The Tale of Siddhi and Buddhi: A Short Rendition
The Jains, like the Buddhists, have many popular morality tales. While entertaining, they also relate some aspect of Jain doctrine. Some are adaptations of traditional Hindu and Buddhist tales, giving them a Jain slant, some are stories of their own. One which I find interesting and well thought out is the story of Siddhi and Buddhi.
Siddhi and Buddhi were both very poor women. They had to beg and do the kind of work which no one else wanted to do. They barely survived, but they were the best of friends, helping each other as much as they could.
One day, Buddhi went to a temple and started to have daily devotions to its deity. After weeks and months of piety, the god appeared to her. He was well pleased by her loving devotion and told her to ask for any boon she wanted. Buddhi said, “I want to be rich.” The god said, “Fine, come back here every day, and under my statue, you will find a coin.” Buddhi did as the god asked, and slowly grew rich, very, very rich. She who used to beg began to have servants doing everything for her, and she lived like a queen.
Siddhi saw the fortune of her friend, and was jealous. She went to Buddhi one day, and asked how she had gained such fortune. Buddhi, not knowing what was in the heart of her former friend, told her. Siddhi went to the temple, and began to follow the example of Buddhi, giving devotion to the god. Eventually he was pleased with Siddhi and came to her, granting her a boon. Siddhi told the god, “I want twice as much as what you have given Buddhi.” And so it was granted.
Buddhi noticed Siddhi’s change of fortune. Instead of being satisfied with her own wealth, she grew jealous of Siddhi’s greater fortune. She could have been satisfied, for she had more than anyone should ever want, but she wanted more, wanted to best her former friend. So she went back to the temple, and started her devotions once again. Eventually the god comes and asks, once again, what she wants for a boon. “I want to be given twice as much as you gave Siddhi,” was her reply.
This went on for sometime, with Buddhi and Siddhi trying to outdo each other. Siddhi, however, grew tired of the struggle. She knew that every time she asks for something, Buddhi would come back and double it. She decided, in her last visit to the god, to do something different. She thought of a way to stop the contest and to make sure she came out on top, which meant, she would have to ask something which, if Buddhi asked for twice as much, Buddhi would come out on the bottom. Finally, she figured out what she will ask: to be made blind in one of her eyes.
Buddhi, seeing Siddhi coming out from the temple, knew that Siddhi had asked for her boon, and so went to the temple and sought, once again, for a boon of her own. Once again, the god came to her and told her to ask for any boon she should want. Buddhi once again asked to be given twice what Siddhi asked for. Siddhi’s trap worked: Buddhi became blind. Buddhi, having been unsatisfied by her good fortune, was blindly led down the path of greed, until, at last, the spiritual blindness which lay behind the greed became manifest even in the flesh.
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Do the Buddhists have a voilent history? Look at the history of Christains and Muslims. Do Buddhists have this violent streak?
In times of war
Give rise in yourself to the mind of compassion,
Helping living beings
Abandon the will to fight.
Even if thieves carve you limb from limb with a double-handed saw, if you make your mind hostile you are not following my teaching.
A Vietnam veteran was overheard rebuking the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, about his unswerving dedication to non-violence.
“You’re a fool,” said the veteran – “what if someone had wiped out all the Buddhists in the world and you were the last one left. Would you not try to kill the person who was trying to kill you, and in doing so save Buddhism?!”
Thich Nhat Hanh answered patiently “It would be better to let him kill me. If there is any truth to Buddhism and the Dharma it will not disappear from the face of the earth, but will reappear when seekers of truth are ready to rediscover it.
“In killing I would be betraying and abandoning the very teachings I would be seeking to preserve. So it would be better to let him kill me and remain true to the spirit of the Dharma.”
Yes, there is a lot of fighting and violence in Buddhist history. In tibet, rival monasteries had armed guards shooting at rivals! That is just one example. Then the Zen Buddhists in Japan helped support Japan in WWII. Not all went this way, but there is considerable amount of Buddhist violence in history.
Cindy, investigate the history of the Therevada in Sri Lanka. The bhikkus there are the chief proponents of Sinhales nationalism and the inspirers of persecution of the Tamils.
It’s man and religion. Can my violence conquer your’s? That is the only thing that keeps the peace. If countries were not so fearful that they could be blown into extinction, we would have more and more wars. Wars are fought sometimes for ideological reasons, sometimes political reasons, and even economic reasons. But it seems like we are gearing up for some type of religious war. Seems like people want this or something. When ideologues can only view things through their narrow lense. What can we gain as a nation? What else can we expect to happen? I personally feel that there is a lot of wisdom in reading Scripture. I also personally feel that Christ dying on the cross for us, by example, should cause people to reflect on why he did that. I am wondering if the message or even to some degree what the message is regarding to Christianity. If Jesus really loved us, he wanted us to be preserved. He wanted us to go on. I am really struggling lately to see religion and how it’s being used in a positive light. It’s being used to control people and to gain a political agenda.
There are many factors; on the one hand, many (most) of the great religious traditions, officially, are pro-peace building; however, they also try to be prudential in the world situation. How they do so sometimes can be perverted from defense to offense. Hahn, for example, though a pacifist (and of the kind I stand for) also does not oppose the military. He thinks it has a valuable role in society, if it is given the proper guidelines — to be used for defense and, when not active in defense, to help with all kinds of infrastructure work (like bridge-building).
The problem again, is when it is perverted, and just defense is used to justify things which are not just or defensive.
Interestingly enough, Jains, who are the ones who transmitted the story this is based upon, is one of the most exclusive groups as it comes to non-violence.
Thank you digbydolben. I will do that.
The thing is, man can never be non-violent. There will always be violence. I have to wonder if it’s not in our general make up. We love violence. We can try and pretend that we don’t. We can try and pretend that through relgion, we can attain some non-violent method of existence. Yet, it’s just not true. It’s not true to our nature. Existing in harmony with nature? ha! I would like to believe it to be possible.
Look around you though? Everyday we argue and engage one another in debates on how the world should be. What should be. How man should behave. I’m right! You’re wrong! Yada yada yada. The Jew thinks he’s above the Catholic. The Catholic thinks he’s above the Protestant, the Protestant thinks he’s above the Muslim. The Muslim thinks he’s above the rest. It’s a viscious circle. For what? Then you have the politicians who aim to control us. How? Through what drives Americans. Religion. You’ve got Beck and his restoring honor garbage. All those people showing up and for what? To have an idiot like Beck talk to them about God? What is the one thing that fuels people? Fear and religion. These people know what they are doing.
What’s really scary is who may take their place one day.(The Becks of the world) We are scary beings we are.
Then you have the deep thinkers. The one’s who will only vote if you are for or against abortion. Nothing else matters. Who cares if you are qualified to run the country. Who cares if you are trigger happy or may be one that actually wants the Apocalypse to happen now. For man it’s all conquest, wars, death while there are still people in our world that starve to death.
I wish I could believe in man’s goodness. I just fear it’s not really there for most. The best thing to hear though. Is when someone speaks of themselves and their group of like minded people as the ‘true Americans’ or the ‘true Christians’. I just need to understand what are those? What do those really look like?
Cindy,
I would recommend the book, “Religions for Peace” by Cardinal Arinze if you can find it. It is a good work on the issue of religion, violence and peace.
As for the Jains, they are the ones known to “never harm a fly.” It is an extreme asceticism, though the Buddha thought it was too extreme
Henry,
Do you think the Universe is self regulated?
I am (slowly) preparing for a series of posts which I think might show my view of the universe, it’s “self regulation” — as such, because my views are complex, I will suggest waiting for my answer there.