The Evil that Enters Heaven
Stories of the daily life of a Buddhist nun and stories of life’s experiences before being ordained.
By Margo Somboo
For so many years I have been under the misguided belief that only good beings can enter heaven. Now suddenly I am forced to acknowledge that this is not so.
For the past few years, ever since I was ordained as a nun, I have been hearing monks talk about corrupt devas, but never payed much attention to these stories….until now that is. There was talk during Dhamma teachings, about Devas who can harm us and are to be considered dangerous, yet in my mind this didn’t make sense at all. I would wonder why there are good and bad monks and nuns, which didn’t seem to justify a person calling themselves ordained. It didn’t do justice to the yellow robes or the white of nuns. If anything, to me this was total abuse of the position of being ordained. It didn’t make any sense at all. Why would a nun listen to the Dhamma talks after evening chanting, and then go and quietly make trouble for a neighbor? Why would a monk turn to the black arts? It occurred to me that this was linked to the karma of that person.
It was only recently that I realized that what qualifies a person to enter heaven, has nothing to do with his or her personality or whether that person is good or bad. It is based solely on the merit that person has made during his lifetime. This puts a whole new perspective on heaven and puts me into a state of deep contemplation. An example of such a “deva” is the deva who helps a human to corrupt and demolish a system anywhere. There is certainly truth to the old saying “birds of a feather”, as these beings will be attracted to humans who cheat others and so forth… I must admit though that I don’t believe that this is true on all levels. The higher the level of heaven, the harder for such devas to enter. That is my personal belief. Without this the whole system makes no sense to me.
Think about it….to enter heaven, all it takes is to make merit in the right places and to the right people. It took a long time for me to understand that karma will play itself out one way or another. That means that even though I may make merit enough to temporarily close the gates of hell or the gates of rebirth as an animal, whatever karma I create will play itself out sooner or later. On another occasion, during the Dhamma teachings of a well known monk, another interesting fact was revealed. Devas, when they are close to their death, always want to be born as humans, so that they can continue to make merit, be that through meditation or through alms to the monks. However, more often than not, they are reborn in hell. Those souls from hell, equally want to be born as humans. There is no being from hell that desires to be born in heaven…. Think about it.
It is for this reason that Lord Buddha encourages us to distance ourselves from even the devas when we practice meditation. When a person meditates and conducts his life with the basic five precepts and in a correct manner, the devas are automatically drawn to that person and will even protect such a person from danger or harm in any of its many forms.
The hard part for anyone who meditates, can be described as not being able to see beyond the devas and other spiritual beings, in order to enable one to see the truth that Lord Buddha taught us. Do not forget that Buddha is also the teacher for the devas as well.
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