⏑−⏑⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑⏑−⏑¦⏑−⏑−
sametya
ca yathā bhūyo vyapayānti balā-hakāḥ |
−−−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑−−−¦⏑−⏑−
saṁyogo
viprayogaś-ca tathā me prāṇināṁ mataḥ || 6.47
6.47
Just as clouds join together
And then drift apart again,
So, as I see it, is the joining and
separation
Of those who breathe.
COMMENT:
What I wrote in my comment yesterday
linking separation and breathing I wrote before starting work on the
translation of today's verse in which prāṇinām
means “living creatures” and at the same time, originally,
“breathers.”
On the surface, then, prāṇinām
means all living beings, but below the surface prāṇin “one who
breathes” might be intended to suggest the same as bhūta in
yesterday's verse – i.e. a real human being, or a realized human
being, who knows what it is truly to allow an in-breath and truly to
allow an out-breath.
Yesterday
evening after another thunderstorm had passed (the one on Saturday
seeming to have knocked out my neighbour's phone line and therefore
my connection to the internet; hence the late posting), the air smelt
very fresh and the sounds of the rain-invigorated forest stream
intermingling with birdsongs sounded very distinct. As I sat outside
in full lotus I had a sense, stimulated by the energy of a corner of
the forest where I feel I belong and at the same time by today's
verse, of the importance of being able to breathe easy in one's own
skin.
Thinking
in terms of the hidden meaning of today's and yesterday's verses, as
I read them, I can't deny how vital it has been to associate with
Alexander teachers like Ron Colyer and Marjory Barlow, who taught me
a lot about how NOT to breathe; and how useful it was, before that,
to join with others in Japan who were sincerely devoted to “just
sitting,” as they believed in it. But in the end what it means to
me, and what it has meant to me for more than ten years now, to
breathe easy in my own skin, is mainly to retreat to this place by
the forest in France and sit by myself.
Through
the centuries, I seem to hear Dogen's teacher Tendo Nyojo saying, as
he is quoted saying in Shobogenzo, as if to take the piss out of a
monk who praised his own solitary practice: “Let him kill himself
by sitting.”
And
the sanitized version of my instinctive response is: “Please be so
kind as to leave me alone.”
The
joy of the first dhyāna is described in SN Canto 17, and again in BC
Canto 5, as “born of solitude / separateness.” And the going up
beyond joy of the third dhyāna involves many separations, altogether
and one after another.
Ostensibly,
then, the prince in today's verse is again describing separation as
the essence of suffering. But I think that below the surface
Aśvaghoṣa is conscious of separation as the essence of
sitting-meditation.
VOCABULARY
sametya = abs. sam- √i : to go or come together
sametya = abs. sam- √i : to go or come together
ca: and
yathā: ind. just as
bhūyaḥ: ind. again, once more
vyapayānti = 3rd pers. pl.
vy-apa- √ yā : to go away , retire , withdraw; to pass away,
vanish
balā-hakāḥ (nom. pl.): m. or
valāhaká a rain or thunder -cloud , any cloud
saṁyogaḥ (nom. sg.):
m. conjunction , combination , connection ; union or absorption with
or in ; contact
viprayogaḥ (nom. sg.):
m. disjunction , dissociation , separation
ca: and
tathā: in like manner
me (gen. sg.): me
prāṇinām = gen. pl.
prāṇin: m. 'breathing' a living or sentient being , living
creature
mataḥ (nom. sg.
m.): mfn. thought , believed , imagined , supposed , understood ;
regarded or considered as , taken or passing for (nom. or adv.)
matau [Gawronski]
(nom. dual): ibid.
[EHJ notes that
Aśvaghoṣa uses a single verb with a double subject several
times.]
浮雲興高山 四集盈虚空
俄而復消散 人理亦復然
浮雲興高山 四集盈虚空
俄而復消散 人理亦復然
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