Dhamma protects those who live in it?

This sentence is repeated often by the bhikkhus as well as corrupt and murderous politicians, both inside and outside Parliament. H. M. NIssanka Warakaulla’s short note in The Island of October 06 is a corollary to this generalisation. He affirms that if one commits evil, step out of the dhamma, that person will suffer the ill consequences of that action and if one does good, one will reap the happy rewards.

manasa ce pasannena (padutthena), bhasati va karoti va

teneva sukha’manveti (dukkha`man veti), cakkkham’ va vahato padam.

If one speaks or acts out of a good mind (evil mind) good (evil) will follow as the wheel, the puller.

It is a re-statement of the dictum ‘mano pubbamgama dhamma’, this is fine. But the statement about ‘dhammo have’ does not follow from it. If one believes that a person—what is that?—is reborn after death, then the evil doer will be punished in that future birth.

It is further extended to say that if the evil doer fails to be punished, his/her progeny will pay for the evils that parents or grandparents committed. While it is well established that children bear genes from their parents, I have not read anywhere that those genes carry records of what good/evil that the relevant parents committed. Genes are not pinpot, that some pious persons maintained, to be read to them when in death bed.

It is this false belief that drives our politicians and criminal bureaucrats to temples and bhikkhus, whenever they have frightening nightmares. Some go further to castigate the parents of evil doers for the sins of their progeny. That this belief widely held is evident from persons who curse evil doers in government, present and past, together with the ancestors and progeny of those evil doers. Some prominent bhikkhus are among those that fervently believe in this principle.

I do not buy into any of these. It is all false and evidence is abundant that the contrary is true. Take persons who have robbed the public of billions of dollars.

It is now common knowledge that some of these have been invested overseas, some invested in building palatial residences both here and overseas, on a lowly clerk’s measly wages and some invested in business enterprises that thrive luxuriantly. Recent Pandora Papers revelations about the theft of $160 million are surely a conspiracy hatched by the CIA and the Tamil diaspora to harm the huge popularity enjoyed by the Gotabaya government, both nationally and internationally. Others converted these funds into bags of pricey gems, left overnight on tabletops in grandparents’ homes.

Those who robbed public funds in a government bond scam, whether they live here or in Singapore, prosper well beyond their own expectations. The same must be said of murderers. The Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church comes before us with vehemence and relentlessly seeks retribution against conspirators and criminals who took lives of several hundreds of that faith and others.

Whatever the scriptures say, the Cardinal lives in another world and will be disappointed here. Some minor fry will be punished but the big fish will thrive with greater splendour. The crimes will be attributed to an impersonal international entity, that seeks world domination with covert help from the CIA. There are so many who live in evil and gain power, wealth and followings (ayu, vanno, sukham, balam), rewards wildly beyond the ken of men who live in the dhamma. In fact, I cannot find any in this thrice blessed land, who lived in the dhamma and enjoyed ayu, vanno, sukham, balam. Against such damning evidence, how does one say, ‘dhammo hav`ee rakkhati dhammacari’?

A confused Buddhist