[Buddha-l] Buddha fights back

[andy]

> Pursuant to some previous discussions about the sanctioning of violence --
> whether it is even permitted in self-defense, for instance -- I came
> across this Jataka story which is interesting for being quite different
> from the ones usually paraded in the literature. 

As usual, aren't you taking a Jataka story a bit too literally? 

> Typically Jataka stories offer admiring (and gory) tales of self-sacrifice,
> sacrificing one's own "blood, flesh and bone" to help another sentient
> being. Feeding the exhausted mother tigress by cutting off pieces of his
> own flesh and putting them in her mouth until she'd regained the strength
> to devour him herself (in order to help her nurse her cubs) is perhaps the
> best known of this genre, but ascetics getting hacked to bits by jealous
> kings while refusing to lift a finger or offer even a word in
> self-defense, becomes the norm in these stories. Literally giving life and
> limb, with no concern for self-preservation becomes a recurrent theme.
> Hence, the following story (my translation) is intriguing for offering a
> different take, a different Buddha.

OK,  especially since he was a parrot.  An who parades these things, anyway? 

> --
> Then the Bhikṣus said to the Buddha: "It is truly wondrous, World-Honored
> One, inconceivable, that one man, alone, by himself, should be able to
> subdue all the Māras." Having said this, they became silent.

Why would this be a question?  Is Mara so hard to defeat?  
> 
> At that time the World-Honored One replied to the Bhikṣus, saying: "You,
> Bhikṣus, listen carefully. I, not only in the present, in this way subdued
> Māra alone, by myself, but already did so in the past, where also I
> subdued Māras in this way, alone, by myself."

Of course, it is not the same way, except all by Buddha's lonely. 


> "A man suffers pain, alone, by himself; a man also feels pleasure alone, by
> himself. You should peck that falcon, and injure him in a vital place.
> If you besiege him with enough pain, he will release you.
> Now, your body is tiny, and my strength is weak;
> Put all your effort into it, don't slack off!"

Alone, and by himself?  But this refers to the falcon, to Māra, so what is the 
story really saying? 

> 
> The Younger brother, having heard what the elder brother said,
>   Summoned up all his energy and force,

>   The parrot was released due to skillful pecking
>   of that falcon at its most vital joint.
> There was no place to which the falcon could escape or hide from its
> besiegement, It was so intense! The parrot took off into the sky.
> The falcon, seeing the parrot, flew in pursuit,
>   But gave up, as [the parrot] had gone too far, seeking the living path.

So what is the vital joint of Māra?  And what does it mean to peck at it?  
> 
> The pecking parrot then, was me, explained Śākyamuni.
> The falcon was Māra-pāpīyān.
> Having already subdued him them, how much more so today, with all the
> merits that have been accumulated [since then]? How could King Māra not be
> subdued? You Bhikṣus should know that.

Till reading this Jataka tale, I never thought of upaya as "skillful pecking", 
but I still am not sure that this amounts to a justification of the use of 
violence. What ever happened to that parrot, anyway?  What kind of pecking at 
a vital joint did the Buddha use to singlehandedly defeat Māra while seated 
under the Bodhi tree?   Yes, the story is interesting, but it needs 
interpretation. 
-- 
James Andy Stroble