Buddha Rejects

Dante's Inferno by William Blake

The Buddha is generally deemed to be a symbol of ultimate compassion. But does that magnanimity extend to all creatures? Do the arms of universal love open up for Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago? Those who believe in a Manichean universe of heaven and hell would condemn such tyrants to the infamous Ninth Circle of Dante’s Inferno where the condemned have their bottom half frozen into a lake. “Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven,” said Steve Bannon quoting Satan’s words from Milton’s Paradise Lost, in Errol Morris’s American Dharma. But where does Bannon go from here? If he is forced to step down, by the next in line to reign in hell, will he say “the election was rigged and stolen?” Do the extremes of human depravity elicited by a Putin who licenses the bombing of children’s hospital and mass rape engender an even more encompassing forgiveness or will the Buddha simply throw up his hands in helpless disgust saying, "Let them rise to the top of the food chain after having preyed on all the animals below, but I’m done.” Are there those who are so terrible that they're even refused  entry into Hell? Does the Buddha have a list of "deplorables" a la Hillary Clinton, who're rejected from his love?

read "Shame" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Mr. Pitiful"by The Commitments