Behind The Mask ~ KALI YUGA
As an explanation
for the condition of the world right now, many Buddhists
are prone to saying: "Oh well, it’s the
Kali Yuga now; what else can you expect?", and
with this they comfort themselves and go back to sleep.
"KALI YUGA’ is a Sanskrit
term meaning ‘Dark Age’, and signifies
a period when Dharma, in the sense of righteousness,
declines and all kinds of corruption flourish. Do
we see such a state right now? It is a matter of opinion,
of course, because while we cannot deny that corruption,
terrorism and injustice are rampant now—maybe
more than ever before, by reason of our vastly-increased
capacity for more-or-less anything—at the same
time, in some ways, the world is much better now than
it was, and there are many people who live responsibly
and caringly; if there were not such people, we would
not have organizations like Amnesty International,
Greenpeace, or the environmental movement—though
these organizations exist and are necessary only because
of the situation. The picture is not totally black,
as some people appear to think. And who would return
to ‘the good old days’, even supposing
they could? They were not as good as we like to think
they were; time has dulled the memories of the things
from those days that were not good, and we tend to
look back through rose-colored spectacles.
‘Kali Yuga’ is frequently translated
as ‘The Dharma-Ending Age’, so it is necessary
to point out the error of this, for the purpose of
clarification. We must be careful what we say, lest
in repeating things that we do not fully understand,
we limit ourselves needlessly. I object to this translation
because Dharma, in the sense of Reality—or how
things are, which the Buddha perceived and understood
beneath the Bodhi-tree, rather than invented or formulated
Himself—has no beginning and therefore will
not end. What will come to an end and disappear, because
it did have a beginning, is Buddha-Dharma, or the
Teachings of the Buddha—His attempt to point
out what He had found. As time goes by, Buddha-Dharma
becomes more and more obscured by interpretation,
translation, misunderstanding and superstition. Nor
is this surprising, but quite in accordance with what
the Buddha said about the universal law of Impermanence:
everything changes. So, the corruption and the decline
itself, being part of reality, is also Dharma, is
it not? This does not mean, however, that we should
accept things complacently, and do nothing to try
to change things. The Buddha’s Way is one of
strenuous effort to overcome the negative things in
our lives and to acquire and cultivate the good; it
is not a way of saying: "Well, that’s just
how things are; I can’t do anything to change
it", for it is not true that we can do nothing
to change things; in fact, it is just the opposite:
that we cannot not change things, because all the
time, moment by moment, merely by being alive, we
are doing things—consciously or unconsciously—to
change things, by adding drop after drop to the ocean
of cause-and-effect that is our world. We are involved
and responsible, whether we know it or not.
So, Kali Yuga is something that we are all
responsible for, we are all creating it; it comes
from our minds and appears in the world around us.
And if we create it, we can, with a little thought
and care, reverse the process—or at least, put
the brakes on it somewhat. |