The Making of A Monk

Friday Gurgaon
Dr. Rajesh Bhola
India
Nov 30, 2012

  Human transformation does not mean that a person suddenly takes to the intellectual acceptance of a set of beliefs. This sudden transformation of human beings occurs when a person deeply sees the state of life, and decides to do something about it.   

As the legend goes, after the war when Emperor Ashoka ventured out to the city, all he could see were burnt houses and scattered corpses. This sight made him sick, and he cried the famous monologue: ‘What have I done? If this is  victory, what is defeat then? Is this justice or injustice? Is it gallantry or a rout? Is it valour to kill innocent children and women? Do I do it to widen the empire and for prosperity, or to destroy the other’s kingdom and splendour? One has lost her husband, someone else a father, someone a child, someone an unborn infant.... What’s this debris of corpses? Are these marks of victory or defeat? Are these vultures, crows, eagles the messengers of death or evil?’

Soon after the war he was a transformed person – he became a monk. He banned hunting, created many veterinary clinics, and eliminated meat eating on holidays. The Mauryan Empire under Ashoka is described as “one of the very few instances in world history of a government treating its animals as citizens, as deserving of its protection as the human residents”. H.G Wells wrote of Ashoka: “In the history of the world there have been thousands of kings and emperors. They shone for a brief moment, and as quickly disappeared. But Ashoka shines and shines brightly like a bright star, even unto this day.”

There is another story of transformation, of a bandit known as Angulimala. He was feared by everyone, making many people flee their homes. He wore a necklace upon which he strung a finger from each of the people he killed. The Buddha went to meet Angulimala. The bandit was struck by the audacity of the monk. Although his habit was to kill, he was conditioned to kill people who either fought him, or who were frightened of him. This monk was not behaving in the accustomed manner. Angulimala stopped for a moment. This interruption in the usual flow of conditioned behaviour is the crucial gap that is necessary if some new enlightenment is to occur. There has to be a chink for the light to enter. The monk’s unflustered demeanour was unsettling Angulimala. He decided to try to assert himself to this unarmed monk. He ordered Buddha to stop. The Buddha then said a remarkable thing. He said ‘Angulimala, I have stopped. Now it is your turn to stop harming living beings.’ Real weapons had never managed to pass Angulimala’s shield and armour. The Buddha’s words, however, pierced his psychological defences.  Angulimala changed his ways, and vowed to cease his life as a brigand. He joined the Buddhist order and became a monk.

A transformation does not mean that the old conditioning disappears from the person’s mind immediately. Even an enlightened person is not free from conditioning. Angulimala must have continued to feel impulses to harm, for many months and years after his encounter with the Buddha. However, now, each time he would have paused. He would have decided whether to act or not act on an impulse that had arisen. This pause, this gap, this chink through which new light may shine, offers the doorway to enlightenment. 

The harm we do flows from our conditioning. Most of it is done before we even realise what is happening. We just get carried away. Moving along in our not seeing way,  we think we have to do the things we do, even when we know perfectly well that they are harmful. Out of our fears and cravings we build an identity for ourselves. That identity may not be as dramatic as that of Angulimala, but it becomes just as coercive. Most of us feel trapped in our lives. What is necessary is to stop a while. When we stop acting like a machine, we can truly see what we are doing, and everything can change. The enlightened person and the destructive person are not fundamentally different in nature. It is just that the destructive person has not yet realised that it is possible to stop. An enlightened person can help such a person, who is out of control, to discover his potential for a more worthwhile life.

Dr. Rajesh Bhola is President of Spastic Society of Gurgaon and is working for the cause of children with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple disabilities for more than 20 years.