shleSham tyaagaM priyaM ruukShaM
kathaaM ca dhyaanam eva ca
mantu-kaale cikits'-aarthaM
cakre n' aatm'-aanuvRttaye
= = = = - = = =
- = = = - = - -
= - = = - = = =
= = = = - = - =
13.7
Joining and leaving, love and toughness,
Talking, as well as actual realisation,
He used during instruction for the purpose of healing,
Not to win a following for himself.
COMMENT:
I changed the translation of the 3rd line of the previous verse to:
"Because of complete and stainless integrity".
The point of this and the previous verse, it seems to me as I read this one now, is that in the matter of a teacher's primary motivation for teaching, nothing else but complete and stainless integrity will do.
In holding up the positive mirror of the Buddha's complete integrity, I suppose, Ashvaghosha is not asking us to have faith in a state of exalted perfection that might ultimately be beyond us: he is rather describing an integrity which has been and which continues to be essential to our own lowly practice.
It might not be reasonable to expect complete absence of faults in ourselves as teachers or in others as teachers: a teacher who lapses into imbalanced states like anger, depression, or pride is not automatically disqualified by those states from being a teacher. Turning to help from alcohol, as seemed to be Chogyam Trungpa's case, or being addicted as certain French teachers apparently are to strong black coffee and cigarettes, might harm a teacher's liver and lungs and stain his teeth, but those vices do not necessarily stain the integrity that I think is being described here.
What stains the integrity that I think is being described here is purporting to tell the truth not for the sake of the truth itself, but for the sake of one's own fame and profit. Master Dogen wrote that his greatest fear was losing the will to the truth, the bodhi-citta. This fear was fully reflected in the negative mirror of Shobogenzo chapter 73, Sanju-shichi-bon-bodai-bunbo, The 37 Elements of Bodhi. In this chapter, Master Dogen tears into charlatans in China who twisted the traditional teaching of the importance of leaving home, so as to win a following for themselves among lay people. Dogen compared those so-called monks to dogs eager to feast on the shit and piss of lay people.
Based on personal experience, I feel a similar negativity toward the kind of dentist who is primarily in it for the money. And the dentist analogy may be apt here, as the 3rd line of this verse returns to the medical metaphor: In administering the good medicine which is the Dharma, Ashvaghosha is telling us, the Buddha's aim was to heal; and at times of working towards this aim, just this aim and not personal gain was his aim.
This attitude is not a remote ideal that I might realise one day if I were to become as perfect as the sage Gautama (pigs might fly): it is how I must be, here and now, notwithstanding myriad faults, in this very task of translation. It is how I must be, at 11.00 am, when my friend arrives for an Alexander lesson.
The closing words of the verse n' aatm'-aanuvRttaye "not-self-[for obedience/compliance], are without doubt pointing away from selfishness. What kind of selfishness they are pointing away from is somewhat open to interpretation: alternative translations that might be valid are "not to suit himself," as in EHJ's interepretation; and "not to win a following for himself," as in LC's.
In the end, I have provisionally decided on the latter interpretation and translation, because I think that doing things to suit oneself, at one's own whim, like smoking or drinking or driving fast cars or chasing fast women is a much less serious sin than twisting the true Dharma in order to win a following as a teacher. The Buddha may have been totally unstained by the former kind of sin. I don't know if he was or not. Is it necessary for me to take a leap of faith and believe that the Buddha was perfect in every way? Again, I don't know. But it seems to me that any question that introduces a conflict of doubting vs believing, tends to be confidence sapping.
Where confidence lies, in contrast, is in the certain knowledge that all the true teachers I have known in my life, and I have been fortunate to know quite a few, were motivated primarily by love of what they were teaching, and not by the desire for self-promotion. Marjory Barlow, to name one such teacher, was not spotlessly free of sin. But in administering the good medicine of the teaching of her uncle, FM Alexander, Marjory demonstrated complete and stainless integrity.
EH Johnston:
At the time of giving counsel He made use of now joining, now separation, now pleasant methods, now harsh ones, now fables and now mystic meditation, for the sake of healing, not at His own whim.
Linda Covill:
During times of counselling he stayed close or kept away, was kind or severe, and used stories or meditation not to win obedience to himself, but to promote healing.
VOCABULARY:
shleSham (accusative): connection , junction , union ; embracing , an embrace
tyaagam (accusative): leaving , abandoning , forsaking
priyam (accusative): n. love , kindness , favour
ruukSha (accusative): m. hardness , harshness
kathaam (accusative): conversation , speech , talking together ; story , tale , fable
ca: and
dhyaanam (accusative): realisation, [sitting-]dhyana
eva: emphatic
ca: and
mantu: m. an adviser , manager , disposer , ruler , arbiter RV ; (also as f.) advice , counsel
kaale (locative): in time
cikitsa: f. medical attendance , practice or science of medicine (esp. therapeutics , one of the six sections of med.)
artham (accusative): purpose (ifc. " for the sake of , on account of , in behalf of , for ")
cakre (perfect of kR): to do , make , perform , accomplish , cause , effect
na: not
aatma = aatman: self
anuvRttaye = dative of anuvRtta: mfn. following , obeying , complying; n. obedience , conformity , compliance
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