by Tang Huyen

That's the contract, from the Buddha on down.

They might or might not have been successful at it, possibly depending on their cultivation of the Divine Abodes (I am in no position to guarantee the result), but that possibility was not tested, rather some Tibetan monks took up arms and shot at the Chinese invaders.

But returning to your query, if the Tibetan monks had enveloped the invading Chinese in friendliness and failed to stop them in their expansionist tracks, they would still be happy with the result anyway and would have kept on doing the same, namely enveloping the invading Chinese in friendliness, for such a Buddhist act would have been carried out in selfless devotion, without discrimination and with the best of wishes for everybody (the Chinese included) and no thought for the monks themselves. Such a Buddhist act would not have been carried out with any worldly goal in mind, such as stopping the Chinese in their expansionist tracks.

As to what happens in the real world, the monks would have trusted the Law (Dharma) to take care of it impersonally, for it would have been beyond their capacity to intervene. Their job as Buddhist monks would have been (regardless of circumstances) to end their own suffering and help others do the same, not to intervene in the world. They have renounced the world to end their suffering and help others do the same.

That's the contract, from the Buddha on down.

In the case of the Buddha, if the elephant had not been stopped and had stomped him, the Buddha would have been happy with that, too. He didn't do it with the intention of producing any such effect on the real world. The elephant was angry (he was charging furiously) and the Buddha wanted to calm him, the way the Buddha himself taught his monks the Parable of the Saw.

A story that I like to tell is this episode in a famous modern Chinese martial arts novel that has stuck in my mind. There was a prominent monk (his name is "He who Sees Emptiness") in Shao-lin Monastery who had successfully cultivated the Diamond Indestructible Body, so that nobody could harm him, and whoever wanted to harm him bodily would have that violence returned automatically and be harmed by it in kind and in degree. He was also famous for his magnanimity and compassion.

One day a thug wanted to kill him, came to him, engaged him in small talk, waited for him to soften up, then struck him, and he, never losing his smiling countenance, forgave the thug and died peacefully and in dignity, as was expected of him.

Later on the thug proudly recounted the story to his fellow thugs, who of course asked him: "He was protected by the Diamond Indestructible Body, so how could you kill him, much less get off scot free?" He replied: "He was magnanimous and compassionate, knew that I was going to attack him, intentionally deactivated his Diamond Indestructible Body, so that I could strike him and get off scot free whilst he died, otherwise how could I survive and live to this day?"

By the way, Buddhism and Communism share one trait, in that they are (or are supposed to be) universal, and not restricted to any country, ethnic group or whatever. What was shocking to many Communists was that Communism became in real life specific to specific countries, and the Communist party of a country worked only for and in that country. What was even more shocking was that in North Korea a son succeeded to his father as the leader of Communism. So Communism was not essentially different from feudalism. What was the height of irony was that capitalism was to all appearance more universal and less country-specific.

Hehe. Mother nature knows how to make fun of human intentions.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on April 17, 2004. Author: Tang Huyen ([email protected]). Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Tang Huyen was a scholar of Buddhist studies with deep command of Pāli, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan sources. Posting to talk.religion.buddhism and related groups from 2003 to 2008, he was among the most rigorous analytical voices in the English-language Buddhist Usenet world. This post begins with a pointed question — could Tibetan metta practice have stopped the Chinese invasion? — and uses it to clarify the Buddhist contract: acts of loving-kindness are done in selfless devotion, without worldly goals, trusting the Dharma to take care of what lies beyond one's capacity. The monk story of "He who Sees Emptiness" is the argument made flesh: perfect compassion has no self-preservation left in it.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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