BUDDHACARITA 4.56: Sincere Views on Youthfulness & Beauty

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kiṁ vinā nāvagacchanti capalaṁ yauvanaṁ striyaḥ |

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yato rūpeṇa saṁpannaṁ jarā yan nāśayiṣyati || 4.56

4.56

“What is missing in these women

That they do not understand youthfulness to be fleeting?

Because, whatever is possessed of beauty

Aging will destroy.

COMMENT:

Following on from yesterday's verse in which the prince's mind is described as both resolute and agitated, I think today's verse can be read as both the sincere thoughts of a resolute mind and as the mistaken thoughts of an agitated mind.

On the surface, the spiritual prince stands for truth and the sensual women represent obstacles to the truth, in which case the women are lacking in understanding of impermanence, whereas the prince's words show that he is not lacking in such understanding.

Below the surface, another, quite different meaning emerges, if we dig for it. Which is to say that “youthfulness is fleeting” is a view like “swans are white.” Just as it only takes one black swan to falsify the general proposition that swans are white, it only takes one practitioner in his 70s who,  for forty or fifty years, has retained his youthful enthusiasm for practice, to falsify the general proposition that youthfulness is fleeting – especially if that septuagenarian practitioner succeeds in transmitting his youthful enthusiasm to the next generation of practitioners, who succeed in their turn in passing their youthful enthusiasm on to the next generation, and so on. In such a case, what is missing – to answer the prince's question – is closed-minded adherence to a musty old view.

Again, in the second half of today's verse, “aging will destroy beauty” might be nothing more than the thinking of an agitated mind. “Aging will destroy whatever is possessed of beauty” might be a view that is readily falsified whenever an individual practitioner rips away superficial appearances of beauty (i.e. grows old in the sense suggested in BC3.30, 3.33, and 3.36) and sees real beauty in such indestructible teachings as the Buddha's four noble truths, in the process of elucidating which for Nanda the Buddha tells him: 

So my friend, with regard to the many forms of becoming, know their causes to be [the faults] that start with thirsting / And cut out those [faults], if you wish to be freed from suffering; for ending of the effect follows from eradication of the cause. // SN16.25 // Again, the ending of suffering follows from the disappearance of its cause. Experience that reality for yourself as peace and well-being, / A place of rest, a cessation, an absence of the red taint of thirsting, a primeval refuge which is irremovable and noble, // SN16.26 // In which there is no becoming, no aging, no dying, no illness, no being touched by unpleasantness, / No disappointment, and no separation from what is pleasant: It is an ultimate and indestructible step, in which to dwell at ease. // SN16.27 //

Speaking of indestructible beauty, though I do not understand the deeper statistical and mathematical aspects of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, I know of nothing more elegant and beautiful, as an explanation of beautiful natural phenomena, than the rule that energy tends to spread out, unless prevented from doing so. For those of us who, on our round black cushions, are inquiring into the reality of spontaneous flow, that rule may be one to rely upon forever. 

If you think I am talking, as Marjory Barlow used to say "out of my hat," then good for you. Check it out for yourself, on your own round black cushion. 

Over Christmas 1987 and into the New Year of 1988 when I was struggling to hold the fort at the Zazen Dojo that Gudo Nishijima had just established on the outstkirts of Tokyo, Gudo told me: "This dojo will become the centre of true Buddhism in the world, thanks to your efforts." At that time, he was sincere in his view, and I was sincere in my hope that his view was true. In other words, he was sincerely deluded, and so was I.

Twenty-five years on, my response to Gudo is that this round black cushion, and this computer, are centres here and now of skeptical inquiry into the views of thinking men and women everywhere who think that they are wise.

To state my conclusion bluntly, the prince in today's verse is sincerely and resolutely talking through his arse, having so far failed to notice the truth that has just been expressed to him as follows, in the form of a rhetorical question:

Can spring deliver exuberant joy, to birds that fly the skies, but not the mind of a thinking man who thinks that he is wise?

VOCABULARY

kim u: ind. how much more? how much less?

imāḥ (nom. pl. f.): these, these here

kiṁ vinā: what do they lack?

kim: (interrogative particle)

vinā: ind. without , except , short or exclusive of (preceded or followed by an acc. instr. , rarely abl.)

na: not

avagacchanti = 3^rd pers. pl. ava- √ gam: to hit upon , think of , conceive , learn , know , understand , anticipate , assure one's self , be convinced ; recognize

capalam (acc. sg. n.): mfn. moving to and fro , shaking , trembling , unsteady , wavering ; wanton , fickle , inconstant; momentary, instantaneous

yauvanam (acc. sg.): n. (fr. yuvan) youth , youthfulness , adolescence

striyaḥ (nom. pl.): f. women

yataḥ: ind. (often used as abl. or instr. of the relative pron.) from which or what , whence , whereof , wherefrom ; wherefore , for which reason , in consequence where of ; as , because , for , since (often connecting with a previous statement) ; in order that (with Pot.)

rūpeṇa (inst. sg.): n. beauty, outward appearance

saṁpannam (acc. sg. n.): endowed or furnished with , possessed of (instr.)

saṁmattam (acc. sg. n. [?]): mfn. completely intoxicated (lit. and fig.) , exhilarated , enraptured , enamoured

jarā (nom. sg.): f. aging, old age, growing old

iyam (nom. sg. f): this

yad (acc. sg. n.): which

nāśayiṣyati = 3^rd pers. sg. future causative naś: to cause to be lost or disappear , drive away , expel , remove , destroy , efface

不知少壯色 俄頃老死壞
哀哉此大惑 愚癡覆其心