[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[L.S. Cousins]

On 14/07/2010 10:59, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> While some line between cleric and laity is maintained, the king as a
>
> Cakravartin is not exactly out of the fold, and to the extent he is a
> promoter and defender of the Dharma, preserving the state is 
> preserving the
> Dharma (and vice versa).
>

But the very limited canonical materials on the cakkavattin king are 
precisely non-violent and emphasize that fact.


> My own favorite "shocker" example of how it has been under our noses 
> forever
> but ignored or not taken for what it is -- and this is not from the 
> book --
> is the story of Huineng's receiving the robe and bowl of Bodhidharma 
> and the
> transmission from the fifth patriarch. The fifth patriarch declares 
> him his
> successor and then tells him to flee for his life since jealous monks 
> will
> kill him to retrieve the bowl and robe (and the authority of the
> transmission). He flees, and sure enough a posse of monks pursues him. 
> It is
> not important whether or not that story is historically true or merely
> legend. Either way, it tells us something about the ethos of Chan temples
> long before Brian Victoria noticed a problem.
>

It is very important that this story is legendary and almost certainly 
has no historical basis at all.

> And lest this be shucked off
> as some Chinese or Mahayana aberration, there are numerous similar 
> stories
> about Nalanda and other Buddhist enclaves in India, concerning 
> guarding of
> "state secrets" (in the Indian ones, non-Buddhist spies do get 
> murdered when
> discovered stealing the secrets of Buddhist logic, etc.).
>

Again, are these contemporary accounts ? Or, fictions produced far away 
in a different context and at a different time.

> How many scholars
> and students have read the Platform Sutra or heard the story without
> wondering why a bunch of meditating, poem-writing monks would kill over a
> robe in violation of their master's wishes, and that the threat of murder
> should be so prominent and palpable that even the fifth patriarch is 
> aware
> that passing on his robe could be a death sentence to the recipient? How
> many Zennists have conjured up alibis for Nansen's catricide?
>
Felicicide ?

Lance