"Answer: Rather than give my own answer, I will report what the Buddha himself has said of such a situation. The Benevolent Kings Sutra says: “Great King, after I have passed into extinction, the four types of Buddhist disciples in the ages to come, the rulers, crown princes, and other princes of the various small countries, those persons who should uphold and guard the three treasures of Buddhism, will on the contrary become the destroyers of the three treasures, just as it is the worms that are born from the body of a dead lion that will feed on the lion’s flesh. It will not be the non-Buddhists but in most cases the Buddha’s own disciples who will destroy this Buddhist Law of mine and thereby commit a very grave offense. The correct teaching will wither and fade, there will be no more people who carry out the correct practices, but evil practices will more and more prevail, so that the life span of the people will grow shorter each day, until they live no more than a hundred years.
“If persons destroy the teachings of the Buddha, they will have no filial sons, no harmony with their six kinds of relatives,85 and no aid from the heavenly deities. Disease and evil demons will come day after day to torment them, disasters will descend on them incessantly, and misfortunes will dog them wherever they go. And when they die, they will fall into the realms of hell, hungry spirits, and animals.”
And later on it says: “Great King, in future ages the kings of the various small countries and the four types of Buddhist disciples will of their own initiative commit faults of the type that bring about the destruction of their own nation. . . . Evil monks, hoping to gain fame and profit, will in many cases appear before the ruler, the crown prince, or the other princes, and take it upon themselves to preach doctrines that lead to the violation of the Buddhist Law and the destruction of the nation. The ruler, failing to perceive the truth of the situation, will listen to and put faith in such doctrines. . . . When this happens, it will not be long before the correct teaching passes into extinction.”
The ROMAN EMPIRE fell on hard times in the third century. A destabalizing series of crisis hit, including a pandemic that left carcasses strewn in the streets, climate change that ravaged agriculture and drew so-called barbarians, or more accurately refugees, to the edge of the territory: and rampant political instability and infighting. With this chaos the influence of the IMPERIAL MYTH, that Rome and it's leaders, were devinely endowed, lost much of it's remaining sheen.
ReplyDeleteThe USA nuclear empire is the most violent, polluting, cannibalizing empire in history. It has fallen so far into gross inhumanity and depravity, that it threatens to destroy the world whether it has its way or not