On 'Escapism'
Suppose I told you the following story about a certain Mr X. One moonlit night, when Mr X's wife and little boy were buried in the abyss of dreamless sleep, he got up from his royal bed, and slithered out of the palace into the mango groves nearby. He travelled on foot for a week until he reached the cool foothills of the Himalayas, set up a small hermitage for himself and lived there in silent meditation for the next ten years of his life.
Question time : What would we ('we' = 'Western, liberal, politically-correct, intellectuals') say about such a man?
An escapist, a philanderer, a Utopian, a misognyist, a coward, a fool?
Perhaps.
Anyway, I sometimes wonder how the Buddha (=Mr. X) got away so easily.
(Which brings me to another question. Some women have re-written the epic, the Ramayana, from Sita's 'point of view'. Why has no woman re-written the history of early Buddhism from Yasodhara's 'point of view'? Why accept the traditional hagiography of the Buddha's valiant rejection of the world and his heroic trail-blazing into Nirvana as the final world on the topic?)
posted by The Transparent Ironist @ 9:58 am
7 Comments:
At 12.6.05,
Anonymous said…
i am sure there will be criticisms on Siddartha. But while Ram was more active in his mis-treatment of Sita. Siddartha was more passive as in he just abandoned them.
Objectively, Yashoddhara was left in the palace and had recourse to physical comfort at least. So I am sure women have taken up Sita's cudgels first but would soon move to S. But it just might have been a case of 'good riddance' in case of Y. Renouncement sounds so much better than abandonment anyway.
With Buddhism acquiring cult status among certain academic types I wonder who would take it on herself to do the rewriting...
Moreover if rewriting is on the agenda, i am afraid none of the prophets, religions have ever been fair to women.
Take Adam and eve and God's announcement of punishment to Eve that she would give birth is sorrow and will forever be under the domination of men. Now why is the man an agent of punishment for the women and not equally culpable for original sin?
There's too much rewriting on anyone's plate...But thats good, isn't it?
At 12.6.05,
The Transparent Ironist said…
But of course, other religions don't have a good track-record in this matter. Indeed, if I were asked to give a 'reductionist' definition of religion, I would say that religion is Nothing-But the carefully constructed facade to hide the perennial masculine impulse to find some transcendental sanction/legitimatization for brutalising women in some way or the other.
However. However, the reason why I specifically brought up Buddhism in this post is because Buddhism is widely regarded as being different from other religions in certain respects (as being, for example, 'tolerant' and 'inclusive'). Such Buddha-fans would do well to remember the advice given by Buddha to one of his disciples : 'A man should rather go to a serpent than be with a woman.'
At 12.6.05,
Anonymous said…
but a woman would rather be with a serpent than a man. But it would be difficult to tell the difference.
At 12.6.05,
The Transparent Ironist said…
It would be difficult to tell the difference because there is none.
At 12.6.05,
Anonymous said…
Do u mean in existence or with the woman?.....(another person and not the previous one)
At 12.6.05,
The Transparent Ironist said…
The two words 'man' and 'serpent' are synonyms.
At 13.6.05,
Anonymous said…
A version of when Siddartha came back after becoming the Buddha (may or may not be factually true: the person who gave it to me is not to be trusted on being factually true) -
After twelve years, when he was enlightened, the first thing he did was to come back to his palace to apologize to his father, to his wife, to his son who must be now twelve years of age. He was aware that they would be angry.
And the first thing his wife said to him was, "I can see that you are transformed. These twelve years were a great suffering, but not because you had gone; I suffered because you did not tell me. If you had simply told me that you were going to seek the truth, do you think I would have prevented you? You have insulted me very badly. This is the wound that I have been carrying for twelve years. I also belong to the warrior caste--do you think I am that weak that I would have cried and screamed and stopped you?
"All these twelve years my only suffering was that you did not trust me. I would have allowed you, I would have given you a send-off, I would have come up to the chariot. First I want to ask the only question that has been in my mind for all these twelve years, which is that whatever you have attained... and it certainly seems you have attained something.
"You are no longer the same person who left this palace; you radiate a different light, your presence is totally new and fresh, your eyes are as pure and clear as a cloudless sky. You have become so beautiful... you were always beautiful, but this beauty seems to be not of this world. Some grace from the beyond has descended on you. My question is that whatever you have attained, was it not possible to attain it here in this palace? Can the palace prevent the truth?"
Gautam Buddha agreed: "I could have attained it here but I had no idea at that moment. Now I can say that I could have attained it here in this palace; there was no need to go to the mountains, there was no need to go anywhere. I had to go inside, and that could have happened anywhere. This palace was as good as any other place, but NOW I can say that. At that moment I had no idea."
"So you have to forgive me, because it is not that I did not trust you or your courage. In fact, I was doubtful of myself: if I had seen you wake up and if I had seen the child, I may have started wondering, 'What am I doing, leaving my beautiful wife, whose total love, whose total devotion is for me. And leaving my one-day-old child... if I am to leave him then why did I give birth to him? I am escaping from my responsibilities."
"If my old father had awakened, it would have become impossible for me. It was not that I did not trust you; it was really that I did not trust myself. I knew that there was a wavering; I was not total in renouncing. A part of me was saying, 'What are you doing?'--and a part of me was saying, 'This is the time to do it. If you don't do it now it will become more and more difficult. Your father is preparing to crown you. Once you are crowned as king, it will be more difficult.'"
"Forgive me."
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