Behind The Mask ~ CRABS FIRST
When, in 1984, I went
from the Philippines to visit the Vietnamese Refugee
Camps in Hong Kong and eventually got permission to
do so, I was approached in one of the Camps by a government
official—(my activities in the Camps until then
had almost surely been monitored and approved, otherwise
they would soon have been terminated)—and politely
asked if I could/would visit the Camps on a regular
basis, or, failing this, if I knew of any monks in
Hong Kong who would do so. He said that there were
numerous Christian missionaries visiting the Camps
regularly, but so far no Buddhists.
Sadly, I had to tell him that not only was
I unable to visit the Camps regularly myself—as
I was only passing through Hong Kong—but I did
not I know of any Hong Kong monks who would do. I
didn’t tell him—because I was ashamed
to—that the previous year, while I was staying
in the Bataan Refugee Camp in the Philippines, I had
heard of the neglected plight of the Buddhist refugees
in the Hong Kong Camps, and had written to a prominent
Hong Kong monk about it. My letter to him is here
reproduced:
"Philippines. 29-March-1983.
Dear Ven. ..... (name omitted here),
allow me to introduce myself: I am the
monk in charge of Buddhist affairs in the Philippines
Refugee Processing Center. I have been here for three
years, during which time we have built two small temples
for the Buddhist Refugees.
I have had the pleasure of meeting you
on two occasions—once in Bogor, Indonesia, in
1978, and again, in Taipei in 1981—though probably
you will not remember me.
My reason for writing to you now, Venerable,
is to ask for your assistance: you are well-known
for your compassion, and I am confident that you will
help. The problem is this:
I have heard, from several refugees
who arrived here from Hong Kong, that there are two
Vietnamese Buddhist monks in two separate Camps there;
they are very much in need of help since, apparently,
no-one is allowed to go in to see them. Somehow, though,
it seems that Christian missionaries are allowed inside
the Camps, and are very active trying to convert the
refugees. What a shame for our religion that no-one
is allowed to go there to minister to the needs of
our co-religionists! (Even in Thailand, where there
are about 300,000 monks, the Buddhists just sit idly
back and permit the endless streams of Christian missionaries
to commit their outrage against Buddhist refugees—buying
them, and otherwise influencing them to change their
religion).
Ven., please try to help these two monks;
they need Buddhist books, Buddha-pictures and other
articles for distribution to their faithful followers;
ceremonial instruments such as a wooden-fish, gong
and bell, would be very much appreciated. I also understand
that they are personally in need of clothes. More
than anything else, though, they are in need of care
and moral support from local Buddhists. [The names
and addresses of the two monks were included].
Many Thanks and Sincere Regards—
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
There was no reply to this, but that, I
since learned, is not unusual. I have written to several
monks about different things since then, and was not
graced with replies. Although I spent many years in
Asia, I am still a Westerner, and look at things from
a largely Western point-of-view. Perhaps I’m
a bit old-fashioned in this, but I consider it ill-mannered
not to reply to letters of a personal nature. In Asia,
however, the standard seems to be somewhat different.
Anyway, I was rather disappointed at the
non-response of this Hong Kong monk—hence my
writing about it now—as he had probably been
a refugee himself years before, fleeing Communist
oppression in China; there is also the possibility
that he will become a refugee again in the near future,
when Hong Kong reverts to China. He likes to print
photos of himself in his Buddhist magazine, in the
act of releasing fish, crabs, turtles, etc., as an
act of compassion. Did I expect too much of him to
think that his compassion might extend a bit further
than to such dumb creatures and the pages of his magazine,
to refugees like himself? Obviously, I did, because
he did nothing about my request, and when I tried
to see him the following year in Hong Kong, he made
an excuse for not meeting me. So much for his compassion!
Now, the refugees were of a different nationality
than this particular monk, but so what? Was he not
a Buddhist? And does Buddhism not help us to see beyond
such things as nationality? We had no control over
where we were born; we might have been born elsewhere
than in the place of our nativity, but we can be born
in only one place per life. There is really no reason
to be proud of our nationality, as it is not something
we achieved by our own efforts; if it were a matter
of choice—as some reincarnationists believe—who
would choose to be born in countries which suffer
regularly from famine, drought, pestilence and war?
No, nationality is a consequence of being born where
we were. However, if we understand something of Dharma,
it enables us to look at this matter somewhat differently
than most people do, and see it in clearer perspective.
This idea is one of many that we become liberated
from as we go deeper and our consciousness expands.
Therefore I say that although I was born in England,
and cannot deny this, I do deny that it makes me English.
I don’t want to be English, because I have found
something bigger and better than that; if other people
consider me English just because I was born in England,
that is up to them. Of course, before anyone asks,
I should say that I cannot dispense with the formalities
of passports and so on, and still travel on a British
passport, which identifies me as ‘British";
I am also a citizen of Australia now, so have an Aussie
passport, too. What I mean, however, is that I do
not think of myself as ‘English’, and
when, after the ceremony whereby I became an Australian
citizen, someone said to me: "So, now you are
an Australian", I objected and said: "No
I’m not; I’m a citizen of Australia. I
don’t want to be English, and am not about to
start thinking of myself as Australian". If asked
where I am from, sometimes I answer: "When?"
"No, where are you from?" they repeat. Again,
I say, "When am I from where?—this morning,
yesterday, last year? When do you mean? If you mean
where I was born, I was born in England—or at
least, I was told so, though I don’t remember
it myself (to be more accurate, I was born in my mother’s
bed, and that, as far as I was concerned at the time,
could have been anywhere). Since then, however, I
have been to and come from many places. But where
I am really from, I don’t know, any more than
you know where you came from!"
We learn to see beyond such artificial divisions
to the basic fact of our humanity. Shall we therefore
restrict our compassion to just one group of people?
What kind of compassion would that be?
The Buddhist scriptures record the story
of a certain monk who was so ill and incapacitated
that he could do nothing for himself and was left
lying in his own filth by the other monks, who wouldn’t
go near him because of the smell and dirt. When the
Buddha heard of this, He called for water to be heated
and cloths to be brought, and went to clean up the
sick monk with His own hands. Of course, when He did
so, many monks rushed to help, but the Buddha insisted
on doing the onerous job Himself, as an example to
all. He explained that, since none of them had mothers,
wives or anyone else to take care of them, they should
take care of each other when necessary, living as
a community, in brotherly love. This incident led
Him to utter His famous words: "He who serves
the sick serves the Buddha".
Before I went to Thailand in 1972, in my
naiveté I expected to find such a spirit of
brotherhood in the monasteries there, but was soon
disillusioned and found little or nothing of it. Instead,
I found that Buddhism had become merely a thing of
tradition, and no longer something to live by. Fortunately,
I had already realized the difference between Buddhism
as a religious organization, and the Buddha’s
Teachings, and so was able to continue; had I not
realized this I would probably have abandoned everything
in disgust and gone on my way long ago. Since then,
therefore, I have been trying to share this realization
with others, as I consider it of great importance.
It has stood me in great stead many times, like when
I went to the Philippines in 1979, and stayed in the
largest temple in Manila. From the moment I went there
until I left five years later, some of the monks never
even smiled or nodded to me, but looked through me
as if I were invisible. True, the language-barrier
prevented verbal communication, but even that was
not insuperable. I might have understood their attitude
if, after I had been there long enough for them to
get to know me somewhat and possibly conclude that
‘this fellow is no good’, they had become
cold towards me, but to treat a complete stranger
like that didn’t say much to me about their
understanding of Dharma. And my opinion of them was
not improved by their concentration on performing
lucrative ceremonies for the dead, whereby they had
their pious but gullible followers ‘over a barrel’.
Such monks become very rich, financially, by their
activities, but one really wonders about their spiritual
wealth!
I must, at the risk of becoming tedious,
emphasize the vast difference between the Container
and the Contents: Buddhism and the Teachings of the
Buddha. If people are satisfied with Buddhism it is
alright, of course; but for those who are not, and
who want something more than mere name-and-form, it
must be said that though Buddhism—the Container—is
now old, tired and travel-stained, having come a long
way and suffered many vicissitudes, the Contents—by
which I mean the Teachings of the Buddha—are
still quite intact. However, these, too, should not
be looked upon as something magical in themselves,
that will produce miraculous effects just by being
believed in or recited, but should be understood and
realized, for they are only ‘a finger pointing
at the moon’, not the moon itself. So, there
are three levels, as it were: (1) Buddhism, the organization,
which deserves our respect for having preserved the
Contents thus far; (2) Buddha-Dharma, or the Teachings
of the Buddha; and (3) Dharma itself, that which,
upon realizing it, Sakyamuni became the Buddha, and
which He thereafter tried to indicate to others. If
we insist on clinging to the Container while understanding
nothing of the Contents and making no attempt to do
so, it is rather a waste, to say the least.
Compassion is one of the central elements
of the Buddha’s Way, but so many Buddhists obviously
think of it as just something of the scriptures—a
word or concept—and seldom apply it in their
lives; we talk so much about it, and this shows that
we haven’t got the real thing. Some monks have
spots burned on their heads when they undertake ‘Bodhisattva
precepts’ (some lay-devotees have spots burned
on their arms). Now, a Bodhisattva is someone who
dedicates himself to developing and acquiring spiritual
qualities which will better enable him to help others,
and he does this by—among other things—devoting
himself to the selfless service of others, and the
term ‘selfless service’ here is most important,
as such a person would not look for or expect recognition
for doing what he does; he would not make a show,
but would do good merely because he sees it as the
only thing for him to do; at that stage, he has gone
beyond choosing between good and evil, and does good
with an undivided mind full of love and compassion.
A person becomes a Bodhisattva not by mere talk about
compassion and ‘saving all beings’, by
having spots burned on his head or by taking ‘Bodhisattva
precepts’, but by serving others and showing
compassion towards them. Moreover, such a person would
never think of himself as a Bodhisattva, and would
not even know that he/she is one. It is only upon
complete enlightenment and the attainment of Buddhahood
when, looking back, that person sees that he has been
a Bodhisattva before.
We must be very careful, therefore, when
talking about compassion and Bodhisattvas, lest we
injure ourselves spiritually and set ourselves back
by casual and thoughtless words. |