Karmic Retribution for Karma

Posted on June 8, 2008

Ms. Sharon Stone said a few sobering things, and everyone understood what she meant, even though some feigned not to. The other person is named Yu Qiuyu, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration at all if you were to call him a degenerate intellectual, or scum among scum. Just the fact that this kind of indecent scholar still rambles on today completely unfettered is nothing less than a miracle. 

Both of these individuals made emotional statements about the earthquake, and both cited Buddhist concepts. 

Ms. Stone is a follower of the Dalai Lama. The “karma” she referred to implies that all actions necessarily have consequences, and that all feelings must necessarily invoke a response. Therefore, everything we have earned, our fortune or misfortune, is due to karma, not necessarily implying secular punishment. She said, “Then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice, that bad things happen to you?” This is a simplistic understanding that fails to deal with even the fundamentals. If she is referring to worldly punishments, Ms. Stone is simply wrong, because in this land, the day of reckoning will never come for the people and events that have inflicted prolonged devastation, such as Yu Qiuyu or the unpardonable Sichuan Department of Education and Ministry of Education. To the contrary of what we hope, the innocent common folk invariably meet with misfortune. The next time Ms. Stone has the opportunity to ask the Dalai Lama, she can find out why this is. 

The Shanghai intellectual Yu Qiuyu does not believe in karma. With tears in his eyes, he earnestly admonished the parents of thousands upon thousands of wrongly dead children, saying, “Do not cause trouble, do not get emotionally disturbed.” He said, “Your outstanding behavior since the disaster has already won the highest respect of the entire Chinese people. ... We need you to keep up morale and avoid creating unnecessary turbulence.” This last comment filled me with a special respect for China’s intellectuals. 

Today I heard him say this: “Anti-China organizations that have disliked China for decades are waiting for us to make mistakes, and you must not become their tools.” These are the incredulously contemptible and shameless words of a lackey, brazenly antihumanistic talk. Of course there will still be no retribution. Yu then borrowed a phrase from some bald-headed monk when he said that those wrongfully dead children “have all become Buddhas, who will forever watch over and bless China.” Ha ha! He also said, “Regardless of all the poorly built schools, the earthquake was, after all, a natural disaster. In theory, all buildings will collapse when an earthquake measures seven or eight.” How should we respond to you? You and your bald donkeys can take your “highest respect” and go bless each other. 

I’ve realized the vengeance that is the absence of karmic retribution—and thus China’s survival is her most genuine form of punishment. 

TRANSLATED BY LEE AMBROZY

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY MIT PRESS, 2011