SAUNDARANANDA 13.15: Grounds of Integrity (II)

praani-dhaanya-dhan'-aadiinaaM
varjyaanaam a-pratigrahaat
bhaikSh'-aaNgaanaaM nisRShTaanaM
niyataanaaM pratigrahaat

= - = - - = = =
= = = = - = - =
= = = = - = = =
- - = = - = - =

13.15
On the grounds of not accepting
living beings, grain, money, and so on,

As things to be avoided;

On the grounds of accepting
the established rules for begging,

With their definite limits;

COMMENT:
This verse, as I read it, is not primarily about making a living as a beggar. This verse is primarily about integrity ; and, again, it is about the primacy, in making a living with integrity, of NOT giving consent.

Making one's living as a beggar is no guarantee of integrity.

Neither is making one's living as an Alexander teacher. Alexander work is all about not giving consent in order to realise integrity -- and in particular to realise a certain integrity in the central alignment of one's whole self (but do not call it "good posture," because it is not something fixed). Still, making one's living as an Alexander teacher is no guarantee of integrity. That is clear to me from observing teachers who are selling Alexander lessons as a kind of bodywork, not as Marjory Barlow, Nelly Ben-Or and others have endeavoured to teach it to me, as "the most mental thing there is." In purporting to teach others what integrity is, we Alexander teachers are thus liable to manifest a fundamental lack of integrity. A gap appears, and tends to grow bigger, unless prevented from doing so. This is how it is. I do not claim to be immune to that tendency. I hope that I am not asleep to it.

In teaching an Alexander pupil how to work on himself, I make use of both negative feedback ("No, not that!") and positive feedback ("Yes, that's it."). But in so doing, I see the negative feedback as primary, and the positive feedback as secondary. And I see exactly the same primacy, the primacy of the negative, in this verse, as also in the previous verse.

Thus, the primary thing to attend to in alms-taking as a means of practising integrity, the Buddha is teaching Nanda, is not what to accept. The primary thing to attend to is what NOT to accept. The primary thing is not the giving of consent. The primary thing is the withholding of consent, the NOT giving consent.

People who show integrity in their making of a living, it seems to me, tend to be not easily swayed by greed or personal ambition or impatience to get where they are going. That may be why I am finding it helpful to limit myself in this translation work to one verse per day. The slow pace acts as a kind of brake, giving me more time to attend to the process.

I would like this process of translating Ashvaghosha to be, above all, an exercise in practising integrity, so that this translation will have succeeded -- regardless of how widely read or well received it is, and regardless of what kind of reward I get for doing it -- where the Shobogenzo translation process ultimately failed.

With regard in particular to financial reward, the wiser course might be to adhere to the injunction stated in this verse, not to accept any money. This decision is much easier for me to make now that my sons are 18 and 16 than it was when they were 3 and 1.

In 1998, when I asked him in questions and answers after a lecture at the temple, why he and the publishers had taken the decision to make unilateral changes to our translation, Gudo Nishijima told me that he took the decision which so shocked me "as a businessman in the modern age." The truth was that my teacher had made not insubstantial financial sacrifices to support me through our joint translation process, and the publication was being funded mainly out of his own pocket. But the statement that he took the decision, which I felt to be a betrayal of our translation partnership, "as a businessman in the modern age" made no sense. If he wanted to make a change, all he had to do was let me know. The decision was actually the manifestation of a kind of anger, emanating from a deeper fault, and veiled behind the professed viewpoint of the "realism" for which, in truth, I had begun to feel a visceral disgust as far back as 1986, when I shaved my head and quit my job and was accused of not being "realistic." That is when I began to understand that "realism," along with every other kind of "-ism," can be a screen that prevents reality from being seen, by self and others.

The truth behind the screen was that, after starting a family in 1990, I was too anxious to get money; while my teacher, having begun the Shobogenzo translation process on his own, was too eager to be seen, by self and others, as the main translator, which in truth he had ceased to be. And so, because of our respective desires for profit and for fame, a very small gap opened up -- a gap that was just big enough to allow our Shobogenzo translation process to be poisoned.

From the mistake there is a lesson to be learned. It is a mistake that I am determined shall NOT be repeated.

EH Johnston:
By refusing what is to be avoided, living beings, rice, wealth, etc. and by accepting the authorised rules of mendicancy with their definite limits.

Linda Covill:
by refusing to accept those gifts which should be avoided, such as living beings, grain and money, and by accepting the restrictions prescribed for alms-taking,

VOCABULARY:
praanin: mfn. breathing , living , alive; m. a living or sentient being , living creature
dhaanya: n. corn , grain
dhana: any valued object , (esp.) wealth , riches , (movable) property , money , treasure , gift
aadiinaam (genitive): beginning with, et cetera

varjyaanaam = genitive, plural of varjya: mfn. to be excluded or shunned or avoided or given up
a: not
pratigrahaat = ablative of pratigraha: receiving, accepting

bhaikSha: n. asking alms , begging , mendicancy
aNgaanaam = genitive, plural of aNga: limb, subordinate division
nisRShTaanaam = genitive, plural of nisRShTa: sent forth , dismissed , set free; allowed , authorized

niyataanaam = genitive, plural of niyata: fixed , established , settled , sure , regular , invariable , positive , definite
pratigrahaat (ablative): by accepting