Following his murderous conquest of Kalinga by the Mauryan Emperor Asoka (c.271-232 BCE), he “repented” and became a lay Buddhist, but clearly used Buddhism to secure his rule. He was the Buddhist equivalent of Christianity’s “Saint” and emperor, Constantine. Some authorities claim he controlled the Third Buddhist Council, expelled and even executed monks for “wrong views.” It was his son, Mahinda, who established Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

Later, Buddhism absorbed the ideas of karma and reincarnation from the ruling Brahmans in India, and was eventually destroyed by them, but not before the corrupted form spread throughout Asia. A recent historical example is found in Zen priest Brian Victoria’s book Zen at War. Victoria revealed that the leaders of the Soto Zen sect in particular were propagandists for the state: energetically promoting fascism, racism, antiSemitism, war and emperor worship before and leading into WWII. Some of the leading Zen priests in this effort were precisely those who trained prominent American Zen masters. Michael Parenti’s essay on Tibetan Buddhism reflects the same integration of despotism with aberrant doctrines. Luckily, one can still heal and learn a lot from meditation, but it’s difficult to cut through the nonsense.