The Aeon of Strife ? 2

Ah, now the following excerpts from The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones may or may not be of interest to you, and even if one does have an interest in Buddhism and / or Dzogchen, I’d say the Text as-it-stands can seem quite shocking in some senses as it unapologetically points to the apparent “Futility of Life” as a “Citizen of Samsara” eh ?

So without further ado, here comes the “bad news” (especially for all you Materialists “out there”) although I’d say it is meant as a “wake up call” for all of us with the “ears to hear” eh ? 😉

From : The Introduction (Page 8)

The present age is known as the Degenerate Age [1] or the age of residues, for it retains only residues of the qualities and perfections of the great golden age of the distant past. People these days turn their backs on the teachings of the Buddha, and there are only a very few great beings who really live according to the Dharma. Everyone is desperately thirsting for happiness, but the prevailing views and lifestyles of our times lead only to more suffering.

Footnote [1] : Degenerate Age (Tib. snyigs-dus), equivalent to the Sanskrit Kaliyuga: the “age of debris” or dark age, in which all that remains of the perfections of the golden age of the distant past are degenerated traces. In particular, this age is characterized by five degenerations (snyigs-ma lnga ): shortening of life span, degeneration of the environment, degeneration of the views of beings, decline of their faculties, and increase of negative emotions. Further explanations are given in the commentary on Verse Five.

Oh, I have highlighted the words increase of negative emotions because you probably could agree that it really does seem like a plausible explanation for recent “Global Events” eh ? 🧐

Continuing with Verse Five :

Alas for people in this age of residues !
The mind’s wholesome core of truth has withered,
And people live deceitfully,
So their thoughts are warped, their speech is twisted,
They cunningly mislead others – who can trust them ?

And its Commentary :

In the golden age, the age of perfection, there was no need for sunlight or moonlight, for beings radiated light from their own bodies. They could move miraculously through space, and they lived without needing any solid food. All creatures naturally abided by the ten virtues. But, as time passed, they began to harm each other, to be ruled by their desires, to steal, and to lie. They lost their natural radiance and had to depend on sun and moon for light; they lost their ability to fly; they began to need solid nourishment, and when eventually the spontaneous harvest and the bountiful cow [2] disappeared, they had to toil to produce their food. Now in our present epoch, all that remains of the qualities of the golden age are residues, like the unappealing left-over scraps of a sumptuous feast. Anyone with eyes of wisdom seeing the miserable condition of people in this decadent age cannot help but feel great compassion.

In this age of conflict people are ill intentioned and full of deceit. They put themselves first and disregard the needs of others. Whoever flatters them they regard as a friend; whoever contradicts or opposes them they see as an enemy. As these attitudes gradually distort all their actions, words, and thoughts, people become more and more warped and twisted, like crooked old trees, until finally their mentality degenerates so far that any notion of right and wrong is completely lost.

We are in an age when anger, craving, ambition, stupidity, pride, and jealousy are the rule of the day. It is an age when the sun of Dharma is already sinking behind the shoulders of the western mountains, when most of the great teachers have left for other realms, when practitioners go astray in their meditation, and when neither lay people nor the ordained act according to the Dharma. People may obtain some transient advantage from the misguided values of these times, but ultimately they are cheating no one but themselves.

Footnote [2] : Spontaneous harvest and the bountiful cow : Inexhaustible sources of nourishment for the beings of the golden age at an early stage of degeneration, during which they need solid food but are not yet obliged to toil to produce it

Thus in conclusion, I’d suggest you could consider ALL the above as a sort of Red Pill for the Unspiritual Masses who are seemingly Living-in-Ignorance of their Real Condition eh ? 🧐

Hint : Please click on the above YouTube video (just 7 minutes long) to listen to what Sam Harris says about HOW our sense-of-self is actually not what it seems eh ? 😉