dorjeshugden.com
General Buddhism => General Buddhism => Topic started by: icy on May 12, 2015, 12:01:12 PM
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Are they mortal gods living on earth? Do they remind us of the Devas/Semi Devas living in Deva/Semi Deva Realms?
The Royals Of Brunei Lead Lives Of Almost Incomprehensible Wealth
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A giant portrait of Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah is on display during his 62nd birthday celebration in Bandar Seri Begawan July 15, 2008.
The nation of Brunei has come under fire for its recent imposition of Shariah law, an Islamic code that metes out harsh penalties like amputation and stoning for offenses like theft and gay sex.
Eventually, Brunei will implement the death penalty for certain violations of the code.
Shariah law, which is based on the Quran, covers a range of issues within a “moral framework,” which doesn’t exactly jive with outlandish past media reports about the royal family of Brunei. The family is thought to be one of the wealthiest royal families in the world. The Sultan alone is reportedly worth $20 billion.
In July 2011, a Vanity Fair tell-all detailed the outrageous spending habits and lifestyle of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah. Among other tidbits, the profile said Prince Jefri owned more than 2,300 cars and a yacht named Tits with tenders called Nipple 1 and Nipple 2.
The Sultan himself lives in a palace with 1,788 rooms and 257 bathrooms. It’s considered to be the world’s second-largest palace after Beijing’s Forbidden City, and reportedly has a 110-car garage, an air-conditioned stable for the Sultan’s 200 polo ponies, and five swimming pools.
After the new laws went into effect in Brunei May 1, a former mistress to the Sultan detailed her experience in the Daily Beast, writing:
And yet it is the privilege of the prince and the sultan to misbehave. The picaresque escapades and legendary extravagances of the brothers are indulged with a collective wink. For everyone else residing within Brunei’s borders, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, freedoms are curtailed, and those limitations now are potentially enforced by brutal violence.
Stories about the wild lives of the royal family of Brunei abound. Robert Rangel, a former deputy sheriff in Los Angeles who also spent several years running security for the Sultan and his brother in LA, shared some stories of almost unthinkable extravagance in the recently released “The Organ Grinder’s Monkey.”
According to the book, the Sultan and his family regularly traveled with an entourage of 150 and paid Disney to have theme park characters flown to Brunei for a kids’ birthday party. Alcohol (which is banned for non-Muslims in Brunei) and mistresses were regularly present, Rangel writes.
The two excerpts below (republished with permission) reveal just how wealthy — and demanding — the royal family could be.
The time the Sultan’s 14-year-old nephew spent $500,000 on two Bentleys:
I had been told that Prince Hakeem [the eldest son of the Sultan's brother] was not a shopper. It’s true that he did not shop every day, but to say that he is not a shopper is a lie!
Mr. Mustapha [the assistant to Prince Jefri, the Sultan's brother] called me, “Prince Hakeem wants to go to the Beverly Hills Rolls Royce dealer. He wants to buy a ‘Bentley.’” Of course, as you know, a Bentley is a car—a very expensive car.
Off we went to the dealership. Of course we had called prior to arriving and a salesman was expecting us. He had been told who we were and he was salivating to sell us a couple of Bentleys. There were two Bentleys on the showroom floor. One was dark blue and the other pearl white. Prince Hakeem turned to me, “Steve, which color do you like?”
“Your Highness,” I said. I know, I know, you’re thinking he’s fourteen years old. Here I was calling him Your Highness and he is not even old enough to have a driver’s license and he’s looking to buy a Bentley. Hey, I’m not making this up; I’m just telling you what happened.
I said (Yes, I was in disbelief but refused to show it to the salesman), “I like the dark blue one.”
He turned to the salesman and said, “I’ll take them both!” So much for my opinion.
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Sultan of Brunei family
REUTERS/Ahim Rani
The royal family of Brunei.
“Certainly, sir.” The one he liked cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but there were just a few minor changes he wanted to make so that he could have it just exactly as he preferred. He wanted the Bentley converted from a four-door to a two-door and some other minor changes. How do you make a two-door car into a four-door car? I guess with saws, torches, and rivets. I was shuddering thinking that they would be chopping up a one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar car.
When he was through, the one- hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar Bentley cost two hundred fifty thousand dollars. After the negotiations, he turned to me, “I got the blue one for my dad. I’ll keep the white one.” A fourteen-year-old. Hell, he bought them like he was ordering a Big Mac.
Only one of the Bentleys was ever driven one time, and Prince Hakeem drove it. After buying the cars, he drove the white Bentley from Beverly Hills to the Santa Monica Beach then back to Beverly Hills again. Thereafter, the Bentleys were stored at one of Prince Jefri’s homes in Beverly Hills never to be driven again.
The time the family’s staff spent $50,000 on roses for a half-hour visit:
In August of 1990, Princess Pengiran Isteri Norahyati [PIN, first wife of Prince Jefri] came to Los Angeles to celebrate her birthday. When they arrived, I was instructed by PG Mustapha to decorate the two houses on Hartford Way [in Beverly Hills] with flowers. He said that PIN was probably going to walk through both houses. “Steve, if she likes the houses, she might move into them.”
“Okay, Mr. Mustapha. What kind of flowers?”
“Roses. Red roses.”
“All red roses?”
“Yes.”
You have to understand each house was approximately eight thousand square feet. What would be your next question? How many, right? Should I put some in the bedrooms and the entryways? So I asked, “How many?”
“As many as possible,” was his answer. “Just fill up all the rooms!”
All the rooms? Every room? Kitchens, bathrooms . . . closets?
I called the florist to look at the houses. It was like the old days at the gas station. “How much gas you want, Mac?” My head whipped around to face him, “Fill’er up!”
I ended up putting in 2,500 roses in each house. I thought surely this was more than enough. To say the houses smelled like roses was like saying a fart stinks.
On the night of PIN’s arrival, PG Mustapha came to look over the houses before she arrived. Once inside, he said, “Not enough. More roses.”
Not enough? I asked him, “How many more do you want?”
He answered, “Double it up!”
“DOUBLE IT UP?”
So I called the florist and told him that he needed to come right away.
“More roses, more roses. DOUBLE IT UP!” I floored the florist. You bet he returned that same night. He couldn’t believe that there weren’t enough roses. He doubled the amount so that ultimately there were five thousand roses in each house. The houses looked like a mortuary with ten bedrooms, two dining rooms, two breakfast nooks, two huge kitchens, four living rooms, and four dens, all full and overflowing with red roses. Keep in mind that this was just for PIN to see the houses, not to stay in them.
She spent a total of thirty minutes looking at the houses and then left. Because PIN was staying in Los Angeles for ten days, I had to replenish them and make sure that the roses stayed fresh throughout her visit. This was in case she wanted to go back to see the houses again. Thank God I did because on the eighth day, she revisited the houses. A fair, approximate cost for the roses was $50,000 big ones. That’s equivalent to many family’s income for a full year! It still looked nice and rosy when she left.
http://www.businessinsider.my/royal-family-of-brunei-wealth-2014-5/#KGriXBdSWCOaZHBW.99 (http://www.businessinsider.my/royal-family-of-brunei-wealth-2014-5/#KGriXBdSWCOaZHBW.99)
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Just bloody, greedy parasites transvestite as "royals"; hell henchmen rather than "mortal gods".
The funny thing is that the US looks for "bloody dictators" in far away Syria, North Korea, Cuba, or Iran, whereas they are just there under their nose in Beverly Hills...
The bloody sultan imposes the cruel "sharia" law in his country, just like the evil dalai imposes the cruel anti-Buddhist ban within Tibetan communities, both with full US support.
Therefore, one can see that the malefic influence of the US around the world has nothing to do with democracy and human rights, but rather just with their own insatiable colonialist greed.
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That is the reason why being born into the God and Demi God realms is not a blessing but a curse.
Imagine all the wastage when so many in the world are suffering on USD1/- a day for the whole family.
Imagine at the death bed what the grasping will be like.
Infuriating situation when so many are suffering from scarcity even on such a simple thing like water.
Syriah law will hang such extremes but then the system cannot govern the Royals as they are the executors of such legal system and they will be exempted. This adds insult to injury. Sad sad world.
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It is well known that within the mortal world of ours, we have people who have the karma of the Gods. In fact all the 6 realms manifest as karma in the human realms ( I guess the same in all the 6 realms too). So in the human realms we have super rich people, kings and the silver spooned borned into riches of the gods.
But lets ponder for a moment, do you think that the prince who bought 2 Bentleys and drove it once was really happy? Perhaps for one moment. The richer one is the harder money can buy happiness. The poorer one is, the more money can provide so relieve from sufferings. In both cases, money does not buy long term happiness that same can be applied to every mundane activities the mere mortals do to find happiness. This is the Truth of Suffering.
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It is well known that within the mortal world of ours, we have people who have the karma of the Gods. In fact all the 6 realms manifest as karma in the human realms ( I guess the same in all the 6 realms too). So in the human realms we have super rich people, kings and the silver spooned borned into riches of the gods.
Are you suggesting that the debauched, greedy, cruel sultan has the karma of the gods? Even mortal gods are born out of the karma of good ethics, never of debauchery, greed, and cruelty.
At best he has the karma of the hell henchmen, considering the suffering he cowardly and sadistically inflicts on his powerless people in order to assert his inhumane, absolutistic power.
Like the evil dalie, he is just a Western-supported local tyrant, imposing through the animalesque sharia law restrictions to the religious freedom of his people in order to assert his own power.
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Hahaha Matibhadra, you are funny but in a caustic way what you say is true.
Being in the realm of such good fortune may be from good Karma from previous lives, but in the current life, all the merits and positive karma will be exhausted and back to hell, I suppose.
Let me have your thoughts. Thank you.
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Wow, this is the lifestyle of a rich royal family. How nice if money spent on buying red roses can be channelled to NGO for them to settle social problems.
Being a Ruler of a country, one need to be very careful in making decisions. As the Ruler decision will affect all the people in the country. If the Ruler decision is to benefits his people, then he will gain a lot of merits. If the Ruler is doing it to gain benefits from his people and his people suffer, then his is multiplying his negative bad karma manifold. Being in his current situation, he should fully utilised his assets to benefits those in need and at the same time accumulate good karma or merits for own self. If he don't bother and just want to have fun daily, then the Ruler is wasting his precious human life. Our life is so impermanent, no one know when is our time to go.
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Being in the realm of such good fortune
You must have gone nuts. Do you call “realm of good fortune” the disgraced land where the cruel “sharia” law is imposed? Where raped women are stoned to death because of “adultery”? Where extremist Islam is enforced, and every other single religious faith forbidden and repressed?
may be from good Karma from previous lives,
Then according to you the hell henchmen are enjoying their “good karma” from previous lives, because they are able sadistically to torture and inflict every kind of suffering on other hell beings in their “realms of good fortune”, as you would call the Avici hells, right?
Or maybe, according to you, savagely plundering oppressed and impoverished people in order to buy Bentleys to oneself is a mark of good karma from previous lives? Or to hang around in Beverly Hills with the pockets full of robbed money is a sign of virtue in previous lifes?
but in the current life, all the merits and positive karma will be exhausted and back to hell, I suppose.
Then, according to you, having the extraordinary “good fortune” to lick honey on a razor blade is a case of “merit” and “positive karma”, is it?
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As a side remark, Brunei is an oil-rich ex-British colony, still under heavy British influence, and its bloody, greedy, religious intolerant local Western-supported dictator (the gangster known as “sultan” who freely roams around buying Bentleys in Beverly Hills) serves Western geopolitical interests in many ways, including as tool against China in the context of maritime and territorial disputes. He delivered his country's oil into the hands of predatory Western companies.
Therefore, it is not difficult to see that the evil dalie of Tibet follows precisely the same pattern. His antecessor, the evil 13th dalie, gave away to the British colonizers a huge chunk of South Tibet, now known as “Arunachal Pradesh”. He also tries to enforce his political authority through religious bans and witch-hunts. He is also used by the West as a tool against China, and is hell bent on delivering Tibet to greedy Western mining and other predatory companies.
Therefore, the evil dalie and the perverse sultan are just two specimens of the same breed of corrupt puppet dictators under the service of Western geopolitical and economic predatory interests, both erecting their own theocratic local power on the basis of religious intolerance and fanaticism, be it the sharia law or the evil cult of dalaism.
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OH my gods this is really a life like god, these people do not even know how much suffering is those poor who dying for food and shelters and yet they waste the resources like that just to indulge themselves, I think what Dondrup Shugden said is true during time of death they will have so much grasping on their wealth and their enjoyment in life I do not think is a blessing to be born in this kind of situation.
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OH my gods this is really a life like god, these people do not even know how much suffering is those poor who dying for food and shelters and yet they waste the resources like that just to indulge themselves,
There is a huge difference between the perverse sultan and the gods.
The gods are unaware of the sufferings of lower realms, and are not themselves causing such sufferings. The perverse sultan, on the contrary, is perfectly aware of the sufferings of his powerless victims, just because *he* is the one directly and intentionally inflicting such sufferings on them, for instance robbing them in order to enrich himself, and enforcing the sadistic “sharia” law against them.
Therefore, the perverse sultan, just like so many other bloody gangsters also labeled “royals” (or even “holiness” to that effect, as with the evil dalie), fits pretty well the description of the cruel, sadistic hell henchmen, and has hardly anything similar to the gods.
I think what Dondrup Shugden said is true during time of death they will have so much grasping on their wealth and their enjoyment in life I do not think is a blessing to be born in this kind of situation.
Much beyond mere “grasping to wealth and enjoyment”, the perverse sultan will have to deal with the darkest karma of killing, robbing, and holding, spreading, and enforcing wrong views as codified in the brutal, barbaric “sharia” law enforced by him.
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"There is a huge difference between the perverse sultan and the gods.
The gods are unaware of the sufferings of lower realms, and are not themselves causing such sufferings. The perverse sultan, on the contrary, is perfectly aware of the sufferings of his powerless victims, just because *he* is the one directly and intentionally inflicting such sufferings on them, for instance robbing them in order to enrich himself, and enforcing the sadistic “sharia” law against them.
Therefore, the perverse sultan, just like so many other bloody gangsters also labeled “royals” (or even “holiness” to that effect, as with the evil dalie), fits pretty well the description of the cruel, sadistic hell henchmen, and has hardly anything similar to the gods." Quote from Matibhadra
I really like that difference between the gods and the sultan. It just donned upon me that gods do not intentionally inflict harm nor suffering on others. However the sultan does in the sense that laws are passed to punish others while he is above such laws.
In the same manner with the Ban imposed, the repercussion is suffering and yet nothing is done to reverse it.
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It is well known that within the mortal world of ours, we have people who have the karma of the Gods. In fact all the 6 realms manifest as karma in the human realms ( I guess the same in all the 6 realms too). So in the human realms we have super rich people, kings and the silver spooned borned into riches of the gods.
Are you suggesting that the debauched, greedy, cruel sultan has the karma of the gods? Even mortal gods are born out of the karma of good ethics, never of debauchery, greed, and cruelty.
At best he has the karma of the hell henchmen, considering the suffering he cowardly and sadistically inflicts on his powerless people in order to assert his inhumane, absolutistic power.
Like the evil dalie, he is just a Western-supported local tyrant, imposing through the animalesque sharia law restrictions to the religious freedom of his people in order to assert his own power.
Yes good karma is from causes from the past or past life in this case. Having the result of these good karma manifested as a King is a result similar to the cause of generosity and it is said in the sutra for even having circumambulated a Buddha statue creates the cause for such a rebirth.
After being born as a King what one does is creating causes for future karma. Karma" is "fair in this way. Whether one is evil or not is another karma from different causes. It this way the law of cause and effect is very complex and it is said that only Buddhas have the Omniscience to see all karma.
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Yes good karma is from causes from the past or past life in this case. Having the result of these good karma manifested as a King is a result similar to the cause of generosity
Then according to you being born as the king of hell henchmen is good karma, is it?
and it is said in the sutra for even having circumambulated a Buddha statue creates the cause for such a rebirth.
Then according to you if one circumambulates a stupa one will be reborn as a king of torturers or the like, is it?
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It this way the law of cause and effect is very complex and it is said that only Buddhas have the Omniscience to see all karma.
Which does not authorize your ridiculous statement that being reborn as a debauched king of sadistic torturers is “good karma”.
You are obviously mystified by the word “king”. “King” is just the name given to some leader. A terrorist leader may be called a “king”.
Being reborn as an evil leader, such the sultan of Brunei, or the evil dalie, is the result of evil intentions, never or virtuous karma.
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Being reborn as an evil leader, such the sultan of Brunei, or the evil dalie, is the result of evil intentions, never or virtuous karma.
You are just being absolute and simplistic above karma as though it is either black or white, evil or good. But things are mostly a mixture of black and white. One can be born a King (to say this is just a label is another example of your simplistic view; for we can see the Kings conditions of richness and power among many attributes that defines a King), but the King commits negative acts, his good karma leads him along with with his delusions to commit negative karma. The King may also be charitable and in this case he commit positive karma. An daily, just like any samsaric beings this is what we can pervasive suffering for even the positives actions help to solidified his attachments to samsara.
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I would actually think, the way he live his life, it is similar to the god realm, where he only indulges in enjoyment day in day out. I don't think he will ever think if what he does is causing suffering to others.
Money is neutral. Having a lot of money does not necessary means good karma, nor it means bad karma. Some people are born with a lot of wealth and use it to benefit others, so this is good karma. However, with a lot of money, a person do a lot of negative things, this would be bad karma.
But from what I see here, all he does is enjoyment and not helping others, sooner or later, his good karma will run out, just like the god realm. When that happens, I don't think he wants to know what will happen to him.
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Is it good karma to be born rich ? Is it good karma to be born with the status of a "King" ? Is it good karma to be born with all the powers to do anything you wish to ?
In my opinion if the above birth conditions are used to benefit others , to relief other's pain and sufferings and to altruistically bring others to Enlightment, can we consider it a positive condition or karma. Otherwise if these conditions are used badly, ignorantly and destructively, then it is a cause to go to hell !
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This is definitely being in God’s realm on earth. Having the kind of wealth to spend such a sum of money on roses is not something most people would do. And to be able to afford getting expensive cars at 14 years of age is hardly a normal consumer behaviour. I hope they would use the same attitude and behaviour when it comes to helping others in need.
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This is definitely being in God’s realm on earth. Having the kind of wealth to spend such a sum of money on roses is not something most people would do. And to be able to afford getting expensive cars at 14 years of age is hardly a normal consumer behaviour. I hope they would use the same attitude and behaviour when it comes to helping others in need.
And as it is said in the Lamrim, gods will spend their days having fun and all that money can buy in the case of earthly gods. They will have so must enjoyment and pride that they will not remember to be kind and any kindness (with some exceptions) will be based on their ego that increase their selfishness and suffering. This is the most pervasive kind of suffering that is talked about in the Lamrim. That which all samsaric beings generate negative karma fro future sufferings.