Current scholarship attributes the roots of Greek myths to the Minoan civilization (3000 to 1100 BCE). The ancient Greek Olympian gods behaved like us, ordinary humans - bonbu. Being gods did not stop them from plotting and warring against one another, or feeling passion, love, anger, revenge, vanity or infidelity – again, just like us, bonbu.
The myth of the Trojan priestess Cassandra, in case you don’t recall it goes like this: “… Apollo had loved her and given her the power to foretell the future. Later he turned against her because she refused his love, and although he could not take back his gift—divine favors once bestowed might not be revoked—he made it of no account: no one ever believed her. She told the Trojans each time what would happen; they would never listen to her. She declared that Greeks were hidden in the wooden horse; no one gave her words a thought. It was her fate always to know the disaster that was coming and be unable to avert it. 1
When ancient Greeks fashioned their gods, they made the gods in their own image and made them immortal (what good is being a god if not immortal?) and having super powers (what’s the point if you didn’t have super powers?). The most interesting power Apollo did not appear to have was the power to subvert Cassandra’s free will.
Apollo wanted Cassandra’s love, freely given. He gave her a gift and as with human exchanges, expected something back. She refused. He took revenge, dooming her to a life of failure and frustration. How striking Buddhism is in comparison.
Dana
We talk about the Paramita of Dana at the Cleveland Buddhist Temple and understand it is to give without recognition, without expectation of receiving something in return and even without patting ourselves on our back. Not so for the Olympian god Apollo, and, not so for many of us.
Our culture tends to encourage the opposite. The more money we donate, the larger the letters of our name on a building or getting listed at the top of the donor list, all attestto the financial exchange.
Revenge
The Buddha taught - “It’s easy to see the errors of others, but hard to see your own…” (Dhammapada verse 252). Apollo turned to revenge because in his mind, his was a gift to Cassandra. He was blind to his own reality that it was a transaction.
We rarely see our own errors when we judge acts as an injustice or a wrong against us. We say it is right/wrong, good/bad, what I want/what I don’t want. Our culture encourages us to right these perceived wrongs, wipe out the wrong and demand what we define as right. We have options from using social media to the legal system. When revenge is on a larger societal scale, we use wars and genocides.
What to do…
We don’t have Olympian gods to judge, curse or doom us to dukkha. Where then is the source of dukkha
in our lives? When the Buddha said “it’s easy to see the error of others, but hard to see your own,” did he mean we must examine our own egocentric life?
Namo Amida Butsu
Namo Amida Butsu
Namo Amida Butsu
Rev. Anita
1 Edith Hamilton, Mythology (New York: Mentor, 1969), 202.
|