‘Where Is the Love?’ or ‘The Missionary Zeal’
Human society, until today, remains dominated by peasant mentality; that is, the preoccupation with economy.
Communism has an attraction for the poor as it offers the promise that all of its beneficiaries will be equal to each other. What really happens though is that all of the ‘tall poppies’ are cut down instead. Rather than raising the lowest to the level of the highest, the highest are cut down and the lowest are equalized by default. This has been the case in Mao’s China, Stalin’s Soviet Russia and Pol Pot?s Cambodia. During the Khmer Rouge regime all religions were forbidden.
Instead of seeking equality, which is an impossible task as each individual is unique, Communism should deliver freedom from the bondage of economics itself. Not only freedom from physical economic need but more importantly the objective should be the removal of psychological economic need – poverty mentality.
Christian missionaries take advantage of the opportunity that poverty and suffering present. Cambodia is an ideal example of this. By feeding the hungry and consoling the underprivileged with the promise of eternal life, missionaries find a literal mine-field of unexploded believers requiring simply one misplaced step to set them off on their merry ways. These unfortunates can probably scarcely conceive at first sermon that they are already so supremely qualified for the ‘happy hunting grounds.’
‘Blessed are the poor’ – and, ‘easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to enter heaven.’
They have suffered well and truly under the Khmer Rouge and are poor. Nothing more is required of them except to believe in the Christian God and help others to.
One young such missionary, wise beyond his eighteen years and recently arrived in Cambodia for ‘the work’ is convinced that Cambodian Buddhist monks are not even properly acquainted with their own scriptures and only don the saffron robe as an opportunity to learn English.
This may be true, and if it is, does that mean that Buddhism is irrelevant in Cambodia?
Christianity seems to thrive in a soil of suffering and poverty, especially in the environment of post-war destruction or in the wake of invasion. In the past wherever invading ‘soldiers of fortune’ traveled to, the priests and missionaries were never far behind.
Buddhist missionaries, such as Boddhidharma, on the other hand, often traveled by foot across mountainous terrain after Buddha’s death to spread the Dharma. They did not follow in the wake of armies and were received by kings and emperors of societies at their cultural peak.
Bodhidharma, the blue-eyed monk, lived in China c. 515 AD. Originally he came from India as a Buddhist missionary.
The perfect Tao is without difficulty,
Save that it avoids picking and choosing.
Follow your nature and be in accord with Tao;
Don”t be antagonistic to the world of the senses.
When you are not antagonistic to it,
It turns out to be the same as complete Awakening.
The wise person does not strive (wu wei).
If you work on your mind with your mind,
How can you avoid an immense confusion?”
Buddhism has its roots in an entirely different soil i.e. the circumstances of its mentor, Prince Siddhartha Gautama. Siddartha was the heir to an ancient and powerful Indian kingdom. His inheritance was one of extreme wealth, but how to measure that wealth by today?s standards? Bill Gates is presumed to be one of the richest men on the planet today, but he would know nothing of the pleasures of wealth compared to Siddhatha.
Why? because Bill Gates’ wealth exists within the context of Christian society.
The Sakya Prince, Siddartha Gautama, was strong, we are told, handsome, highly educated and a famous athlete. His father spared no expense on the countless pleasures which were designed to keep him engaged in palace life and in preparation for his own future kingship.
The pleasures of opium, hashish, the finest wine, succulent banquets, clothes woven with silver and gold and for company – the finest musicians and philosophers along with the most exotic, exquisite woman in the land were openly his for the asking.
Emerging from this privileged background, Siddhartha managed to effect a transformation of his mind by the age of thirty five. Disciples consequently named him ‘Buddha’ meaning ‘the awakened one.’
Many have quoted the Buddha as having said that ‘Life is suffering’ or ‘Dukkha’ – misery. Seems very Christian! Upon enlightenment, Buddha found the same life blissful and peaceful beyond imagination. What happennnn?
Some would say he owed his enlightenment to an understanding of the causes of suffering and this would not be incorrect. But what were the grounds for that understanding to blossom? To me, in a word: WEALTH.
Wealth allowed the prince to develop his faculties and gauge the limitations of wealth as an end in itself.
Recently, one K440 poster who was being accused of being ostentatious, replied, ‘Yes, I traveled in First Class, what is wrong with that’ Everyone should travel in first class. Shouldn’t that be the objective of human effort?’ Yes it should! But the aim of ‘the exploiters’ of human society is a rather different objective. That is to keep societies in a state of need and greed.
K440’s Doctor Suess recently quoted Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ to explain the reason for the failure of many of Cambodia’s people to realize a certain code of values.
He is quite right of course and I would like to add that the H.O.N. pyramid has a couple of blocks still to be added to its apex.
The second block from the top should portray a human civilization that is so accustomed to wealth, that nobody even considers economics any more. Men and women fall in love due to the influence of personal attraction alone and fall out again without the penalty of division of assets or property. Love becomes elevated higher than matter.
The top block represents those who have moved beyond divisions and who shine a beacon for all those who approach it themselves.
Doctor Suess also previously mentioned the role higher-nutrition plays in intellectual development as one of the hierarchies of needs. Christian missionaries descend upon a needy culture when they are stuck at this level and do a fine job in providing the means to better nutrition, but also serve up their ideology as an entree.
It doesn’t require great intelligence ‘to believe.’ But right-understanding does require it.
When a culture is encountered such as the Khmers, who have experienced such anguish and suffering as they had to endure under the Khmer Rouge, Christian missionaries should not feel too proud of themselves for winning converts.
Heinrich manouvre
