⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−− Upajāti
(Mālā)
avaimi
bhāvaṁ tanaye pitṝṇāṁ
viśeṣato yo mayi bhūmi-pasya
|
−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
jānann-api
vyādhi-jarā-vipadbhyo bhītas-tv-agatyā
sva-janaṁ tyajāmi || 9.31
9.31
“I understand the
feelings of fathers towards a son,
Particularly the king's
towards me,
And yet, even so
knowing, afraid as I am of sickness, aging and death,
There is nothing for it
but that I abandon my kith and kin.
COMMENT:
What does the
bodhisattva mean by sva-janaṁ tyajāmi, “I leave behind my
family” or “I abandon my own people / my kith and kin”?
In the first instance
the meaning is demonstrated in the early chapters of Saundara-nanda
by the steps taken by the Buddha to put physical distance between
Nanda, who he leads aways to a vihāra, and Nanda's wife Sundarī who
is left behind in Kapilavastu.
In the second instance,
to abandon “my own kith and kin,” as the Buddha explains to Nanda
in detail in SN Canto 15, is to abandon an idea. Hence the title of
that canto, vitarka-prahāṇaḥ, “Abandoning an Idea.”
saṃsāre kṛṣyamāṇānāṃ
sattvānāṃ svena karmaṇā /
ko janaḥ sva-janaḥ
ko vā mohāt sakto jane janaḥ // SN15.31 //
Among beings dragged by our own doing through the cycle of saṁsāra / Who are our own people (sva-janaḥ), and who are other people? It is through ignorance that people attach to people. // SN15.31 //
tasmāj-jñāti-vitarkeṇa
mano nāveṣṭum-arhasi /
vyavasthā nāsti
saṃsāre sva-janasya janasya ca // SN15.41 /
With thoughts about close relatives, therefore, you should not enshroud the mind. / There is no abiding difference, in the flux of saṁsāra, between one's own people (sva-janasya) and people in general. // SN15.41 //
If I let this comment
run on the well-worn tracks of identifying a verse's
ostensible and subversive hidden meanings, the comment would be that ostensibly
sva-janaṁ
tyajāmi means “I leave behind my family,” i.e. “I put physical
distance between me and my family,” whereas below
the surface
the real or transcendent meaning of sva-janaṁ tyajāmi is “I
abandon the whole idea of 'my own people' and 'other people'.”
For
the moment, however, I am staying with the intuition that Aśvaghoṣa
here is no longer opposing or contrasting two levels of meaning, but
is rather allowing the bodhisattva sincerely to tell it like it is.
The
irony, then, if there is any irony, is as discussed yesterday in the
description of the bodhisattva's response as praśritam, or “full
of secret meaning.”
Which
is to say that the secret meaning of sva-janaṁ tyajāmi might be “I
abandon the whole idea of 'my own people'.” And, equally, the
secret might be physically to leave one's family behind, in order to
go away and sit somewhere separately, in solitude....
Hence:
Distanced from desires and tainted things (kāmair-viviktaṃ malinaiś-ca dharmaiḥ), containing ideas and containing thoughts, / Born of separateness (viveka-jam) and possessed of joy and ease, is the first stage of meditation, which he then entered. // SN17.42 //
Finally, still speaking of separateness, a parallel
that springs to mind in the arena of what in Alexander work is called
“directing” or “giving directions,” is directions which are
opposed to each other, and directions which mutually reinforce one
another.
Head forward, for
example, is opposed to head up – in the sense that if one puts
one's head deliberately forward, the head goes down; and if one makes
a big effort a la bad Japanese Zen to pull the head up towards the
ceiling, the head is inevitably pulled back.
Back to lengthen,
again, is opposed to back to widen. The two directions, as Marjory
Barlow explains in this article, are mutually self-checking.
But between “head
forward and up” and “back to lengthen and widen” there is no
contradiction. Rather, “let the neck be free” and “head forward
and up” and “back to lengthen and widen” and “knees forward
and away” are ultimately one and the same direction – if we are not truly
allowing one, we are not truly allowing the other. When we are sitting on one round black cushion, they are all one non-doing response to the force of 1g.
Similarly,
as I read today's verse, the two meanings I have discussed of
sva-janaṁ tyajāmi are pointing in the same direction. There is no
hidden meaning ironically subverting or undermining the surface
meaning. Rather the deeper meaning is supporting the surface meaning.
Thus the Buddha causes Nanda in the first instance to separate
himself from his loved one in Kapilavastu and go to the vihāra;
thereafter he causes Nanda to realize a deeper meaning of separation
in the arena of sitting-meditation. But the separation of leaving
one's family behind, and the separation of the pelvis opening up in sitting-meditation and
letting everything grow upwards and outwards from there, are ultimately not two kinds of separation. Separation, at whatever level it manifests itself, is separation – the kind of event in expanding space that is described by the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
VOCABULARY
avaimi
= 1st pers. sg. ava-√i: to perceive , conceive ,
understand , learn , know
bhāvam
(acc. sg.): m. being ; any state of mind or body , way of thinking or
feeling , sentiment , opinion , disposition , intention ; love ,
affection , attachment ; the seat of the feelings or affections ,
heart , soul , mind
tanaya-prasaktam
[EBC] (acc. sg. m.): devoted to a son
prasakta:
mfn. attached , cleaving or adhering or devoted to , fixed or intent
upon , engaged in , occupied with (loc. or comp.); being in love ,
enamoured
tanaye
[EHJ] (loc. sg.): m. a son ; n. posterity , family , race ,
offspring , child
pitṝṇām
[EHJ] (gen. pl.): m. of fathers
viśeṣatas:
ind. especially , particularly , above all
yaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): [that] which
mayi
(loc. sg.): towards me
bhūmi-pasya
(gen. sg.): m. " earth-protector ", a king , prince.
jānan
= nom. sg. m. pres. part. jñā: to know
api:
though
vyādhi-jarā-vipadbhyaḥ
(abl. pl.): sickness, aging and death
vipad:
f. going wrongly , misfortune , adversity , calamity , failure , ruin
, death
bhītaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. frightened , alarmed , terrified , timid , afraid
of or imperilled by (abl. or comp.)
tu:
but
agatyā:
ind. unavoidably, indispensably
a-gati:
mfn. not going , halting , without resource , helpless; f. want of
resort
sva-janam
(acc. sg.): m. a man of one's own people , kinsman; one's own people
, own kindred
tyajāmi
= 1st pers. sg. tyaj: to leave , abandon , quit ; to give
up , surrender , resign , part from , renounce
我亦知父王 慈念心過厚
畏生老病死 故違罔極恩
畏生老病死 故違罔極恩
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