⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑−¦¦⏑−−⏑¦⏑−⏑− bhavipulā
tato
muhūrtābhyudite jagac-cakṣuṣi bhās-kare |
−⏑−¦⏑⏑⏑−¦¦⏑⏑−⏑¦⏑−⏑− navipulā
bhārgavasyāśrama-padaṁ
sa dadarśa nṛṇāṁ varaḥ || 6.1
6.1
Then
at the instant of the rising
Of
the light-producing eye of the world,
The
ashram of a son of Bhṛgu
He
the best of men did see.
COMMENT:
In
this Canto we return to the 8-syllable śloka metre which, though it
makes for short verses of only 32 syllables, is generally flexible
enough in its rules to allow the elements of each verse to be
arranged following a certain four-phased logic.
I
endeavour to maintain this four-phased arrangement in translation as
far as possible, as far as the normal conventions of English grammar
allow.
Thus
in today's verse the real punch is carried in the 4th pāda
by the verb dadarśa, which expresses the action of seeing, or
realizing.
The
3rd pāda expresses the concrete object seen, the
hermitage.
The
2nd pāda seems to invite investigation of the kind of
truths that are investigated in biology and physics.
And
the 1st pāda speaks of rising, or of mustering up of
energy, of getting psyched to do battle.
The four phases, then, roughly follow the scheme of (1) mind/motivation, (2) material world, (3) practical/concrete object, and (4) realization.
Still, today's verse at first
glance does not have much to do with that one great matter, or that
one great purpose (Sanskrit: paramārtham; Chinese: 一大事
/ 一大事因縁)
which Dogen identified with sitting-meditation. But every verse
Aśvaghoṣa wrote, after I memorize it, sleep on it, and then sit
for an hour in the morning, eventually shows itself to be totally
tangled up with sitting-meditation. And today's verse is no exception.
First thing yesterday morning, however, before sleeping on it and sitting on it, the first thing today's verse
stimulated me to do was to ask myself: How is light produced? How
does the sun manage to produce so much light?
I
don't know, and neither evidently does JP, the heroic contributor to this discussion that I stumbled on by googling "How is light produced?"
In answer to the
question of how light is produced from an atom, JP begins by
answering as follows:
It's because an electron gives off an electric field. As the electron moves, it drags this field about with it, creating ripples that propagate away. These ripples are the light given off. An analogy would be to think of a duck in a pond. A duck sitting still doesn't make waves. But if the duck moves, it creates ripples in the water that travel away as waves.
By
starting with this analogy, in a manner reminiscent of Richard
Feynman, JP helps me form some kind of bridge between my crude
understanding of the 2nd law of thermodynamics operating in the everyday world as I experience it, and the
altogether wierder world of quantum-electro-dynamics. Which is to
say, I have no appreciation at all of what an electron is, or how all
those zillions of electrons in the sun are moving about, but I do at
least have some appreciation of how when the sun causes wheat to grow
and a man uses that wheat to make bread with which to feed the ducks,
the energy in that bread is converted by the duck into manifestations
of energy as diverse as quacks and ripples in the water. And, once
initiated, these ripples – in a conspicuous manifestation of the
2nd law of thermodynamics – tend to keep on spreading
out as waves.
A long series of
questions and answers follows, in the course of which JP asserts that
physics never explains a root cause of everything and (probably) never will. So if you drill down deep enough, you'll always hit a point where we don't have a deeper theory.
In the final analysis,
then, JP seems to admit that even the best of physicists arrive at a
point of not knowing how the sun produces light.
But JP's not knowing,
in the area of light-production, might be on a level of not knowing
that I have never peeped even in a dream.
If somebody like JP had
questions on how to sit, conversely, I would aspire to give answers
as clear and considered as JP's answers, written not on the basis of
knowing how to sit, but on the basis of NOT knowing how to sit and,
perhaps more pertinently – in my capacity as a teacher of the FM Alexander Technique – on the basis of
knowing how NOT to sit.
Apropos
of which the title of this new Canto is chandaka-nivartanaḥ,
“The Turning Back of Chandaka.” And this ostensibly describes the
prince sending Chandaka back to the city of Kapilavastu (hence EHJ:
The Dismissal of Chandaka; PO: Chandaka is Sent Back). But, a priori,
not yet having translated anything beyond today's verse, I would bet
my rapidly approaching bottom dollar that what Aśvaghoṣa is going
to do below the surface is hold up Chandaka as a paragon of the
practice of turning back. So not “The Dismisal of Chandaka [by the
Prince]” and not “Chandaka is Sent Back [by the Prince]” but
The Turning Back of Chandaka [by nobody but Chandaka].
The
difficulty referred to in the duṣkaram viditvā (knowing the
difficulty) of BC5.86 is not the difficulty but the outright
impossibility of doing anything to realize one's original features –
because to engage in any such doing is already to have fled from this
place and strayed into the dusty borders of foreign lands. So the
real difficulty is in the not doing. The thing which can be learned –
albeit with difficulty – is, in other words, desisting from one's
habitual doing, turning back from it, and coming back to oneself.
So
sit in lotus with the body, Dogen exhorted, and sit in lotus with the
mind. Sit in lotus as the dropping off of body and mind.
Learn
the backward step of turning light around and letting it shine. Body
and mind fall away, naturally, automatically, spontaneously, and your
original features re-assert themselves.
Such were Dogen's exhortations, which I have been thinking about, on and off, for the past 30 years. So here's my own two-pennyworth:
To
sit with the body is NOT a matter of knowing anything; it is purely a
matter of doing.
To
sit with the mind is a matter of knowing what NOT to do.
Body
and mind spontaneously dropping off and one's original features
emerging is a matter of knowing that
It knows what to do.
But
please, for fuck's sake, do not call It Jehovah or God or Allah. If
we call it anything, let us call it nature, whose eye is something so
conspicuously energetic as a sun.
Thy will be done.
Amen.
VOCABULARY
tataḥ:
ind. then, from that
muhūrtābhyudite
(loc. sg.): in the moment of its rising
muhūrta:
m. n. a moment , instant , any short space of time RV. &c
(ibc. , in a moment
abhyudita:
mfn. risen (as the sun or luminaries) ; one over whom (while
sleeping) the sun has risen ; n. (said of the sun or the moon)
rising (during some other occurrence)
abhy-ud-
√ i : (said of the sun) to rise over (acc.) , rise ; to engage in
combat with (acc.)
jagac-cakṣuṣi
(loc. sg.): n. " eye of the universe” , the sun
bhās-kare
(loc. sg. n.): mfn. light-producing; m. " making light ",
the sun
bhārgavasya
(gen. sg.): 'relating to or coming from bhṛgu ' ; name of various
men
bhṛgu:
m. N. of one of the chief Brahmanical families ; m. sg. N. of a ṛṣi
regarded as the ancestor of the bhṛgus
āśrama-padam
(acc. sg.): n. a hermitage ; a period in the life of a Brahman
āśrama:
mn. ( √śram) , a hermitage , the abode of ascetics ; a stage in
the life of a Brahman
pada:
n. step ; position , rank , station , site , abode , home
√śram:
to be weary ; to make effort , exert one's self (esp. in performing
acts of austerity)
sa
(nom. sg. m.): he
dadarśa
= 3rd pers. sg. perf. dṛś: to see, behold
nṛṇām
(gen. sg.): m. men
varaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. “select " , choicest , valuable ,
precious , best , most excellent or eminent among (gen. loc. abl. ,
or comp.) or for (gen.)
須臾夜已過 衆生眼光出
顧見林樹間 跋伽仙人處
須臾夜已過 衆生眼光出
顧見林樹間 跋伽仙人處
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