−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−− Upajāti
(Indravajrā)
kac-cid-vasūnām-ayam-aṣṭamaḥ
syāt-syād-aśvinor-anyataraś-cyuto ' tra |
−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
uccerur-uccair-iti
tatra vācas-tad-darśanād-vismaya-jā munīnām || 7.7
7.7
“Could this be the eighth of the good
gods (the vasus),
Or one of the two charioteers (the
aśvins), alighting here?”
Calls like this went up on high,
Born of the bewilderment of the sages
there, at seeing him.
COMMENT:
Nobody was clearer than my Zen teacher
Gudo Nishijima when it came to clarifying that the real meaning of
seeing/meeting Buddha is nothing religious, nothing spiritual,
nothing ideal, nothing sacred, nothing romantic. Meeting Buddha means
realizing nothing but reality as it is, including both its immaterial
and its material side.
The immaterial side, again, does not
mean anything religious or sacred or spiritual. The table at which I
am now sitting, for example, before it existed as a table, during its
construction as a table, and now as I sit at it, did exist and
continues to exist in the realm of plans, designs, ideas. At the same
time, it is a solid object made of wood.
To meet Buddha, philosophically
thinking, is to see both these aspects of the table.
As I said, nobody in my book has ever
been clearer in clarifying this point than my Zen teacher Gudo
Nishijima. When it actually came to reading reality, ironically, I
noticed over the years that Gudo was much more prone to misread
political and economic situations than was, for example, the Japanese
economist in Tokyo for whom I did editing and translating work.
During the years of the Japanese bubble economy which lasted till
around 1990, for example, Gudo did not foresee the bursting of the
bubble. He rather thought that Japan was naturally going from
strength to strength, as the most civilized nation in the world. Even
as he devoted his life to expounding a non-subjective dharma, Gudo
remained, even by his own admission, “too subjective.”
So here is an irony with which, over
the years, I have struggled to get into perspective. Gudo's teaching
around meeting Buddha was spot on; he understood the principle with
unrivalled clarity. But when it actually came to fulfilling his own
criterion for meeting Buddha, Gudo could be spectacularly clueless.
As a concrete example of the latter failing, his tendency to cluelessness in practical matters, I always remember coming out of Gudo's office in Ichigaya one blustery winter evening and watching him struggle in vain to put up the portable umbrella he used to keep in his briefcase. He was standing with his back to the wind and so every time he began to open his umbrella out, the wind would catch it and bend the spokes back. "Open it into the wind" I suggested. So Gudo turned around, pointed the umbrella into the wind, and of course the whole thing opened out without any bother straight away. Gudo laughed out loud and said. "It is a kind of wisdom!"
As an example of the former virtue, his
clarity in expounding the principle, I will relate an episode which
concluded with him telling me, with an elated expression on his face,
“You are looking at Buddha!”
We were on the train on the Sobu line
going from Gudo's office in Ichigaya to Asukusabashi, where Gudo's
old office was, and where he gave a talk on Thursday evenings at
Yanaga-bashi-kaikan. At the new office in Ichigaya, I would take
dictations of his English translations of and commentaries on the
koans in Shinji-shobogenzo, and then, carrying his bag to the
station, I would accompany him to Asukasabashi, where he would go and
eat a bento at his old office, and I would hang around either at a
coffee shop, or down by the river, or sometimes I would sneak into a
downstairs room of the Yanaga-bashi-kaikan and find somewhere to sit
in lotus. Then I would listen to Gudo in his Japanese lecture analyse every
koan according to a four-phased system of 苦
, 集 , 滅
, 道 (KU, SHU,
METSU, DO; suffering, accumulation, cessation, and the path). In the
following days I would type up and lightly edit what Gudo had
dictated. I did that for around the first 200 of the 301 koans, then, when I decided to attack in earnest the translation of Shobogenzo itself, I passed the baton of Shinji-Shobogenzo to Michael Luetchford who finished the dictating.
Several years later, MJL worked with Jeremy Pearson to turn the
project into a book. By that time my role in originally initiating
the project had been forgotten. When I spoke to MJL on the phone
about it after the book was published, MJL remained convinced that
the person who had originally done the dictating was Larry Zacchi. A
few hours after this phone-call, having gone back and read the original drafts in his
possession, MJL phoned me back and confirmed that, yes, in fact, he now
realized they were my drafts. I heard later from Jeremy that Gudo had
strongly insisted that Jeremy should put his name together with
Gudo's on the front cover. That was because Gudo had got Jeremy
confused with me. And that confusion was neither the result of
meeting Buddha nor the result of failing to meet Buddha: that
confusion was the result of senility. Neither did MJL or JMP have any
intention to deceive anybody. The whole thing was an interesting
study, from a certain standpoint, of history, or the truth of what
really happened, diverging from people's memories and perceptions.
But I digress...
While we were on the train on the way
to Asukusabashi, the conversation got around to a woman who was much
in my thoughts during my twenties and I mentioned to Gudo that there
had been one or two recent developments which had caused me to see
her in a less romantic, or idealized light. Quick as a flash, Gudo
smiled broadly and said “You are looking at Buddha!”
To be given this kind of affirmation
was at the same time surprising and deflating. What was being
affirmed wasn't any kind of achievement, or anything that I could
feel. There was no cause for punching the air. What in fact was being affirmed? Nothing. Certainly nothing
religious, or spiritual, or sacred.
In today's verse, tad-darśanād,
“because of looking at him,” as I read it, is a kind of ironic
suggestion of failing to meet Buddha. Those holy sages who were
versed in Vedic knowledge of mythical gods, when they set eyes on the
human being who was the Buddha-to-be, were bewildered. Instead of
seeing the Buddha-to-be as the human being he was, they put something
sacred on him and marvelled at him. They beheld him with wonder as if
he were divine. They saw him through religion-tinted glasses. That
kind of religious or romantic or idealized view, as Gudo well knew,
was the essence of failing to meet Buddha.
Gudo clearly knew what it was to fail
to meet Buddha, and Gudo demonstrated with outstanding clarity what
it was to fail to meet Buddha – not because his memory began to
fail him in old age but rather because of the very attachment to
romantic ideas that he maintained through his life, even while
criticizing so mercilessly any such romantic or idealistic tendency
in others. Chief among his romantic ideas was his own ability as a
translator into English, which was by no means his mother tongue. One
day I may thank him unreservedly for teaching me, above all, the
meaning of irony, and for manifesting at the same time the mirror
principle. But the day has not come yet.
My conclusion, then, is that tad-darśana,
“seeing/meeting him,” in general in Aśvaghoṣa's writings
corresponds to 見仏 (KEN-BUTSU),
“meeting Buddha,” in Dogen's writings. And meeting Buddha in
Dogen's writings, in the final analysis, cannot be realized only
with the top two inches, however excellent those top two inches may
be. What Dogen meant by meeting Buddha is a realization done and not
done with the whole self responding to the gravitational pull of the
whole earth.
In
today's verse, however, the meaning of tad-darśana is different. The
holy sages saw the prince, a normal human being shining with natural
health and vitality, and instead of meeting Buddha they put on their
Vedic spectacles and interpreted reality on the basis of a Vedic
narrative – a narrative, that is to say, that is filled with
idealistic, religious, romantic and superstitious mumbo jumbo.
VOCABULARY
kaś-cid:
ind. anyone, one
kac-cid:
(interrogative pronoun [EHJ])
vasūnām
(gen. pl.): m. excellent , good , beneficent ; N. of the gods (as the
" good or bright ones " , esp. of the ādityas , maruts ,
aśvins , indra , uṣas , rudra , vāyu , viṣṇu , śiva , and
kubera) ; N. of a partic. class of gods (whose number is usually
eight , and whose chief is indra , later agni and viṣṇu ; they
form one of the nine gaṇas or classes enumerated under gaṇa-devatā
q.v. ; the eight vasus were originally personifications , like other
Vedic deities , of natural phenomena , and are usually mentioned with
the other gaṇas common in the veda , viz. the eleven rudras and the
twelve ādityas , constituting with them and with dyaus , "
Heaven " , and pṛthivī , " Earth ")
ayam
(nom. sg. m.): this one
aṣṭamaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. the eighth
syāt =
3rd pers. sg. op. as: to be
syāt =
3rd pers. sg. op. as: to be
aśvinoḥ
= gen. dual. aśvin: m. du. " the two charioteers " , N. of
two divinities (who appear in the sky before the dawn in a golden
carriage drawn by horses or birds ; they bring treasures to men and
avert misfortune and sickness ; they are considered as the physicians
of heaven)
anyataraḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. either of two
cyutaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. moved , shaken; dropped, fallen
atra:
ind. in this place , here at this time
vā: or
uccerur
= 3rd pers. pl. perf. uc- √ car: to go upwards
uccaiḥ:
ind. aloft , high , above , upwards , from above ; loud , accentuated
; intensely , much , powerfully
iti:
“...,” thus
tatra:
ind. there / then
vācas
(nom. pl.): f. speech , voice , talk , language (also of animals) ,
sound (also of inanimate objects as of the stones used for pressing ,
of a drum &c ) RV. &c (vācam- √ṛ , īr , or iṣ ,
to raise the voice , utter a sound , cry , call) ; a word , saying ,
phrase , sentence , statement , asseveration
tad-darśanāt
(abl. sg.): because of seeing him/it/that
darśana:
n. seeing , observing , looking , noticing ; n. audience , meeting ;
n. experiencing
vismaya-jā
(nom. pl. f.) born of wonder / surprise
vismaya:
m. wonder , surprise , amazement , bewilderment , perplexity
munīnām
(gen. pl.): m. (prob.) any one who is moved by inward impulse , an
inspired or ecstatic person , enthusiast ; a saint , sage , seer ,
ascetic , monk , devotee , hermit (esp. one who has taken the vow of
silence)
彼諸梵志等 驚喜傳相告
爲八婆藪天 爲二阿濕波
爲第六魔王 爲梵迦夷天
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