by Bob Flaws

Two weeks ago, Honora and I were having breakfast at our hotel in Delhi prior to flying back to the U.S. The TV was on and everyone was watching a live broadcast of the eclipse. I don't know how much attention this eclipse received in the U.S. since it was not visible here, but in India it was major. It was supposedly a once-in-a-thousand-years kind of event. There were lots of pandits on the TV debating the significance of this eclipse. When we came back for lunch several hours later, the live coverage was still on.

...

In India, it is believed that an evil spirit (named Rahu, obstruction) eats the sun when there is a solar eclipse and, as such, eclipses are considered very negative occurrences. Once we got back from India, I saw an e-mail about the eclipse from Lama Dawa Chodrak to all his students. In this e-mail, Lama Dawa explained that eclipses are actually the mechanical cause of the degeneration of the kaliyuga. The kaliyuga or iron/black age we are currently in is believed in Asia to be a time of progressive deterioration: deterioration in the external environment, in the elements themselves, in health and long life, in the mental, emotional, and spiritual qualities of sentient beings in this age, and even of time itself. While I have long been aware of the Buddhist teachings on the kaliyuga in terms of its negative qualities, I never knew, in fact never asked how, this degeneration actually occurs. According to Lama Dawa, eclipses cause an irreversible loss of energy. Therefore, with each eclipse, there is less and less energy. This is sort of like a wind-up clock running down.

In terms of health and medicine, as our world runs out of energy, there are more and more diseases, including new, never-before-seen diseases (think AIDS, SARS, Ebola, H1N1, etc.), and vitality, hence immunity, inevitably decreases. As part of the decline in the energy of the elements, medicines, which are made up of these elements, become less and less powerful. This helps explain why the doses of Chinese medicinals has crept upward over the centuries without achieving necessarily better effects -- perhaps not even achieving the same effects as before.

In Buddhist countries, people generally engage in more and special religious rites during eclipses to try to mitigate their ill-effects. However, that's the best such rites are believed to be able to do -- slow the decline, not stop or reverse it. Among Tibetan Buddhists, there are also other practices done throughout the year attempting to reverse/slow the decline of the elements characteristic of this kaliyuga. One of these is called Riwo Sangchod, "Mountain Pure Offering." This is an incense offering made by burning juniper accompanied by mantra and visualizations of the elements being re-energized. When Honora and I were in Bhutan two years ago, we learned that this Riwo Sangchod offering rite had become very popular. However, the reason for its popularity was that the locals had heard it increases personal wealth. This mistaken, ego-centric, and spiritual materialist belief and motivation are themselves characteristic of the mental and moral decline of the kaliyuga. And so it goes.

Copyright Blue Poppy Press, 2010. All rights reserved.