Every time there is an awful tragedy in which many people lose their lives in violent and apparently unnecessary ways, the first understandable question is “why?” There will also be the temptation to lament, in a manner similar to that of Job when he was tested by God: “Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure, who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave?” (Job 3: 20–22) Why must there be so often such pain in the world that death itself could feel preferable?

The devastating fire at the Wang Fuk Court public housing estate in Hong Kong’s Tai Po District on 26 November, which has to date claimed at least 159 lives in the territory’s most devastating fire-related accident in recent memory, is one such tragedy. The hellish sight of seven of the apartment complex’s eight blocks engulfed in a raging inferno will be burned in the traumatized memories of many Hongkongers. This is especially true for those people who were unfortunate enough to lose family members, friends, or property.

Religious traditions have many philosophical and theological answers to the world’s misfortunes. For example, the inscrutable and mysterious will of God, or the inexplicable workings of karma through endless past lives, might appear as tempting responses. Yet the former explanation can appear tone-deaf and callous in the face of what philosophers of religion call “gross evil.” Gross evil—from agonizing diseases to sudden and brutal deaths that appear to offer no conceivable lesson that can be drawn from their reality—poses a fundamental philosophical challenge to the monotheistic concept of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God.

For non-theistic Buddhists, the simplistic understanding of karma as a system of cosmic justice is also problematic, as BDG columnist Kassidy Evans has noted in one of her articles. The idea of karmic fruition is used by some well-meaning Buddhists to explain inexplicable suffering. From this perspective, the “debt” of evil acts committed in countless past existences is ripening in this life.

The Buddha described the general fruit of past karma ripening in the Pali Canon as kammavipaka. But he gained the ability to see his past lives and the rebirths of others only after he attained enlightenment. Even then, the Buddha often deployed Noble Silence in the face of metaphysical and ontological questions posed to him by Brahmins. He could see into the deepest depths of reality, but he was simply not interested in answering that which would not aid in the quest to liberate all beings from suffering.

In everyday samsaric life, when we ignorant, unenlightened beings take it upon ourselves to explain unknowable and terrible matters from the perspective of enlightened beings, we instead end up with simplistic that-therefore-this propositions. When not spoken from a bodhisattva vantage point, such propositions or explanations often do not make sense or can appear insensitive and cruel. They place the burden of the sufferer on theoretical past unwholesome deeds that cannot even be identified. As BDG columnist Asa Hershoff has observed:  

While we are inherently responsible for getting out of negative karma, you are not necessarily responsible for getting into it. Life does not center around our personal dramas, no matter how intense. . . . So why, when we come to the concept of karma, is it suddenly all our fault? And the only thing that carries through, life to life, is what we did? This is completely counter to our human experience. 

We can speculate endlessly about what has occurred in our past that might have triggered or manifested whatever is happening in our present. Such philosophizing might, at best, be a way to express and articulate our troubled thoughts. At worst, it can be unhelpful and distract from the task of being present and grounded for the entire spectrum of life’s experiences, from joy to heartbreak. There is no intellectual mastery of existence. One of the most compelling arguments for Noble Silence or non-judgmental witnessing is expressed in a recent article by BDG columnist Nachaya Campbell-Allen:

. . . perhaps the point of existence was never to conquer or to know, but to consciously slip into witness consciousness—to be in wonderment and to participate in the unfolding mystery. In a cosmos that may be recursive, holographic, or entirely imagined, magic is the language of the soul remembering itself. It is the art of being fully here, in the liminal—and being comfortable with that.

While we all wish to be fully present in moments of awe, ecstasy, and wonder, we also need to be present for disasters like the Tai Po Fire. This hurting world asks us, as Buddhist practitioners, to be fully present for calamity as well as beauty.

It is said that grief demands answers, but sometimes there are none. Perhaps Noble Silence can be an answer. This silence is not the perplexed, bewildered kind, but a dimension of loving space that cradles the grief-stricken and hurting in a safety net of compassion and love. This space seeks to soothe and comfort in the same way that the bodhisattva Guanyin pours healing elixir from her divine vase. It attempts to hear lamentations as fearlessly and lovingly as does Guanyin. The moral mettle, along with the compassion and wisdom we need to muster, is no doubt considerable in such difficult circumstances. This is especially the case when great misfortunes mutate, as they often do, into tests of faith. Still, we must believe that this can be attained simply by being present in the Noble Silence of the inexplicable.

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Hong Kong’s Tai Po fire tragedy (The South China Morning Post)

Related features from BDG

The Only Thing Left Is Magic
Karma: It Isn’t (Always) What You Did
The Common Western Understanding of Karma

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Visualizing Guan Yin’s Soothing Water Vase for Hong Kong