This is from the Vassalasutta, the ‘opposite’ of the Vasetthasutta
on ‘what makes a Brahman’. The theme is the familiar Buddhist
one, emphasising action not birth. Matanga here is taken as the
example of great attainments by a person born in what
Brahmanism was then considering to be the lowest caste.
Today in a sense, Matanga’s era has come again; the oppressed
of the world are demanding as never before equality, access to
development and the good life promised by the technological and
economic achievements of today, freedom from the oppressions and
exploitations that are still so prevalent. If we re-interpret ‘paradise’
as Sukhavati—a joyous land that is not itself the real awakening,
but whose social achievements provide conditions in which
humans can best realise their capabilities—we may say that this is
an important and even possible goal. But with this demand also
come new challenges, the horrors as well as the promises of
modern technology. The bombings of the World Trade Center in
New York city should remind us that the messages of stilling
passion and of avoiding attachment to arrogant ideological
certainties are perhaps the most important things that need to be
learned in the world today.
‘I was abused, I was hurt, I was beaten, I was robbed!’
Harbor such thoughts and hatred will never cease.
‘I was abused, I was hurt, I was beaten, I was robbed!’
Abandon such thoughts and hatred will end.
For never in this world
Do hatreds cease by hatred.
By freedom from hatred they cease:
This is the eternal dhamma (Dhammapada #3–5).282 Buddhism in India