Shabake

During the CNY holiday, I read Shabake (娑婆氣) of Hatakenaka Megumi (畠中恵). It is a hybrid story of detective and thriller - another book I borrowed from AL.

The book is very much similar to those by Miyuki Miyabe (宮部美幸) and I shall not elaborate here. The meaning of Shabake, however, is not without interest.

According to Hatakenaka, the term means the heart that has been blinded and controlled by fame, money, and other calculations on earth. Nonetheless, I could not find the origin of the term Shabake. Shaba (娑婆), on the other hand, appears in ancient literature of Hinduism and Buddhism; it means the world that we are living.

The traditional Chinese translation of Shaba is, with a sense of black humour, To Tolerate (堪忍).

What do we have to tolerate on earth ? By Buddhism, they are the Ten Sins (十惡) and Three Poisons (三毒).

I shall not describe all ten sins, but the last three refer to Sins of the Idea (意惡業), which are the same as the three poisons: greed (貪), anger (嗔), and obsession (癡). They are the major (and possibly only) factors that keep us in this world of reincarnation.

PS. You see where we are getting at ? What Buddha said was: We have to tolerate ourselves !