[Buddha-l] Wealth and excess

[Vicente Gonzalez]

Richard wrote:

RH> As for the abhidharma of karma, nothing has karma except things that
RH> have a samskara-skandha. The last I checked, no corporation (or nation)
RH> has that particular skandha (although many act in skandhalous ways). We
RH> may have to abandon the idea of discussing the current meltdown in terms
RH> of corporate karma, but we can surely discuss it in terms of the
RH> individual karma of quite a few million people who were having so much
RH> fun making money that they forgot to inquire into whether the money they
RH> thought they were making actually existed.

Can you explain better that view?. Because one can read:

"Monks, these five trades ought not to be plied by a lay-disciple...
Trade in weapons, trade in human beings, trade in flesh, trade in
intoxicants and trade in poison."

when trading by itself is not good or bad, then it seems the trade
of these things causes bad kamma. So it seems there is a kamma for
the people belonging to these corporations. Behind any genocide there
is a table with individuals agreeing in making these crimes.
Rest of the people involved are therefore enchained in the success
of their actions.

Looking the magnitudes of these crimes, a logical response in a
civilized world must be the public knowledge of their names and
the existence of a World Court to judge all them because crimes
against the human kind. This civilized situation didn't exists
because politics are in their hands as today even the more
analphabet person know. Without civilized solutions in the horizon,
there are two logical responses for this situation in accordance with
Buddhism:

- the killing of these genocides by any means in order to protect
billions of lives.

- not impeding these genocides avoiding killing to be in accordance
with the final truth.

In the epitaph of Jingshan Faquin (793) there is a Chan dialogue.
The student asked wether, if two messengers knew the station master
was slaughtering a sheep for them, and one went to save the sheep, but
the other did not, they cause different results of punishments and
blessing. Jingshan answered: "the one who saved the sheep was
compassionate, and the one who did not save the sheep was emancipated"

Can we see the difference?


best regards,