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taken seriously. Koch resorts to another Eastern solution to this problem: To prevent a holy
man from accumulating too much sakti, with which he might threaten their position, the gods
would try to trick the ascetic into expending his energy. One classic example is of the jealous
god Indra who would send a beautiful apsarasas to seduce the powerful ascetic, and drain him
of his power in sexual bliss. A true Bodhisattva would not be vulnerable to such attraction,
since he is entirely without ego, and therefore feels no temptation (Zimmer, 1969, 537). Mike
Langford, whose weakness to Ly Keang is demonstrated in chapter 9, is so vulnerable, and
therefore, no true Bodhisattva. Still, even the Buddha lived as a less than unassailable man
before attaining enlightenment and becoming a Bodhisattva, and Koch strenuously supports
Langford as one who seems destined for some kind of similar, though westernised, role of
‘Ford Maker’.
Langford is not especially willing to assume the role, and yet does question the
motivation for his disinterest. He is moving towards embracing the concept of the Supreme
Utterance—which requires engaged disinterest—in a salient passage when Langford tries to
tell Chandara why he cannot fight, and Chandara tells him why he can:
—…The whole point about my work is to stay uninvolved, I said. A
corespondent can’t be involved.
—But the formula was sounding more and more feeble to me lately, and
Chandara seemed to know this. He smiled now as though I were a slow child.
Mike, you are coming to middle age like me, he said. As a Buddhist, I know
it’s time to start acquiring merit. Maybe you should know this too.
Langford asks ‘how he could be a Buddhist and a soldier at the same time’, and Chandara’s
answer prepares the foundation for one who would assume the Bodhisattva role.
—Because I’m not a monk, he said. Only they can follow the Eightfold
Path. I’m a man of passions, you can see that. But Buddhism’s tolerant of
people like me. It only asks that we live our lives as well as we can. And this
is what the Khmer Rouge threaten too. They used to pretend to respect
Buddhism, just for propaganda; now they mock it, and desecrate the pagodas
and say there is no spirit: that human beings are only clay. That’s how we
know they are people of darkness, who’ll destroy goodness. (HW, 278)
This affirms the role of virtuous action according to ‘The Great Vehicle’ view of Buddhism,
and identifies again for Langford, whose determination to remain uninvolved even in the face
of such evil has become perverse, just who the Khmer Rouge are.
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