−−−⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦−−−⏑¦⏑−⏑−
mtyu-vyādhi-jarā-dharmā
mtyu-vyādhi-jarātmabhiḥ |
⏑⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑−−⏑¦⏑−⏑−
ramamāṇo
'hy-asaṁvignaḥ
samāno mga-pakṣibhiḥ || 4.89
4.89
A
man whose substance is dying, being ill, and growing old,
Who
remains unperturbed while playing around
With
others whose essence is dying, being ill, and growing old,
Is
as one with the birds and beasts.
COMMENT:
In today's verse
ostensibly, once again, the prince seems to be looking down on those
who have yet to experience that arising of nervous
excitement/agitation/perturbation (saṁvegotpatti) which is
associated with awakening of the will to the truth. And once again
the ironic sub-text that Aśvaghoṣa really has in mind might be a
description of those who are already happily participating together
in practice of the truth.
In the former reading,
the 4th pāda denigrates the unenlightened individual who is dallying
about with other unenlightened individuals as someone who is on the
same level as animals – as subhuman, if you like.
In the latter reading a
man whose substance is dying might mean a man who is not worried
about losing his own body and life; a man whose substance is being
ill might mean a man who does not deny his own faulty sensory
appreciation (aka “sickness of clouded eyes” – see Shobgoenzo
chap. 43, Kuge); and a man whose substance is growing old might mean
a man who continues year after year to direct his energy in pursuit
of peace – for in directed energy, undoubtedly, lie all forms of
growth and development (vīrye hi sarva-rddhayaḥ [SN16.98]).
If we read behind the
lines, then, with the words mṛtyu-vyādhi-jarā-dharmā Aśvaghoṣa
might secretly be intending to describe a buddha as a mature man of
clouded eyes who is adept at throwing away his own body and life. As
such, alone and together with buddhas, he breathes out and breathes
in as part of one big open system.
Speaking of such
oneness with the birds and beasts, FM Alexander said:
"When an investigation comes to be made it will be found that every single thing we do in the work is exactly what is done in Nature, where the conditions are right, the difference being that we are learning to do it consciously."
This quote relates to
the problem of the relationship between thinking and reality which
became a bone of contention between my Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima
and me. Gudo's approach to reality was just to sit in it, keeping the
spine straight as an unconscious act.
“Thinking” did not come into it, except as a symptom of temporary ascendancy of the sympathetic nervous system over the parasympathetic
nervous system – as something that should be stopped, negated, cut
out, by returning to the act of keeping the spine straight. The point was to realize the reality of action, that action
being “different from thinking.” And the central point of all
Buddhist philosophy, as Gudo saw it, was the gap between thinking and
reality.
I am caused to reflect
on this problem again not only by today's verse but also by a book
titled The Alchemy of Finance that I have just started reading. The book expresses the formative thinking of George Soros, the philanthropic
philosopher and billionaire fund manager.
What strikes me
straight away, on first browsing, is that George Soros and my Zen
teacher Gudo Nishijma were each claiming back in the 1980s (as far as
I know quite independently of each other) to have resolved the
conflict between Hegelian dialectic and Marxist dialectic, via a new
synthesis.
Gudo called his
synthesis “the reality of action,” this action being “different
from thinking” or “totally cut off from thinking.”
Soros saw the synthesis
in a dynamic interplay between thinking and reality, in which
thinking is a function of reality and reality is a function of
thinking. This interplay may involve what Soros calls “reflexivity.”
Though the
dissimilarities between George Soros and myself are vast, a couple of
similarities at least are that we both studied the philosophy of Karl
Popper while at university (Soros from the man himself, me more
superficially by reading a couple of books) and we both admit to
having an absurdly inflated inherent sense of our own importance (a
kind of messianic delusion that GS has come a lot closer to
justifying than I have).
What value there might
be in Soros' theory of reflexivity, I do not yet know, not having
studied it in earnest, but certainly I do not see any grounds so far
on which to falsify it. Gudo's attempted synthesis, on the other
hand, having studied it in very great detail, I did falsify, at least
to my own satisfaction, nearly 20 years ago now. Or rather I should
say that Alexander work falsified Gudo's attempted synthesis for me.
Alexander work caused me to see that my former attempts to cut
thinking out of the picture were misguided. Trying to cut out
thinking did not cause me in sitting to commune more closely with
nature; on the contrary, it led my head, heart, and hara to get out of natural alignment
with each other.
Whereas Soros has used
the financial markets as a laboratory to test his thinking, the laboratory I have used to go wrong in has been the practice of upright sitting. And on the
basis of work in this laboratory, I argued long and hard with Gudo,
from 1994 onwards, that when Dogen described the secret of
sitting-zen as 非思量
HI-SHIRYO, “non-thinking,” Dogen was not pointing to the
reality of action which is totally different from thinking, as per
Gudo's teaching. Dogen was rather pointing to thinking, but not
thinking as people understand it.
In GS's model, thinking
has a cognitive or passive function (which reflects reality), and a
causative or active function (which can influence reality). In the
work of “learning to do it consciously,” both kinds of thinking
are vital; hence Alexander's famous phrase “This work is an
exercise in finding out what thinking is.” But the latter kind of
thinking -- “thinking in activity” – is recognized as something
particularly difficult and unfamiliar. Alexander called it the pons asinorum (bridge of asses) of every pupil he had ever met. It certainly proved a bridge too far
for Gudo. It is over this bridge, in Alexander's teaching,
that we are required to walk, in order to take over where evolution
left off, in the matter of using the self, badly or well.
What kind of synthesis,
in the end, is embodied by the method of sitting-meditation which the
Buddha transmitted? The reality of action which is totally separate
from thinking and which transcends feeling? Or a dynamic interplay between thinking and reality
in which the practitioner's thinking is conditioned by the reality of
sitting, and the reality of sitting is conditioned by the
practitioner's thinking?
The Buddha's teaching
may requires us, in the final analysis, to see both views as
fallacious.
Still, the dynamic
interplay model, from where I sit now, seems to me to be the more
fertile fallacy. I wish I had been able to read The Alchemy of
Finance when it was first published, back in 1987. I wish had been able
to recommend the book to Gudo who, ever the realist, would certainly
have been prepared to lend an ear to somebody like George Soros whose
successful falsification of the efficient markets hypothesis (the
central tenet behind “market fundamentalism”) had been evidenced
by the making of so much money.
In Gudo's model, when
water in a glass is clouded with particles of ash, as long as we
refrain from scrambling the water by thinking, the ash will drop to
the bottom of the glass and the water will become clear.
In the more dynamic
model, a body of calm, clear water is flowing steadily downhill.
Thinking is liable to disturb or interfere with the flow, as waves
would disturb the main body of flowing water. At the same time, the flow of the main
body of water, while it is primarily a manifestation of release of
gravitational energy according to the 2nd law of
thermodynamics, may in some mysterious way be influenced by thinking
to flow not in that direction but rather in that one. And again, when
the main body of water is flowing spontaneously in the right
direction, it may be that the kind of thinking that creates
interference is in some way inhibited by the strong and steady flow
of direction.
So in the latter model
waves of thinking disturb the reality of flowing water; conversely, the reality of flowing water may have an inhibitory effect on waves of thinking – which might be why I find it helpful to go and sit by the forest. At the same time, the flow of the reality of the water might be a function of thinking, though not thinking as thinking is generally understood – which is why I left Gudo in 1994 and came to England to investigate what FM Alexander meant by thinking.
Both models are only
models, or analogies. In the final analysis no model is true. And the
former model, at a certain stage, even for me, may have been a kind
of fertile fallacy. Still, I think the latter model might be closer
to what Aśvaghoṣa describes ...
For, just as waves produce disturbance in a river bearing a steady flow of tranquil water, / So ideas, like waves of thought, disturb the water of the one-pointed mind. // SN17.45 //
VOCABULARY
mṛtyu-vyādhi-jarā-dharmā
(nom. sg. m.): one subject to death, disease, and aging; one whose
characteristic attributes are dying, sickness, and growing old
dharman:
m. bearer , supporter , arranger ; n. (esp. ifc.) nature , quality ,
characteristic mark or attribute
mṛtyu-vyādhi-jarātmabhiḥ
(inst. pl.): with ones who essence is death, disease, and aging ;
with ones whose essence are dying, sickness, and growing old
ātman:
m. the self ; essence , nature , character , peculiarity (often ifc.
e.g. karmātman, &c)
ramamāṇaḥ
= nom. sg. m. pres. part. ram: to play or sport , dally , have sexual
intercourse with
hi:
for ; indeed (often a mere expletive , esp. to avoid a hiatus)
asaṁvignaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): unperturbed , without nervous agitation
saṁvigna:
mfn. agitated , flurried , terrified , shy
saṁ-
√ vij : to tremble or start with fear , start up , run away
samānaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. same , identical uniform , one ; alike , similar
, equal to (instr.)
mṛga-pakṣibhiḥ
(inst. pl. m): wild beasts and birds
mṛga:
m. a forest animal or wild beast ,
pakṣin:
m. a bird or any winged animal
非常五欲境 自身倶亦然
而生愛樂心 此則同禽獸
而生愛樂心 此則同禽獸
