sad v" aapy a-sad v"aapi viSha-mishram annaM
yathaa vinaashaaya na dhaaraNaaya
loke tathaa tiryag upary adho vaa
duHkhaasya sarvam na sukhaaya janma
16.9
Good food or bad food, if mixed with poison,
Makes for ruin not for sustenance.
Likewise, whether in a world on the flat
or above or below,
All birth makes for hardship not for ease.
VOCABULARY:
sad: good
vaa... vaa: whether... or
api: also, even
a-sad: not good, bad
viSha: poison
mishra: mixed
anna: food or victuals, especially boiled rice
yathaa... tathaa: just as... so too
vinaashaaya = dative of vinaasha: utter loss, annihilation, destruction, decay, death
na: not
dhaaraNaaya= dative of dhaaraNa: preservation, support, keeping, protecting, maintaining
loke = locative of loka: in a world
tathaa: so too, likewise
tiryag (in compounds for tiryaNc): going or lying crosswise or transversely; horizontal; "going horizontally", an animal (amphibious animal, bird, etc ); the organic world (including plants)
upari: above, upwards , towards the upper side of (opposed to adhas)
adhas: below, down, in the lower region
vaa: or
duHkhaaya = dative of duHkha: for suffering, for hardship
sarva: all
na: not
sukhaaya = genitive of sukha: for happiness, for ease
janma: birth
EH Johnston:
As food, whether good or bad in itself, tends to destruction, not to the support of life, when mixed with poison, so all birth in this world, whether among animals of above or below, tends to suffering, not to pleasure.
Linda Covill:
Food mixed with poison conduces to the loss of life and not to its preservation, whether the food itself be good or bad. Likewise, all birth makes for sorrow and not for happiness, whether the birth be among animals or in the worlds above or below.
7 comments:
Mike,
The other day at my local library I tripped upon a VHS copy of an Alexander video by Jane Kominski (spelling) with William Hurt. I found it quite amazing. During my sitting last night I thought of allowing my neck to free up. The thought alone did it! It was incredible. My sitting felt so stable. Time to drop the outcome.
Many of the suggestions seem to parallel some of the things I learned from a sports psychologist on visualization. I never seemed to be any good at any of those suggestions and now I think I know why. Pop psychology asks you to visualize something while removed from the environment you are thinking about. What this video showed me is that it is could be much more effective to intend to do something during the action itself.
All the best,
Al
Hi Al,
Thank you for sharing this. What you are reporting, as I read it, is a discovery of vital importance.
What you are reporting is a change (which you felt to be a change for the better) in your SITTING, not as a result of DOING something different, but simply as a result of a change in your THINKING. You write: “The thought alone did it!”
You are not reporting that a change in your thinking resulted in a different psychological state. You are reporting that a change in your THINKING resulted in a change (which you felt to be a change for the better) in your SITTING.
You might assume that, if anybody had studied Shobogenzo in detail and understood Master Dogen’s teaching that SITTING is foremost, such a person might be all ears wishing to listen to such honest feedback from a practical old gym veteran like yourself, reporting what he found in his own sitting practice.
But your assumption might be wrong. The reality rather seems to be that when a person has formed a view already about how to sit, his or her ears have already become closed to new information. This situation of ears being closed to new information seems to me to describe the solid block which has now been formed not only in Japan but also in America, France and England by so-called “Soto Zen practitioners” -- which is one reason I feel very happy to have found, on looking further upstream, the pre-Soto Zen teaching of my original ancestor Ashvaghosha.
From 1994 onwards, when I started reporting back to my Japanese Zen teacher on the kind of change you now report, he began to regard me, much to my surprise, as a danger to his “true Buddhism.” He thought I had abandoned his “philosophy of action” in favour of “Western intellectual thinking.” Certain other of his followers seemed to me to play on the old man’s suspicions in order to effectively poison our relationship.
This is the background against which I asked you, Al, in our previous email correspondence, not to follow the trend of calling me “Mr Cross.” Notwithstanding the fact that from the age of 22 I devoted myself to serving him, and translated Shobogenzo into English for him, Gudo Nishijima in his later years took to calling me “Mr Cross” as opposed to other of his more recent Dharma-heirs who he called Ven. So and So. The reason I deserve only the polite title for a secular person, evidently, is that I contradicted Gudo’s own Buddhist viewpoint.
Particularly against this personal background, it has been very difficult for me to remain emotionally detached in discussing the phenomenon that you now describe.
However, quite apart from me, the truth is the truth. And the truth that I discovered for myself from 1994, you have now begun to discover for yourself. I hope this blog might help you see that Ashvaghosha described exactly the same truth -- the truth of not only sitting with the body but also sitting with the mind.
This sitting with the mind is not Zen meditation. It is sitting, but not only with the body. It is sitting, as you have begun to describe it, with the mind.
Master Dogen wrote: “Sit with the body. Sit with the mind. Sit as body and mind dropping off.”
So thanks again, Al, for your effort to identify a vital piece of the jigsaw.
Mike,
Thank you greatly for your feedback. I have some thoughts I'd like to present on the subject, but am short on time and will not be in front of a computer until Monday morning.
I will say that I did feel an improvement. The astonishing thing was that although I needed the intention to make it happen, the thought alone did not stimulate discursive thought. Thinking and thought are loaded words and the meaning and context are not always clear.
Regards,
Al
Hi Al,
I would not say that the word thinking is loaded. I would say that the loadedness is in people's reactions to the word.
Anyway, will look forward to continuing this discussion next week.
All the best,
Mike
Mike,
In my fifth day since allowing the neck to be free when sitting I have noticed that my weight sinks deeper and deeper into the earth. This is very appealing.
I have some questions:
1) Does one continue to think the thought of allowing the neck to be free during the entire duration of sitting as if to concentrate on it, or does one only come back to it when they notice they are lost in discrimination?
2)How does "thinking" in this manner tie in with Dogen's "Non-Thinking" and "Dropping Off Body and Mind"?
My very short experience with this process tells me that you did not abandon Nishijima's "Philosophy of Action" at all. The intention to "Allow the neck to be free, and allow the back to lengthen and widen" seem to me to be actions which allow the physical actions to manifest instantaneously. In that instant the two actions negate and include each other becoming action itself.
I'm regurgitating what has come out of my brain thus far. Please don't hesitate to correct any inconsistencies or misunderstandings.
I have finally found a teacher in my area by the name of Toshu Neatrour. I will be meeting with him this Sunday. I am also looking for an Alexander teacher.
Regards,
Al
Hi Al,
If I confine myself to your two questions...
1) Speaking for myself as I practised just now, this morning, when I think the words "Let the neck be free, to let the head go forward and up, to let the spine lengthen and back widen, sending the legs out of the hips," et cetera, providing I remain clear in regard to the principle that what I am asking is for is an undoing, and I cannot do an undoing, then thinking the words works to free up my respiratory mechanism, and I can sense this happening, whereupon I make one complete exhalation and sway left and right. After that, I direct my practice into the area of thinking without words -- what Ashvaghosha described (in Canto 17) as letting the waters of the thinking mind be still.
2) Alexander work, as FM Alexander himself described it, is "an exercise in finding out what thinking is." That involves constantly finding out that one's previous understanding was inadequate, not it. The same could be said of the work of studying the teaching of Dogen -- that it is an excercise in finding out what non-thinking is.
To sit with the body is to sit on the basis of feeling.
To sit with the mind is to sit on the basis of thinking.
To sit as body and mind dropping off is just to sit, so that in the area of feeling there is nothing -- pure indifference -- and in the area of thinking there is also nothing -- pure awareness.
(See 17.54-55.)
I think it is impossible for me to correct what ought to be corrected in you, Al. I can't do it via the internet, and I might not be much use to you if we met face-to-face, either. To endeavor to let Ashvaghosha speak for himself, to you and to others like you, is the most useful thing I now feel I can do. But good luck to Toshu Neatrour, and also to any Alexander teacher whose direction you decide (or find yourself unable to decide) to submit yourself to!
All the best,
Mike
Mike,
On your first point, I will endeavor to investigate thinking without words.
On your second, I will endeavor to investigate what thinking and non-thinking actually are.
I really appreciate your guidance and suggestions. Thank you for your words of encouragement on what should be an interesting journey. I will continue to study this blog as guidance.
Regards,
Al
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