From my other sites
The tale the vampire told
“ ‘One day when they were of age, the two remaining brothers determined to set out on a Quest, to seek their fortune in the wide world. For they were brave and handsome and clever—or at least the older brother was—and their village seemed too small for them. Their father pleaded with them not to go, for there are many dangers in the wide world, and he counted on their work for the farm. But try as he would, he could not dissuade them.
“ ‘Finally, he gave their Quest his blessing. “Never forget,” he said, “that you are Buddhists. Always pray to the gods. And especially in times of great peril; that is a Test of your devotion. If you are pure of heart, your prayers will be answered.”
25 vampire stories
Illustration of the vetala from the 25 Tales of the Vampire
“Tell me a story,” I demanded.
It was the first evening of one of my uncle’s rare visits, after my mother was killed.
“It’s late, Surya,” he said. “I have come a long way today, and I am tired.”
“Um—with respect—why are you telling me about all this?” asked the young monk. “I thought you were supposed to teach me the Secret of Life and Death, or something.”
“I am,” said the old man. “But the story my uncle told is personally meaningful for me. Please don’t interrupt!”
Love in a time of war
Map of Gupta Empire and trade routes courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Buddhist Inner Tantra emerged in a time of social collapse, political chaos, and forced change.
The Vetali’s Gift is set in north-eastern India, around the year 700 C.E. It is a love story—but one set against a backdrop of horrific civil war. This was a Dark Age for India, coming just after its greatest Golden Age. This seems also to have been the place and time that Inner Tantra—which later became the high point of Tibetan Buddhism—emerged.
According to both the Tantric scriptures and Western academic histories, that is not a coincidence. It was a religion suited for its time. Our own time is one of rapid social change also, in which Sutric (“mainstream”) Buddhism may not survive. In some ways, Tantric Buddhism seems better suited for our time—as well as for Surya’s.
History can be dry; but you might like to know something about why Surya’s life is torn by war, and to understand something about the social forces that made Tantra effective at that time.
My mother dies
Kartika charm (on a chöd drum tail)
“Mother, what is a dakini?”
She looked troubled. “Why do you want to know, dear?”
“They said—they said—they called me a ‘dakini child.’ ”
I was close to tears. “They said—they said you were a dakini, and dakinis eat people. And dakinis are what make people sick. They said everyone knows you are a dakini because you have black skin and talk funny.” It was true that my mother spoke with an accent, and her grammar was a bit off. I was just old enough to have noticed that. And even my own skin was darker than most of the villagers. “Is it true? Are you a dakini?”
Buddhists who kill
Vajra battle-axe
“Refraining from killing” is one of the five Buddhist Precepts—the foundation of Buddhist ethics. There seem to be no exceptions allowed in early Buddhist texts.1 But why should we not kill? And what about in self-defense? What about in defense of others? What if there is no alternative?
In fact, there is no alternative, since the Precept applies to killing animals. All Buddhists kill. You cannot walk around without unintentionally squashing tiny bugs. Even if you are vegetarian, you eat microscopic creatures that live on plants. If you committed suicide to prevent this harm, you would kill the many intriguing, unnoticed creatures that inhabit your body.
Let’s up the ante. Why is murder wrong? Many Buddhists will tell you that it is bad karma. Murderers go to one of the nastier Buddhist hells. From an ethical point of view, this answer is nonsense. Ethics is about doing the right thing when it is costly to you. If murder were right, we should do it even if it sent us to hell. And murder would still be wrong even if it were good karma, and sent you straight to heaven.
Buddhist philosophers mostly say that what matters is intention, not consequences. Killing is not inherently wrong; what is wrong is the intention to harm. So, some Buddhist philosophers say that killing people is a good thing in some circumstances. Using violence to defend others—like the narrator’s father in The Vetali’s Gift—might be justified. It might be ethical for a Buddhist to be a soldier. This is highly controversial, however.
- 1. Buddhism seems to have become more and more willing to admit exceptions as time passed. Mahayana tends to accept the need for killing to prevent worse outcomes; and as we shall see, this is a major theme in Vajrayana. In Mahayana, the locus classicus is a passage in the Upaya-kaushalya Sutra about a previous incarnation of the Buddha who was a sea-captain. He had a ship full of passengers, one of whom planned to sink the boat, killing all on board. The Buddha hacked this misguided individual to death with an axe, thereby saving 500 lives. The Sutra’s analysis of this event is somewhat confused, but the general sense is that this was the right thing to do.
My father dies
“We are starting at the beginning, aren’t we?” said the old man.
My father was a Tantrika—a Buddhist sorcerer. I never knew him. He died before I was born. He died defending our village… I was proud of that.
On that day, a girl ran into the village, exhausted, sobbing and incoherent. It seemed that her own village, a few miles to our west, had just been attacked and destroyed by the army of a rising warlord from Kannauj. They were marching east.
Our village sent a runner to the nearest garrison town to beg for help; the women and children prepared to flee, and the men—some of them—to fight to cover their escape.
The soldiers arrived minutes later. Our men were untrained, unready, and armed only with kitchen knives and farming tools. The slaughter began—but my father, sitting alone in the common space at the center of the village, singing black words, nearly turned the tide.
He turned the soldiers’ own bodies against them.
Next time you die
About death, the one thing to know is: “Next time you die—pay attention!”
That sounds ridiculous when the aged, possibly insane narrator of The Vetali’s Gift says it. This is supposed to be the death part of the great Secret of Life and Death? It’s absurdly simple, and what has it got to do with anything? Either he’s gone senile, or it’s a joke.
Whose joke? His or mine? Or hers? Not everything is as it seems… Maybe the joke is on you?
“Next time you die, pay attention” is the essence of the The Tibetan Book of the Dead. And it might be good advice even if you don’t believe in rebirth, and expect to die only once.
Buddhism, fictional and historical
The “Buddhism” in this book was never anyone’s religion. Still, it may have entertainment value—or even educational value.
The telling of the tale
The young monk found his way up to the cave, a day’s walk from Nalanda University. He stopped at the entrance—curious, and apprehensive. He pulled aside the blanket covering the opening, and called out “Sir?”
Hello! Dear boy! Please do come in. It is so nice to meet you at last… Yes, of course I know you. You are a young man with a most unusual and valuable talent. Valuable to me, anyway, when you accompanied me on my Final Quest. What? Oh, yes, I am sorry, that Quest hasn’t happened yet. We’ve only just met, haven’t we? Time is so confusing.
Do sit down. Make yourself comfortable. You will be here some while. Oh! It is so kind of you to bring me these. Would you like one yourself? No? I’m sorry, I know most people think they are horrifying; I should not have offered you one. I do adore them; I hope you don’t mind if I eat one now?
So. Your teacher, the Chancellor of Nalanda, has sent you here, yes? To learn about the Matter of Life and Death. But what you would really like to hear is about your teacher. You would like to hear how, when he and I were young, we saved Nalanda, and Buddhism, and the world. How we travelled into the realms of the dead and defeated the Dark Lord and all his armies. You have heard a little of that story, haven’t you? And you don’t know whether to believe it. The Chancellor will not speak of it. There is much he did on that Quest that most monks should not learn about, lest they get ideas…
So you hope to hear the story from me. Yet you have heard that I’m a dazed old man, who can’t remember which century he’s living in. Still, whether true history or an old man’s dream, you’d find it a good tale—and you’d learn much about your Chancellor. More than he’d like his students to know.
The fine print
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons living, dead, or in-between is probably intentional, but not to be taken seriously.
This novel is for entertainment purposes only. Obviously you should not assume that anything on a web site with a name like “Buddhism for Vampires” is religiously or historically accurate.
Do not try this at home. The stunts in this story were performed by highly-trained Buddhist professionals, under carefully controlled conditions. Attempts to imitate them may result in injury or undeath.
Eating the shadow
“Haunted,” by Penny Mathews
So—we are all monsters. Then what?
I’ve suggested that there are three ways of relating to one’s own monstrosity: rejection, inversion, and incorporation. This page is mainly about incorporation. That is the approach of embracing monstrosity, transforming it, and putting it to use.
There are Buddhist methods for incorporating monstrosity. Most explicitly, in wrathful yidam practice you leap directly into being an enlightened monster. This is sudden, violent, dangerous, and practical for almost no one. Dzogchen trek-chöd separates monstrous emotional experiences from polarized concepts of humanity and monstrosity. Experiencing monstrosity without judgment is a necessary part of incorporating it. Trek-chöd may be gentler than wrathful practice, but is still arduous, and impractical for many people.
I will describe other methods that can be used by anyone. They are not easy or entirely safe, but they require no esoteric practices. These are not specifically Buddhist, but they seem compatible with the Dzogchen Buddhist view. They may seem quite contrary to “mainstream” (Sutric) Buddhism—but that should not be a problem.
On monsters
After I had been working on Buddhism for Vampires for several months, I discovered that a Buddhist academic philosopher, Stephen T. Asma, had just released a book On Monsters for a popular audience. That was a pleasant surprise.
We are all monsters
We are not monsters / we are moral people
All humans are monsters.
That is not a good thing or a bad thing.
The No Die List
According to folk Buddhism, karma is enforced by an incompetent police-state bureaucracy.
I’ve just finished reading Bryan Cuevas’ Travels in the Netherworld, a book about deloks. A delok is a Tibetan who has died, gone to hell, and returned to life, a few days later, in the same body. (Or so goes the story.)
