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BuddhaOld age was indeed cruel. But the story of the BuddhaБЂ™s last years dwells less on the aesthetic disaster of aging than on the vulnerability of the old. Ambitious young men rise up against their elders, sons kill their own fathers. In this final phase of the BuddhaБЂ™s life, the texts dwell on the terror of a world where all sense of sacredness is lost. Egotism reigns supreme; envy, hatred, greed and ambition are unmitigated by compassion and loving-kindness. People who stand in the way of a manБЂ™s craving are ruthlessly eliminated. All decency and respect have disappeared. By stressing the dangers that the Buddha had tried to counter for nearly fifty years, the scriptures force us to confront the ruthlessness and violence of the society against which he had launched his campaign of selflessness and loving-kindness. Not even the Sangha was immune from this profane spirit. Eight years earlier, the Order had once again been threatened by schism and had been implicated in a plot to kill King Bimbisara, another old man, who had been the BuddhaБЂ™s devoted follower for thirty-seven years ...» |
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