202: Moral Corruption and the Disaster of the Physical World

This talk explores how the Buddha linked moral corruption to the imbalance of the natural world. As human greed, anger, and ignorance grow, they don’t just harm society—they ripple outward, affecting the very elements of the planet. The Buddha taught that when morality declines, even the orbits of the earth, moon, and sun shift, leading to climate extremes, disasters, and instability across the world.

Through modern examples of political corruption, environmental destruction, and global conflict, we trace how cause and effect flows from individual actions to global consequences. When leaders and nations act with selfishness, the tone spreads downward—through governments, industries, and ordinary people—fueling exploitation and chaos.

This talk reminds us that the root cause of the world’s crises lies not in technology or carbon emissions alone, but in the moral decay of the human heart. By restoring virtue, compassion, and awareness, we can begin to heal both our inner world and the planet we share.

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Transcript

Sayar Myat: 0:04

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa,Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa, Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. Theravada Buddhism series, Dhamma talk number twenty five. Today's topic is moral corruption and the disasters of the physical world the law of cause and effect or conditions and there are many causes or conditions combined, produced or made a main event or events, and also from an event there are many conditions that arise. In the Atanika Sutta, the Buddha said prolonged and ever increasing human moral corruption creates a shift in the orbits of the moon, the earth, and the sun. And that again has effects on the planetary system. Due to the shift in the orbits of the earth, and the moon and the sun, the earth will face climate change with extreme heat, in some places, extreme cold, and a shift in the direction of the wind, storms, rains and floods. That what Buddha explained to us in that sutta. Of course, I try to put it in as simple my own English words for us to understand clearly. Human beings, animals, insects, bacteria are not the only one who suffers from the consequential climate change. The air residing devas. There are many types of devas. Some Deva resides in the air. How? And when the wind directions blow crazy, big storm hurricane comes, their residents are shaken, moved. And these there was no or understand what are the causes of their disturbance in the region where they live. They understand it is due to human moral corruption. So they get really angry at the humans for disturbing their world. As a result, the Devas even compounded the climate disaster to become worse. What they are? Deva powers. In other words, they create rains bigger than ever, wind bigger than ever, drought bigger than ever. Whatever they are, power influences. So it becomes worse. As a consequence, livelihood, especially farming, that depends on the stability of the climate are affected, thus creating a shortage in the food supply, followed by starvation, and also human animals and fish. Mass migration. When there's bad weather, no food to eat, nothing to grow. There's no wall you can build that the human would not pass through. Mass migration. We have seen one in Europe because of the war in Syria. Human much mass migration goes to Europe. Those kind of things will happen due to starvation, lack of food supply. And that will be followed by war and chaos. These take effect due to the prolonged and ever increasing wickedness of human. These happen of our own wickedness as Hamas. Events happening presently are very obvious and need no explanation. It is right under our nose. However, science cannot penetrate the realms of Deva. So we don't know how it is. The effects of the Deva, the effects of the shift in the orbit due to moral corruption, in a direct evidence basis. So we have to contend with Buddha's statement in this sutta. Some of us who have great confidence in the triple gem, Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, would have no problem accepting it or believing in it. Then the Buddha also said the path, the road of a herd of cattle will be straight if the leading bull trodden straight. And the path will be crooked if the leading bull trodden crookedly. What does it mean? Let's try and elaborate and see with our current events and human history. Let's say a king or a benevolent dictator, a president, prime minister, or the leader of a country, rule justly and fairly with moral conscience. The country will be peaceful and prosperous. The country will be peaceful and prosperous, mean there's a right amount of rain, a right amount of sun, no floods. The weathers are great and good for your crops. From that it comes peace and prosperity. However, if a leader rules unjustly, wickedly, and selfishly, what happened? First and foremost, his minister, advisor, let's use a modern day words, cabinet ministers, senators, and the top administration organization will also follow that leader, that king, that dictator, that prime minister or president. The tone of the administration is set now. The top honcho set the tone, and his immediate and forza also take that tone and set the tone for everyone. And right after that, what happened? The immediate teams, sub-organization that support the administration will also implement the same tone with favoritism, prejudice, self-interest, and in some cases right out bullying. At any cost, they will implement that tone. Does it stop there? No, it doesn't stop there. These are very closely knit immediate cause and effect, cause and effect. People with great wealth. We'll work with the the power group, like hand and glove. Power and wealth, great wealth goes hand in hand. You scratch my back, I scratch your back. The power group supports what the wealthy group wants, the wealthy group again turns around and support the power group to be able to sustain and maintain their position. They walk like hand and glove. That is the top level group, closely knitted, going with cause and effect on an immediate level. Now the mass. From there it flows down to the mass. Some of the people in the mass in the country will blindly and gleefully follow these corrupt programs. They will follow these corrupt programs. There's about they go, come on, let's do it. We are good, we are right. This is what we need. Blindly follow. And also there's the rest of the country. And the rest of the country, what happened? The rest of the country suffer the consequences. These just flew from one to the other, cause and effect, cause and effect. And even though the rest of the country are indifferent or don't agree, they do not have enough means to counter the force that is coming down. That is how moral corruption and the wickedness of a leader of a country can make humanity suffer. So this is how causal relationship works. The tone set by the top guy. Let's see little more details from the big picture. What emerges from this moral corruption is downward spiral of events. Some are quite obvious to notice, and some are very subtle. The people with power allows or permits businesses and trades that are not good for the mass, for the people, and also the world, the physical world. The people and the physical world. They are damaging, but they take no heat. They will allow, they will make it happen. To take a few examples, such as nowadays mining, digging oil, gas, coal, radioactive minerals. We all know these products are not good for the humanity as well as the planet itself. They know the facts, but they don't accept the facts. They denied it and keep on doing blindly, but they are creating great damages to the world and the people. Many animals, birds, and insects who lived there were displaced. Some extinct, some migrated to different places. Trawling, overfishing, rape the world's ocean, and impact ecosystem. Salmon has to migrate some of the areas that they spawned before. There's no more salmon or very little salmon, and so on. You know these things more than I do. These negative impacts are the result of the filthy rich business people and corporations lobbying efforts, their efforts, and the government officials permitting for their personal benefits. That's what I mean by hand and glove. You scratch my back, I scratch your back. And all these operations and programs and network of self-interest of these groups come down from the top honcho, the top morally corrupt ruler or leader. Because that person or a group of people are the ones who set the tone. This is the meaning of when Buddhist said the leading bull that trodden a crooked path. Take the rest of the herd onto a crooked path. That's what Buddhists mean. I try to explain that based on the fact what is happening nowadays around the world. In the last full five thousand years, leaders with egoistic, greedy, and full of lust for power and wealth. They have written many destruction and our human history. These people have written the history of destruction, chaos, and war. These periods went hand in hand with the chaos of the physical world. Those periods have a lot of droughts, floods, disease, many natural disasters, some earthquake. Coincidentally, those are happening around a similar period. But especially in the last two, three hundred years. The humanity's moral compass has submerged. Moral corruption and wickedness increased drastically in a large, meager scale. Before it's only on a regional scale, not now it is on a worldwide scale. And the last two, three hundred years. The world had plunged into two world wars, the first world war and second world war. That's all started with moral corruption. Of course, you can point fingers. But regardless, it takes two detangles. These worldwide man-made catastrophes had occurred and are occurring due to the due to a handful of people. That's it. This handful of people are deciding all these regional worlds. And this handful of people has a finger on the burden to create a that wall world. Just a handful. The rest of us, the rest of the humanity, are like sheep simply following. We simply follow the wicked leader. You agree or you don't agree, you are in that current. That's how a morally corrupt leader can set the tone and spread around the world. Leaders. These are such as carbon emission, deforestation, these are the immediate causes we can put our fingers on. The Buddhist pointed out the root cause of disaster of this physical world, our planet Earth, which make humans, animals, and many beings suffer is moral corruption. That's a root cause. If the human race corrects our cause of moral corruption, sooner than later, we may still have time to avoid the disaster of upcoming catastrophes. So let us be diligent, let us be heedful, and try and help ourselves as well as our neighbors and friends live a conscious life. May all of us be able to live in a peaceful and prosperous world by being morally conscious as soon as possible. Thank you very much.