PERCHED ATOP A MOUNTAIN is the kuṭi Bhikkhu resides in at the time of this writing. From here, the mudflats of the lake below are clearly visible. A herd of about 75 water buffaloes are presently grazing. Afraid to wade into the lake, for the crocodile that lives in it keeps bobbing up and submerging again, some buffaloes are resting in small puddles. Bhikkhu sees this herd of animals as a phalanx of Māra’s troops. But to their owner, this buffalo herd is a source of prosperity. These buffaloes aren’t milked. The calves are allowed to drink that milk so the calf gains weight faster; only to be slaughtered for meat when grown. Alas, how myriads of people would plunge into hell realms because of this flock of animals! How many generations must have already plummeted to the infernal realms? How many more generations will be hauled off to hell? Beware! The animal kingdom is but agents of Māra, no less, who will yank you into the fourfold hell.

Also, you might have seen in society, there are some people whose compassion for animals goes deep. Loves them dearly. Suppose they made a living driving a bullock cart. The bull would be pulling the load. There are folks who, upon returning home in the evening, rub oil on the animal’s knees. When lumbering up a hill, carrying a heavy load, there are folks who push the cart with their own strength to lend the animal a helping hand. There are those who give the animal a morsel of food from their plate. Animal cruelty does apply to such folks, too. But since their actions are concomitant with compassion and loving-kindness, the severity of the karma-result wouldn’t be as great. Even so, it’s best you keep your distance from animals.

Not only at the hands of humans does cruelty to beings take place. Animals inflict cruelty on animals, too. Also, peta-ghosts inflict cruelty on peta-ghosts. Nonhumans cause cruelty to nonhumans. Even devas inflict mental cruelty on devas. It is little wonder that beings whose greed (rāga), hatred (dosa), and delusion (moha) aren’t attenuated inflict cruelty on one another. An instance of cruelty taking place at the hands of nonhumans is recounted here for your edification.

A bhikkhu was residing in a forest hermitage in the north-central province when, being in a state of samādhi at about ten o’clock one night, he saw, towards the rear of the kuṭi, the form of a lesser deva clad in a white skirt and blouse. She had the appearance of a woman in her mid-forties. Perhaps she might have even been a peta-ghost[1] of the superior strain of petas―the type that can receive merit passed on by others. At any rate, she was a being with merit. Even so, her skin was of a swarthy complexion, from which it could be surmised that anger was a trait associated with her character. Manifesting a most sedate bearing, at the far end of the kuṭi she remained, gazing at the bhikkhu. Feasting her eyes on the monk, she was getting some enjoyment. 

You might have seen, there are young, middle-aged, and elderly male as well as female lay devotees who have a predilection for the deportment and demeanour of Buddhist monks, find their bearing agreeable, and derive some sort of innocent enjoyment and relish by beholding their manner. In her previous life, she could well have been a middle-aged female lay devotee who died with a clinging of that sort. In the present life, having taken rebirth as a superior peta or an inferior deva, whichever it may be, she abides in the monastery premises itself, clinging on to monks.

Dressed in plain white, very restrained she was, gazing from afar inside the kuṭi. Greed or hatred was nowhere to be seen in her mien. As she was looking at the monk peacefully like this, quite close to her, across her line of sight ambled another peta-ghost. It was a thin, skinny peta. As this peta walked in front of that white-clad female peta gazing at the monk, it broke her trance. Instantly, she swung into action. Have you ever seen in households the wife getting furiously angry when the husband commits a terrible wrong? Enraged, the wife would strike the husband, her fists rapidly pummelling at his chest. Women, in a sudden surge of violent emotion, mostly hit another person this way. The same way, this female peta battered the peta who strolled across her line of sight, breaking her attention. When the enjoyment she desired was interrupted, instantaneously, anger arose. Impetuously giving vent to that anger, [she] beat that peta-ghost an awful lot. With this, they both disappeared. To be sure, though, that peta took a terrible beating at the hands of the female peta clad in white.

Much as they were referred to as peta-ghosts, in their previous lives they were male and female lay devotees who were habitués of forest hermitages and monasteries. Even so, having harboured lustful desire (chanda-rāga) for other things they liked more than the merit-producing activities they performed, it may well be that they took rebirth as petas of a superior type lingering near forest hermitages and monasteries. Revered-you would do well to closely study these oddities inhabiting the fourfold hell. If you pay heed to these nonhuman characters thus, if you try and relate the cause-and-effect phenomena, you could correct your faults, if any.

Buddhist monks who tread this path of the Dhamma, whether they’re of the forest hermitage or the village monastery, purely due to the practice of Dhamma they have set in motion through their lives, are very likeable. Any venerable bhikkhu practising the path of moral virtue (sīla), mental concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā) with boundless faith and confidence in the Buddha is pleasing to the eye. The manner, the deportment, is restrained. Monks who are every bit as alabaster-skinned and radiant as deities are there in present society. This is something that happens due to a karma-result of wholesome karma. Therefore, it is to show deference towards the qualities of moral virtue, mental concentration and wisdom of those Venerables, to aspire to those qualities, and to let those qualities resonate with you that revered-devotees must always endeavour. 

Instead, if you harboured a lustful desire for the visage, the voice, the geniality of those Venerables, only suffering would result. It is to delight in learning some Dhamma that you must visit a monk. It is to delight in treading the path of almsgiving (dāna), moral precepts (sīla), and meditation (bhāvanā) that you must go to the monastery. Don’t allow your mind to create a lustful desire for other sights, sounds, smells, and touches instead. Were that to happen, it would be as if going to hospital for treatment for an illness and coming home with a more dangerous disease than the one before. Even the above two peta-ghosts were ones who, in their previous life, having frequented the monastery or the forest hermitage, had created lustful desire not for what was necessary but for unnecessary things fraught with danger. Due to that same hankering, in the present life they find enjoyment, gazing at bhikkhus.

It is to apprise you of the acts of cruelty taking place in the nonhuman world that Bhikkhu mentioned this story. Bear in mind that in the peta realm, since lust, hatred and delusion are excessive in its inhabitants, acts of cruelty are inordinately high. Imagine the intense hatred that was lurking in the mind of the above female peta, belied by her plain white garb. It is due to lust that this hatred fulminates. Both these things arise simply due to delusion. The severity of lust and hatred was what manifested in her rapid beating.

Be afraid of the fate that befalls you if you fail to apply the correct thing in the correct manner. The above tendency is what Buddha described as saddhā that hasn’t taken root―faith and confidence melded with delusion. This tendency may be ubiquitous in present society. Only due to the absence of perceptions of impermanence (anicca saññā) does such lustful desire for form (rūpa) develop. Both clergy and laity would do well to consider this an issue one should ponder hard about. In as complex a society as today’s, perceptions of impermanence developing is indeed a rarity. The world carries on, placing more and more value on form. If one were to ask for another name for pleasure, the wider world’s answer would be a ‘form,’ to be sure. To receive an answer that “extinction (nirodha) of form is where happiness lies” would indeed be a scarce occurrence.

Now let’s revert to the topic of cruelties. Speaking of acts of cruelty, the severity of the unwholesome karma is greater in cruelties humans inflict upon fellow humans. One receives a human life, whatever its inadequacies may be, purely owing to wholesome karma performed in the previous life. The human life one receives particularly as a Buddhist practitioner at a time where a buddha’s dispensation is existent, like in the present, is indeed a true miracle. It is by having risen above a fourfold hell of enormous proportions that one gets this human life. They manage to avoid falling into the fourfold hell only because the greed, hatred and delusion that cause rebirth in the fourfold hell are somewhat attenuated. Therefore, inflicting cruelty on a human being produces a more severe unwholesome karma than does inflicting cruelty on an animal; for it is a human being with past merits, whose ability to rise above the fourfold hell was very much intact, that you are inflicting cruelty upon.

Whichever section of society one looks at, only a steady increase in the cruelties humans inflict on humans is apparent. Why cruelty to other people occurs at your hands is purely because of trying to chase the fallacy, which ignorance has begot, that the world is pleasurable. Inflicting cruelty takes the form of a source of income, an occupation, a promotion opportunity, a cost saving, an inferiority complex, a means of protection. In short, you’re inflicting cruelty on others for the sake of your survival. Perhaps because the unwholesome karma of humans being born in the present day are too numerous, inflicting cruelty as well as being subjected to cruelty have become part and parcel of life.

Here, not only does beating, injuring, and suchlike bodily cruelties count as cruelty, but also inflicting mental cruelty will occasion you highly potent unwholesome karma. Take the country’s public transport system, for instance. How copious an amount of cruelty to people occurs at the hands of the conductor and the driver on a given day. Due to overloading the bus, breakneck speed, going frustratingly slow, verbally abusing the passengers. Why does this happen? ―to earn more, to make the bus owner happy at the day’s end, to take home a few extra bucks for the welfare of himself or his brood. For one’s own happiness, others suffer distress. 

It’s as if these things are inextricably interwoven with the bonds of Māra. Only when you provide the bus owner with income will your job be protected. As is the case in every field. A prison, a school, a university, a hospital, the security apparatus, administrative departments, domestic servants, every such instance is caught in the above predicament. These are not situations that can be ameliorated or mitigated. Only a steady increase will there be in these things, day after day. Here, revered-you must notice the manner in which, as one experiences a karma-result (vipāka) of unwholesome karma, another engenders [new] unwholesome karma. The ones being subjected to cruelty in the present are none other than those who had inflicted cruelty on others in previous lives. So, revered-you, don’t go to correct these things, for it would be a fool’s errand.

At the outset of this writing, [in a previous essay,] it was recounted how Buddha explained to Subha the householder that, if one were born congenitally ill in this human life or lived ever plagued by illness, its cause would be inflicting cruelty on beings in the previous life. Look around; today, every human is suffering from disease. Infirmaries are swarming with patients. Epidemics break out. It is but the effect, and the cause, of the cruelties inflicted on beings in past lives that we’re thus witnessing. As more and more cruelty to beings occurs at the hands of humans, a greater incidence of diseases, as well as the sick, looms large in the world. These are laws of nature, and are inexorable. What the adroit must do is endeavour, with insightful understanding, to extricate themselves from the world.

If you’re someone enjoying excellent health and free of illnesses, then, purely out of habit from the round of rebirths, even in this life you’d be someone not enamoured with causing cruelties to beings. You’d be someone without so much as a proclivity for inflicting cruelty on an animal, much less a human being. There are enough such people in society. Regardless of race and religion, while properly relating the cause-and-effect phenomena to this physical and psychological well-being that good health bestows upon you, and having strengthened those worthy qualities more and more, without causing cruelty to others, always try to be a human being whose moral virtue is perfectly intact. 

As you become consummate in moral conduct, a samādhi that can discern the above laws of nature will burgeon in you. You shouldn’t be in a hurry to reach that state. Because, as you become perfect in moral conduct, with self-restraint of the senses having developed spontaneously without being made to happen, unbeknownst to the world, you will set about contemplating the world.

When you’re contemplating, care should be taken to contemplate these things while not succumbing to the speculative view prevalent in society. A case in point is the contentious issue of vegetarianism or veganism versus eating meat that polarizes society in the name of compassion for animals. In this bone of contention, those revered-people who have failed to correctly relate the cause-and-effect phenomena, while showing compassion for animals, breed hatred against humans. Though the devotees would offer as alms a meat dish in a manner permitted for the Saṅgha, we hear some folks even casting aspersions on the monks consuming it with due reflection. Therefore, never incline towards acts that are in defiance of Buddha’s teachings. Were it to be the case, you could end up being someone who, in the name of Dhamma, practises false dhamma (adhamma). A real tragedy that would be. We must all consider that, in this infinitesimal lifespan, we are sorely lacking in what we know. Then, with humility, we could correctly apply to our lives the Dhamma set out by the Buddha, whose insightful knowledge transcended the all-encompassing world. So, you singly abstain from inflicting cruelty on beings. You alone will be the one to experience its result: good health. 

The nature of the world is impermanence. The nature of impermanence is ‘velocity.’ If you are to insightfully penetrate the world, which ever so rapidly becomes impermanent, you have to be devoid of rapidity. If you were also rapid, the world would become complicated for you. Think of it this way: if you wanted to observe how a machine running speedily worked, you’d have to calmly gaze steadily at it. Then you could find out how the machine worked as well as its faults. But if you hastened, you wouldn’t be able to do it. Perhaps in your haste, you might do yourself injury. Much in the same way, you, too, leisurely observe the two things that are mind and matter (nāma-rūpa), known as the ‘world,’ and the rapidity at which they become impermanent.

Just as you observe yourself, so too, observe others. Observe animals as well. Behold the form, made out of the four elements, as well as the mind and mental concomitants, which come into being centred around form. Do you see a difference? To be sure, a small difference does exist as ‘oneself,’ ‘others,’ and ‘animals.’ This distinctness is the difference in consciousness (viññāna)―the consciousness, which comes into being due to volition (cetanā). It is only due to your inability to skilfully tackle, in keeping with the Dhamma, a single consciousness originating in yourself that this difference arises. This slight difference is what assorts beings into fortunate or unfortunate destinations of rebirth. Having or not having moral virtue alone is what caused this difference to materialize. Understanding this phenomenon sensibly, abide by moral precepts. If you are to become one who has escaped the fourfold hell, then fulfil those requisite qualities.

Good health is indeed sine qua non; for if you fall ill, how ever are you going to practise the moral precepts at least in this life? So, revered-you, being cognizant of the suffering of the fourfold hell and seeking to extricate yourself from it, to take solace in a life blessed with good health until then, without thinking of others’ actions, singly refrain from inflicting cruelty on beings. Being ever mindful that the physical and mental well-being a thriving deva or human in the best of health and prosperity receives, impermanent as it may be, is something that a moral precept was pregnant with, be consummate in moral precepts. Piercing the gloom of suffering of the unfortunate destinations that lies hidden in immorality, revered-you, be ingenious enough to be bathed in the light of moral virtue.

[1] A peta is an unhappy ghost wandering in vain, hopelessly in search of sensual fulfilment.