⏑⏑−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−−¦¦⏑⏑−−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−− Aupacchandasaka
hriyam-eva
ca saṁnatiṁ ca hitvā śayitā mat-pramukhe yathā yuvatyaḥ |
⏑⏑−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−−¦¦⏑⏑−−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−−
vivte
ca yathā svayaṁ kapāṭe niyataṁ yātum-anāmayāya kālaḥ ||
5.70
5.70
As the women,
abandoning all shame and submission,
Relaxed in front of me;
And as the doors
opened, spontaneously,
It is doubtless time to
depart, in pursuit of wellness.”
COMMENT:
First up, speaking of
submission, I would like to get something off my chest about Islaam.
Islaam is a way of peace said Mayor of London Boris Johnson
yesterday. But very evidently Islaam is not a way of peace, not the
way Muslims in this country practise it. Islaam originally means, so
they say, submission to the will of Allah but many
British Muslims are evidently happy to use such submission to Allah
as a pretext – ironically – for arrogant non-submission to the rule of the law of the country they are living in.
So this week on the
news I have seen two imams, or Muslim religious leaders,
one from Oxford and one from London, saying that the crimes committed
by former members of their congregations have nothing to do with
Islaam.
Whereas it is obvious
that the sexual grooming of teenage girls in Oxford, and Wednesday's
murder of a soldier on a street in Woolwich, were commited in the
first instance by Asian men brought up as Muslims and in the second
instance in the name of Islaam. So those crimes, from where I sit, had
everything to do with Islaam.
Generally speaking it
is regarded as polite to show respect towards other people's beliefs, and Britain is a polite and tolerant country. (Though we do not always go so far out of our way to show respect as people do in America, where tolerance of religious nonsense is enshrined in the Constitution.) So when Boris Johnson
says that Islaam is a religion of peace, we are liable to stifle our
doubts. At the same time, there is no law in Britain against telling
the truth as you see it. And the truth as I see it is that Islaam as
practised by many Muslims in Britain is evidently not a way of peace
– any more than Christianity, Judaism, True Buddhism, or any other
ideology is a way of peace.
Speaking for myself,
when I am in England I submit to the law of this land; when I am in
France I submit to the law of that one; and when I am sitting I
submit, as far as I am able to submit, to that rule number two of the
universe which may be called the law of spontaneous flow – which
brings me back to today's verse.
The key in today's
verse to identifying where the ostensible and hidden meanings
diverge, lies in the ambiguity of yathā, whose ambiguity is
fortunately mirrored in the ambiguity of the English word “as.”
On the surface the two
yathā in today's verse express a relation of reason (yathā = as,
since, because), and so the strange behaviour of the women and the
mysterious swinging open of the doors are auspicious omens, because
of which the prince sees that it is time to depart.
Hence, translating
yathā as “since,” EBC translated:
“Since abandoning all shame and modesty these women lay before me as they did, and the two doors opened of their own accord, verily the time is come to depart for my true health.” (EBC)
A very different hidden
meaning of today's verse emerges, however, when those two yathā are
understood to mean “in the manner of” or “like” – the
manner in question being the manner of spontaneous flow.
Seeing such a clear
divergence in meanings, which previous translators have not
seen, hingeing on the ambiguity of yathā, is one of those moments as a translator when one punches
the air and thinks “Yes! Maybe these efforts of mine will not be entirely in vain after all.”
On the surface, then,
in the 1st and 2nd pādas, shame (hriya) and
submission / deference / humility / modesty (saṁnati) are virtues,
but below the surface the hidden meaning is that the virtue to
emulate is not shame or submission but rather the abandoning (hitvā) that leads to spontaneous release or relaxation (śayita).
Again, in the 3rd
pāda svayam, which means “by themsleves” or “of their own
accord” or “spontaneously,” alludes to that overarching law of
the universe which is infinitely more real, more practical, and more
amenable to investigation via testable hypothesis, than is a
primitive, stone-age belief in Allah.
The overarching law I
refer to is, of course, the 2nd law of thermodynamics
which describes the tendency that all energy has spontaneously
to spread out. Energy tends to spread out, the 2nd law
states, and energy will spread out spontaneously unless prevented
from doing so by activation energy barriers.
Hence a translation
that aimed more fully to bring out the hidden meaning of today's
verse (at the expense of blotting out the ostensible meaning) might
read:
“In the manner of the
women, abandoning all shame and deference,
And spreading out in
front of me;
And in the manner of
the doors spontaneously swinging open,
It is doubtless time to
depart, in pursuit of wellness.”
This hidden meaning
makes sense in the practical realm of Alexander work, wherein the
spontaneous spreading out of what should spontaneously spread out
(primarily the spiral musculature of the torso, so that vital
capacity is increased), provides a physical criterion for mental
abandonment or lack of it.
Moving on to the 4th
pāda, the first thing to note is that EHJ changed the Sanskrit text
to
niyataṁ yātum ato mam' adya kālaḥ, so that the prince is saying
“It is doubtless time today for me to flee this place.” Hence:
“Since these women lay in my presence without regard to their own modesty or to respect for me, and since the doors opened of themselves, most certainly it is the time to-day for me to depart hence.” (EHJ)
If
we accept EHJ's amendment, the only meaning that a
sitting-practitioner could take from the 4th pāda would be that Aśvaghoṣa
was holding up the prince as an example of idealistic thinking, i.e.
of how preferably NOT to think in sitting practice. This is how I
read amṛtaṁ prāptum-ito 'dya me yiyāsā
("I wish today to flee from here, in order to obtain the nectar of
immortality") in BC5.68. But I don't think that sense fits here,
especially in view of the Chinese translation.
In general the Chinese translation is not a reliable basis for intervening to amend the
text of the original Nepalese manuscript. But the Chinese translation
is always an acceptable basis for NOT intervening to change the
original Nepalese manuscript, and there does seem to be such a basis
in
觀此諸瑞相
Contemplating
these auspicious signs,
第一義之筌
[I
see] a means of fishing out the paramount truth.
筌
(“a
means of fishing out”), it should be explained, originally means a
bamboo trap for catching fish in a river; and hence a means for
catching something that, without some concrete means, is impossible
to catch.
I
think the Chinese translation supports the original text because the
original Sanskrit word an-āmayāya
literally means either "towards wellness" or "for 'The Auspicious One' (Śiva)" and the latter reading may have put into the Chinese translator's
mind the sense of 瑞相,
auspicious signs. More tellingly 第一義之筌
“a
means of fishing out the paramount truth” conveys something of the
positive sense of going in an auspicious direction, as opposed to the
negative sense implied by EHJ's version of wanting to flee from this
place.
The final thing in today's verse to reflect on, then, is that the dative case of an-āmayāya expresses movement towards, or direction.
If,
with our backsides planted on a round black cushion, we pursue what
we should pursue, what kind of pursuit might that be – directed to an end, or directed in the flow of a process?
Is
it practical to set our sights on some distant object that, in the
first instance, we are only able to conceive as a word, or as a
metaphor, like pari-nirvāna, or like an oil lamp going out because
all the oil is used up?
Is
it more practical not to have any particular object in view but
rather to have a general sense in which direction spontaneously to go in,
like “towards wellness”?
Today's
verse puts us in mind of spontaneous flow here and now rather than
any putative pot of gold over the rainbow. Still, might the most
practical attitude, in the middle way, be to investigate, not in
theory but in practice, the advantages and disadvantages of each
approach?
Alexander was overheard
to tell an individual who was probably too sold on the former
approach: 'Don't you see that if you get perfection today, you will
be farther away from perfection than you have ever been?' Herein lies
the general principle of devoting oneself to a process, getting in a
stream of spontaneous flow, and not worrying overly much about
reaching any fixed end-point (for in that very fixity would reside the essence of imperfection).
At the same time, in
his book Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, Alexander
wrote in glowing terms of conscious control, as primarily a plane to
be reached:
The “means-whereby” principle... involves a reasoning consideration of the causes of the conditions present, and an indirect instead of a direct procedure on the part of the person endeavouring to gain the desired “end.” Ths indirect procedure... establishes the conditions essential to the increasing development of potentialities.... In this connexion I wish it to be understood that throughout this book I use the term conscious guidance and control to indicate, primarily, a plane to be reached rather than a method of reaching it.
What today's verse is
hinting at, I venture to submit, is spontaneous flow as the hallmark
of action on the plane of conscious control – which is a very
different thing from yielding of individual responsibility to the
will of some ill-conceived God.
VOCABULARY
hriyam
(acc. sg.): f. shame, modesty
eva
(emphatic)
ca:
and
saṁnatim
(acc. sg.): f. bending down , depression , lowness ; inclination ,
leaning towards , favour , complaisance ; humility
ca:
and
hitvā
= abs. hā: to abandon, relinquish
śayitāḥ
(nom. pl. f.): mfn. reposed , lying , sleeping , asleep
mat-pramukhe
(loc. sg. n.): in front of me
pramukha:
n. before the face of , in front of , before , opposite to (with gen.
or comp.); mfn. turning the face towards , facing (acc.)
yathā:
like; in which manner ; as, because, since
yuvatyaḥ
(nom. pl.): f. a girl , young woman
vivṛte
(nom. dual.): mfn. unclosed , open
ca:
and
yathā:
as, since
svayam:
ind. by themselves
kapāṭe
(nom. dual): n. a door , the leaf or panel of a door
niyatam
: ind. always , constantly , decidedly , inevitably , surely
yātum
= inf. yā: to go , proceed , move , walk , set out , march , advance
, travel , journey
an-āmayāya (dat. sg.
m./n.): in pursuit of health ; for Śiva's sake
an-āmaya: mfn. free
from disease , healthy , salubrious ; m. śiva ; n. health
āmaya: m. sickness ,
disease
śiva: m. " The
Auspicious one " , N. of the disintegrating or destroying and
reproducing deity ; m. any god ; m. sacred writings
ataḥ:
ind. from this , hence
mama
(gen. sg.): my
adya:
ind. today, now
kālaḥ
(nom. sg.): m. time
婇女本端正 今悉見醜形
門戸先關閉 今已悉自開
觀此諸瑞相 第一義之筌
門戸先關閉 今已悉自開
觀此諸瑞相 第一義之筌
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