SAUNDARANANDA 14.44: Further Suffering of Loss

pranaShTo yasya san-maargo
naShTaM tasy' aa-mRtaM padaM
pranaShTam a-mRtam yasya
sa duHkhaan na vimucyate

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14.44
He who has lost the right track

Has lost the deathless step.

Having lost that nectar of deathlessness,

He is not exempt from suffering.

COMMENT:
There is no such thing as a right posture, but there might be a right track (san-margaH). Any being who has lost it must once have known it, in which case, according to the teaching of Zen Master Dogen, a bodhisattva can revere that being as his teacher -- whether the being is a man, a worman, a wild animal, or even a teacher of the FM Alexander Technique.

The deathless step (amRtam padam) might be the backward step of turning one's light and letting it shine -- a step, which, according to Dogen, we should learn for ourselves, should make our own.

And in order to obtain that nectar of immortality, sitting beautifully and peacefully upright in the so-called 'full lotus posture,' the most important means might be the means of losing (pranaShTam).

Sitting under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha lost even the desire to become enlightened. Before that he had been a kind of champion of self-denial in a group of ascetics, but seeing that he was not on the right track as a member of that group, he abandoned the group. As he wandered off alone, giving up on ascetic practice, the other ascetics must have seen him as he indeed was: a quitter and a loser.

Thus, as a complete and utter loser, the Buddha, for the first time, truly took the deathless step.

Thereafter what relation did the Buddha have with suffering? Did he continue to experience pain in his legs, or did he not? Did he continue to experience heart-aches, large and small, or did he not? Did he continue to lose the right track, to lose the deathless step, and to lose the very nectar of immortality, or did he not?

EH Johnston:
He who has lost the holy Path has lost the place where death is not ; and he who has lost that place is not delivered from suffering.

Linda Covill:
When he has lost the true path, the deathless place disappears for him too; he for whom deathlessness is lost is not liberated from suffering.

VOCABULARY:
pranaShTaH (nom.): mfn. lost
yasya: of who
san-maargaH (nom.): m. the right path (fig.)
sat: real , actual , as any one or anything ought to be , true , good , right
maarga: m. (from mRga) the track of a wild animal , any track , road , path
mRga: m. (prob. " ranger " , " rover ") a forest animal or wild beast

naShTa: mfn. lost , disappeared , perished , destroyed , lost sight of, invisible
tasya: of him
a-mRta: mfn. immortal, deathless
padam (nom.): n. (rarely m.) a step , pace , stride

pranaShTa: lost
a-mRtam (nom.): n. immortality, the nectar of immortality
yasya: of who

sa (nom.): he
duHkhaat (ablative): from suffering
na: not
vimucyate (3rd pers. sg. passive of vimuc): he is unloosed, detached, set free; is freed or delivered or released (esp. from the bonds of existence) ; he gets rid of , escapes from (abl.)