adya te sa-phalaM janma
laabho 'dya su-mahaaMs tava
yasya kaama-rasa-jNasya
naiShkramyaay' otsukaM manaH
12.21
Today your birth bears fruit;
Your gain today is great;
For though you know the taste of love,
Your mind is yearning for indifference.
COMMENT:
Quite unlike the dog which is right now pining and whimpering and straining at the leash to which he is tied in my neighbour’s front garden, in blind reaction to the scent of love he has sensed in the morning air through his moist nostrils, a human being can be inspired to aspire to the state of zero. Guided by a skilful trainer, service dogs, guard dogs, sniffer dogs and the like can achieve remarkable things, but their training is always driven by instinct, especially the instinctive desire to please their pack leader. Again, balanced though dogs tend to be, that balance is not a function of intelligence. After a while next door’s dog, as he did yesterday, will stretch out in the sun and fall asleep. Dogs, more quickly than humans tend to do, quickly and naturally return to balance. Dogs, however, do not consciously aspire to balance; they do not consciously aspire to that freedom of the neck which is not caring. The story of Handsome Nanda, in contrast, is the story of a human being who is consciously inspired by the Buddha to aspire toward the state of zero. And in telling Nanda’s story, Ashvaghosha’s conscious intention is to inspire us consciously to aspire in the same direction.
This all sounds very reasonable and conscious. At least it made sense to me as I thought it out. So I thought of translating the last line “Your mind aspires towards detachment.” Then a nagging doubt arose and I went back to the dictionary, which seems to confirm that the word utsuka, in the fourth line, includes a greater sense of negative emotion than does the word “aspire.” Utsuka carries a connotation of restlessness, disquiet, anxiety, unease. These words certainly describe the kind of vibes that my neighbour’s dog is emanating right now, really, unconsciously, instinctively; maybe they also describe Nanda’s state as he stands trembling before the Buddha, with tearful eyes and lowered head. So the use of the word utsuka in the fourth line requires us to dig deeper.
How come the Buddha is praising Nanda for being in an anxiously desirous state?
The anxiety associated with attachment to the gaining of an end is prone to be regarded as a bad thing. Isn’t that why as a translator I am liable to be drawn unconsciously, notwithstanding the dictionary definition, to a translation such as 'aspire toward,' that does not carry the negative connotation? A teaching that contradicts this unconscious tendency (which might be regarded as a variety of naive optimism) was expressed to me by a woman who had unshakeable confidence in the conscious means-whereby principle she taught. That teaching was: “Being wrong is the best friend you have got in this work.”
From the little experience I myself have got of teaching the means-whereby principle, it is true: a pupil who is openly and anxiously desirous of gaining some end is a pupil who is likely to be very receptive to being taught a reliable means-whereby for consciously gaining that end. Aqua-phobic swimmers who wish to lose their fear of the water might be a case in point.
Whether or not a dog has the Buddha-nature, I do not know, but not for the first time in my life a dog, which is always primarily interested in energy, has pointed me in the direction of what the Buddha’s teaching is fundamentally all about.
That the mind, whether of dogs or humans, strains painfully and energetically towards the end it desires, is neither good nor bad: it is just how the mind really is. Optimistically thinking, aspiring towards our natural state of balance ought not to be such a struggle. But in reality the journey Nanda is making is a struggle, always, for everybody.
In this verse, seeing that the goal Nanda’s human mind was straining for was not the positivity of love but rather the zero of indifference, the Buddha saw that as very good. And from here onwards, the Buddha proceeds to spell out for Nanda the means-whereby he may consciously gain that end which is indifference, detachment, the state of zero -- which is, in other words, to sit immovably in lotus with a truly free neck.
My mind thinks,
Quite unlike a dog’s.
But the mind of that whimpering dog,
Is just like mine, which strains.
EH Johnston:
To-day your present existence has become fruitful, to-day your profit is extreme, since, though you know the taste of love, your mind yearns for renunciation.
Linda Covill:
Today your birth bears fruit, today you profit greatly, in that your mind longs for withdrawal though you know the taste of passion
VOCABULARY:
adya: today
te (genitive): of you
sa-phalam (accusative): together with fruits , having or bearing fruit
janma = nominative singular of janman: birth
laabhaH = nominative singular of laabha: obtaining , getting , attaining , acquisition , gain , profit
adya: today
su-mahaan: great (in space , time , quantity or degree)
tava (genitive): of you
yasya (genitive of yat): of whom
kaama: love, sensual pleasure, longing
rasa: taste
jNasya = genitive of jNa: knowing
naiShkramyaaya = dative of naiShkramya: n. indifference (esp. to worldly pleasures) , resignation
utsuka: uneasy, anxious ; anxiously desirous, zealously active , striving for any object ; eager for, fond of, attached to ; sorrowing for
manaH: nominative/accusative of manas: mind
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