kRt'-aartham iva taM mene
sambuddhaH shraddhayaa tayaa
mene praaptam iva shreyaH
sa ca buddhena saMskRtaH
- = - - - = = =
= = = = - = - =
= = = - - = = =
- - = = - = - =
13.2
As if the finished article he seemed
To the Fully Awakened One,
by virtue of that confidence;
And as if a gainer of higher good he seemed
To himself, one moulded by Buddha.
COMMENT:
As Ted reminded us in his apt comment of a couple of days ago, real happiness is to be had from simply listening to a four-line verse of true Dharma. The phrase I use to remind myself of the same is "The gold is in the bold."
Today's verse truly strikes me, in its original Sanskrit, as a golden one.
Simply listening to it is not the same as writing a comment on it on the basis of "the Buddhist viewpoint." Last night I wrote a long comment around today's verse, but there was too much of me in it; too much "Buddhist viewpoint" -- or, to be precise, too much of me reacting to the pretence of others in marketing their own "Buddhist viewpoint." It was another nasty case of the mirror principle at work, and has been consigned to the dustbin where it belongs. This morning I shall try again, with a more listening attitude.
The first half of this verse tells us how Nanda seemed to the Buddha, from the outside. The second half of the verse relates how Nanda felt from the inside.
For the Buddha, Ashvaghosha tells us again, what was of primary importance was confidence -- confidence in that higher good associated with non-doing. Looking at that confidence now growing in Nanda, the Buddha felt that his work was practically done. The phrase kRt'-aartham, which I have translated as "the finished article" means in other words "job done." So in this verse, as I read it, Ashvaghosha is reminding his descendants of future generations that their primary job, as teachers, is to inspire confidence in that higher good which is associated with the practice of non-doing.
From the inside, Nanda felt as if he had already reached that level of higher good. That level, as I understand it, is the level that FM Alexander called "the plane of conscious control," the level that top sportsmen sometimes call "the zone," and the level that Master Dogen called "body and mind spontaneously dropping off and one's original face emerging." Nanda felt he had reached that level not as a result of his own doing, and still less as a result of his own "Buddhist viewpoint," but as a result of being worked on, sculpted, moulded, fashioned, and finished (saMskRta) by Buddha.
Is this a real possibility for those of us, here and now, who all these years after the event are listening to this record of the Buddha's Dharma?
The human teacher who taught Nanda died about 2,500 years ago and his body was cremated. For us today to be moulded by the hands and voice of Gautama the Buddha is totally impossible. What is still possible, but ineffably difficult, for a person who is prepared to drop off his own view, is to be moulded by sitting-Buddha.
Alexander's principle of non-doing, applied by a follower of the Buddha's teaching to sitting practice, ultimately means just that: neither sitting with one's own body nor sitting with one's own mind, but allowing oneself to be moulded by sitting-Buddha.
EH Johnston:
The Enlightened One deemed that Nanda had, as it were, attained his goal through that faith and he, too, deemed that by the Buddha's initiation he had, as it were, already reached the highest good.
Linda Covill:
The perfectly enlightened one considered him to have virtually reached the goal by means of faith, while Nanda himself, brought to readiness by the Buddha, felt as though Excellence had already been attained.
VOCABULARY:
kRta: mfn. done , made , accomplished , performed
artham (accusative): aim, purpose, goal ; thing, substance
iva: like, as if
tam: him
mene = past of man: to regard or consider any one or anything (acc.) as (acc. with or without iva); to think one's self or be thought to be , appear as , pass for (nom. ; also with iva)
sambuddhaH = nominative of sambuddha: mfn. wide awake , clever , wise , prudent ; well perceived , perfectly known or understood
shraddhayaa = instrumental of shraddhaa: f. confidence, trust, belief
tayaa = instrumental of saa: f. that
mene: he thought himself to be
praaptam = accusative of praapta: mfn. mfn. attained to , reached , arrived at , met with , found , incurred , got , acquired , gained ; one who has attained to or reached &c (acc. or comp.)
iva: like, as if
shreyas: the better or best state, higher or highest good,
saH (nominative, singular, masculine): he
ca: and
buddhena (instrumental): by the Buddha
saMskRtaH (nominative, singular, masculine): a man who has been put together , constructed , well or completely formed , perfected ; made ready , prepared , completed , finished ; purified , consecrated , sanctified , hallowed , initiated
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