Subduing Tiger Arhat

Story context

Imagine, for a moment, the most dangerous thing you can think of. A grizzly bear. A great white shark. A creature that, if it ever truly focused its full attention on you, would end your existence in seconds. Now imagine that what you feel—that pure, animal terror—is the exact thing this person on this path has annihilated from his own experience. Not suppressed. Not controlled. Annihilated. The Subduing Tiger Arhat is not a man who fights tigers. He is a man who looked at a tiger, saw nothing but a suffering being wearing a mask of teeth and claws, and then walked into the tiger's mouth to give it a sermon. He is the most radical proof I know that the Buddhist path is not about becoming stronger. It is about becoming so empty that nothing can hurt what isn't there.

Why it matters

You may have seen those classic Chinese paintings of a fierce-looking monk sitting calmly with a large tiger curled at his feet like a house cat. Very peaceful, very serene. In the West, that image is usually read as "he tamed the wild beast." But that reading misses the entire point. The Arhat did not tame the tiger. Taming implies that the tiger is still a tiger, just one that has decided not to eat you today. That is a temporary arrangement. The Subduing Tiger Arhat converted the tiger. He changed its nature. He looked into its karma and saw the chain of suffering and fear that made it a killer, and he broke that chain. How do you break that chain? You don't fight it. You don't run from it. You become the thing it is afraid of, only without the aggression. You sit down in front of it, let it do its worst, and when its worst turns out not to be able to find you beneath your own selflessness, it gives up the game. Let me tell you how the man who would become the Subduing Tiger Arhat began this journey.

Quick facts

Appears in chapters

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Source novel

Buddhas Who Cross the Sea of Karma