The taint of evil
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
So I was considering ‘The Boy and the Heron’ this morning, and one of the things from the ending of the film is that the magical world which the main character Mahito’s relative the Greatuncle has created is tainted by evil. This is shown as a kind of energy in the small blocks of stone which the Greatuncle is balancing (one for each film Miyazaki has made - it is autobiographical). The takeaway is that Miyazaki’s magical worlds of the imagination also contain this taint.
In ‘The Boy and the Heron’ this taint comes back into the picture in the pelicans who eat the warawaras, young souls who fly up to be born, and in the parrot soldiers who eat intruding humans like Mahito. So the theme of eating as driving evil is very much present, which we see in the natural world as well as predators killing herbivores. In a way this greed (for food) is also seen in Buddhism as one of the three poisons which drive samsara, it is the same recognition.
These things all originate from the mind, not only greed but also aversion and ignorance. Ruthlessness like the fox who gets into the henhouse and slaughters a whole bunch of chickens, indiscriminate killing, these themes are major drivers of wickedness. In a way in order to create dramatic tension in a movie, you need to understand the taint in order to bring it in as an archetypal enemy. It is something you experience with computer games as well.
As you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you…
Comments
Hmmm.
Describing anyone who causes suffering in others as evil becomes questionable, because who then under such a description isn't evil?
The word evil seems better reserved for those demonstrating a love of being evil...
You might well be right @how… certainly the pelicans in the film who eat the young souls are portrayed as an evil, but the fire princess who kills the pelicans is not. It seems evil is about killing which is being done unconsciously? Must finish watching the film a second time.
Many deities with fat bellies eat and thereby transform evil. Ganesha and Hotei come to mind.
Many ignorant and injured and therefore injuring people, embrace, accept and thereby justify their hate/anger/twisted behaviour.
As some of you know, I have to organise picnics in the hell realms. Usually to rescue well meaning Bodhisattvas, who feed the crazed, tortured and trump types (just a contemporary example
)
Obviously I don't go too far in. They are likely to eat me alive.
I’m beginning to think that when you really look for it evil denies that it exists, but sneakily in places there is just a “taint of evil”, a hint of it in the behaviour of the crowd, the greed of the individual, the hunger of the predator.
Enfin I think it is unhealthy to be fascinated by this, it is better to turn your face towards the divine.
Everyone is capable if great good and great evil.
The same person may commit actions of great good and of great evil.
The same person may commit minor actions and of minor evil.
A good people may commit evil through words, deeds or actions, even with good intent.
An evil person may commit good through words, deeds or actions, even with evil intent.
There was a woman in the early part of the 20th century who meant no evil. But, as a food service worker, was responsible for several outbreaks of a deadly disease.
There is the story of a professional thief, having robbed a number of people, was fleeing, being closely pursued by the authorities. As he was fleeing, he paused to pull a child from in front of a car or bus, to safety.
Although the latter was an imaginary event used as part of the illustration of a person even in the state of Ashura, Animality or Hunger still possesses the life state of Bodhisattva , it also shows that "evil" persons are still capable of performing acts of good.
Now, as for the pelicans and the princess, the analogy os of evil, destroying and consuming represent evil - that which brings harm and loss to others.The Princess is then, clearly, the good. In destroying the pelicans, she is saving the souls thet the pelicans would have devoured.
Each of us carries both the pelicans and the princess. Do we fall to the pelicans of fear, hate, mistrust, distrust, arrogance, Ashura? Or, do we rise as with the princess to the greater power of love, compassion, mercy, benevolence, trust. Do we choose he pathe of Ashura and the lower worlds, the Pelicans, or do we take the path of the Fire Princess, striving as for the higher worlds, ultimately the path of Bodhisattva and Buddha?
Each day, each moment, consciously or unconsciously, we each make that choice between the Pelicans and the Fire Princess.
Another story, "Cave of the Fireflies", tells a story of a young man, with good intentions, who succumbs to the path of of his own "Pelicans" with tragic consequence.
Just an old man's wandering thoughts.
Peace to all