BODHISATTVA NEVER DISPARAGING CHAPTER XX

This particular chapter is written quite differently to the others in the Lotus Sutra .The scene is set in any village town or city that we have known.The Buddha speaks of everyday occurrences that we can relate to in some ways in our lives. It is told in story form but make no mistake this story has great importance and is there to help us to know how we should conduct our lives and our everyday dealings with people. When you first read it you may find it hard to except  but again when you study it deeply it has many implications of how we should view and deal with people in our everyday lives .

      

   The example of Bodhisattva never disparaging appears to be almost impossible to emulate but again the Buddha gave this story to explain the workings of the law and how to be totally in rhythm with it .It is the story of a monk who goes around in his travels meeting people and declaring that he must revere and not slander them because they will some day become Buddhas .This was met at times with great dismay and even great hostility and physical threats and harm. But all the while he carried on respectfully and would not slight them not getting angry or hostile in spite of being under pressure to retaliate. A very hard state of mind to be in but one the Buddha considered important enough to preach in order for us to achieve enlightenment. I thought it was a quaint tale of bye gone days but really it was the Buddha telling us how we should behave in any hostile or difficult situation with our fellow man.This is for a number of reasons. The important point was that he did not return these actions with anger or violence.When we are confronted by obnoxious behaviour from others our first response is to return in anger, feeling fully justified. But if we stop to think if we do return the behaviour we are performing an incorrect action or speech ourselves, we are making a bad cause which will in the end perpetuate the behaviour of those who are doing it .If they are frightened of us that could stop them but one will attract a similar experience and we will have to start all over again to do the correct action next time.This explains why we attract and repeat similar experiences in our lives.However Bodhisattva never disparaging did go away,  if he stayed around he would have condoned their behaviour and would be allowing them to make a bad cause further.

The Buddha explained those who had slandered and was violent towards Bodhisattva not disparaging had destined themselves to full into hell situations life after lifetime never ever meeting the Buddha,s teachings again for aeons. But he said that because of their conduct and what they eventually would experience  in the end  they would come to respect the law. If you really believe in cause and effect you know you have attracted that situation but usually the way you want to react to it is the very cause in your character that attracted it into your life in the first place.If you view life from the standpoint that everything happens because of cause and effect you will understand you can not attract any behaviour or experience unless you made the cause in the first place.

      This was explained in the second chapter when it was shown that every moment is the some total of 3000 worlds.Within that number is the inherent cause and the manifest effect. These causes are stored deep into our subconscious that is why just positive thinking and determination to do good and be loving does not work . When the time is right the manifest cause or relationship in the environment will trigger off what you inherently believe to be the correct action . It is like trying to steer the Titanic from the iceberg at the last minute .The engines and the rate of knots was set in motion way back. So really you need to purify your life everyday in order to be able to do the right action the moment it is triggered. If you just use your conscious mind to do this it is like trying to lift a chair while you are sitting on it. You need to develop a higher consciousness that is above the everyday way of looking at things. Most people make actions from emotion .This fact frightens people because they do not like to think they are not in control . But emotion comes from deep down within and it is there that one needs to start purifying ones life. Most of what we believe has a control on our emotions. Take the emotion of fear. If we have fear, it will make us act in a irrational way but if we are thinking clearly we can do the correct action that will save us .So we need to address our fears and also our attractions because from these areas stem our emotions . Bodhisattva never disparaging chapter has many interesting lessons .He told all people that he must respect and revere them as they will some day become Buddhas.That also means we will all need to respect ourselves as we also will become enlightened and and will become Buddhas.