duHkhaM na syaat sukhaM me syaad
iti prayatate janaH
atyanta-duHkh'-oparamaM
sukhaM tac ca na budhyate
= = = = - = = =
- = - - - = - =
= = - = = - - =
= = = - - = - =
12.23
'I would not suffer; I would be happy:'
People labour under this illusion;
And respite from incessant suffering
They sense not as such, but as happiness.
COMMENT:
This verse, as I read it, addresses firstly illusory thoughts about, and secondly delusory feelings about, happiness.
What happiness is I do not understand. Illusions and delusions, on the other hand, I do know a bit about.
“If only ....., I would be happy.” Fill in your own missing words. In the last fifty years I have filled in plenty of mine.
But what actually happens when those kind of wishes are fulfilled? What happens when we finally get to embrace the celestial nymph of our dreams, or when we pass the test and get our own wheels, or when we finally get to go home, or when we finally get to the end of some energy-sapping job?
For a starker example, what happens when an irresponsible layabout suddenly wins the lottery? The greed and other faults that made the irresponsible layabout an irresponsible layabout will continue to make him an irresponsible layabout even after he has won the lottery. Fundamentally, the fulfilment of his wish to hit the jackpot will not change anything for the better.
For hard labourer or layabout, as long as the faults that cause suffering are constantly generating noise in the system, any thought of real, lasting happiness is but an illusion.
And yet in the world of ordinary people, among labourers and layabouts, one does see sporadic outbreaks of apparent happiness, from the satisfaction of a job well done to the air-punching elation of a number that came up. How can we account for this?
When a faulty person feels happy, it is not that the faults have been eradicated, even for a moment: it is just that the underlying noise arising from faults has been temporarily drowned out. We see this happening under the influence of drink or drugs, for example. Subjectively the drunk feels like a million dollars and feels confident in his driving ability, but the feeling is unreliable: objectively the drunk looks in bad shape and is a menace on the roads.
The way that FM Alexander saw it was that if a person’s manner of using himself is bad, he might feel happy, due to “faulty sensory appreciation“ or “debauched kinesthesia,” but the feeling is unreliable.
Because my kinesthesia is still, more than 30 years after first stepping into a dojo and bowing, more or less debauched, whatever I do is liable to produce harmful side effects, i.e. suffering. If I just sit with the body, that is just doing, and it is liable to produce suffering. Because just sitting with the body is doing, we oppose it by the mental work (sometimes called ‘mindfulness’) of not reacting to that stimulus but rather allowing a response to this stimulus. And as a result of both those kinds of effort, sitting with the body and sitting with the mind, sitting can be the dropping off of body and mind. This is not only my experience and not only Alexander’s wisdom: it is the wisdom which Buddha/Ashvaghosha are expressing here. It is the wisdom expressed in the previous verse by the word nivRtti, non-doing.
Each of us brings to the reading of this ancient Sanskrit text our own illusory thoughts and delusory feelings, and yet we somehow know, in spite of ourselves, that the text itself is gold of a very pure form. It is a purity of gold that may not have seen the light of day for many hundreds of years. That may be why Linda Covill, with her keen eye and ear for the appropriate metaphor, wrote of her happiness that this text is being given “a thorough airing.”
EH Johnston:
Men labour that they may avoid suffering and feel pleasure, and they do not understand that that pleasure of theirs is but surcease from excessive suffering.
Linda Covill:
People are stimulated to effortful activity by the thought that there might be no suffering and that they could be happy, unaware that their happiness is just the absence of major suffering.
VOCABULARY:
duHkham (accusative): suffering, hardship
na syaat (optative): there might not be
sukham (accusative): happiness, ease
me = genitive of aham: of me, for me
syaat (optative): there might be
iti: thus
prayatate = 3rd person singular of pra-√yat: strive, endeavour
janaH (nominative): person, people
atyanta: mfn. beyond the proper end or limit ; excessive , very great , very strong ; endless , unbroken , perpetual
duHkha: suffering
uparamam (accusative): m. cessation , stopping , expiration ; leaving off , desisting , giving up
sukham (accusative): happiness, ease
tat: that
ca: and
na: not
budhyate = 3rd person singular of budh: to wake , wake up , be awake ; perceive, realise
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