debt-free currency for [[39:31]] the citizens prospered i i would think in this world the jealousy of other nations would [[39:37]] invade to have an excuse to destroy the nation like ash and he said it can make up some excuse if the reason is real [[39:42]] reason is resources so this is a tragedy i think you’ve had a truly dharmic nation that was really economically [[39:49]] prosperous uh other countries would probably come in and destroy it either that or there would just be so [[39:55]] many people flooding into the country to get to share in the prosperity that it would just tank the prosperity right [[40:05]] yeah just hang in this world with these international bankers and their compound interest debt currency any country that [[40:11]] tries like say libya have the dinar for instance like they want to have their own currency [[40:16]] separate from the international bankers and they were destroyed so i’m saying if you had a truly dharmic country i [[40:23]] anticipate that’s what would happen what would you guys think yeah i i think that’s i think there’s a [[40:28]] lot of a lot of truth to that you know they try and libya and i think there was uh [[40:34]] even iraq also before the americans invaded that they were they were [[40:40]] moving away from the um uh international [[40:45]] banking system absolutely that that goes back to uh it’s it’s a slightly more sophisticated [[40:53]] variant of the wars for resources right it’s it’s [[40:59]] it’s like the rome versus carthage example that yeah merchant class wanting to protect their [[41:05]] their financial stake maybe you could say well this is a whole realm we live on this planet in this round the human [[41:11]] realms in this state this so that’s there’s some sorrow for you right i’m sorry would knock down a really virtuous [[41:17]] country well that’s samsara what can we say yeah it’s not yeah it’s probably as the [[41:22]] buddha said not possible to rule those stickers or you know it’s that [[41:28]] it’s the the the imperfect state of human beings i like what panabasa said a long time [[41:35]] ago in a previous video that the world is basically insane the average food is just insane so you [[41:41]] check out of society go into the forest and be a monk and you don’t try to fix the world what is saying you cannot fix [[41:47]] the world so thank you panama you said that to me about two years ago it’s stuck in my mind you know all you can do is try to fix [[41:53]] yourself and then at least you’ll have like a little bubble of better better karma or something you know that [[42:00]] you’re dealing with [[42:07]] so anything else no i think we’ve pretty well done that one yeah it was the first time first [[42:14]] evening did three videos in one go so may 2nd 2022 has been a good evening thank you [[42:20]] ashan and thank you panabasa it’s been a good evening much better yeah very interesting discussions [[42:30]] [Music]