−−⏑⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦−⏑−⏑¦⏑−⏑−
saṁkhyādibhir amuktaś
ca nir-guṇo na bhavaty ayam |
−−⏑⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦−⏑−−¦⏑−⏑−
tasmād
asati nairguṇye nāsya mokṣo 'bhidhīyate || 12.77
12.77
Again,
when not freed from intellectual efforts like enumeration,
This
[abandonment] does not become free of defining features;
Therefore,
in the absence of freedom from defining features,
There is
said to be no freedom in it.
COMMENT:
Today's
verse as I read it is about freedom in non-intellectual practice.
What
today's verse as I read it is implying, below the surface, is that
when there truly is liberation (mokṣaḥ) in the practice of abandonment,
this abandonment (parityago 'yam) is a bit of nothing.
As a bit
of nothing, this abandonment has no defining features
(nir-guṇaḥ). Alternatively, it might reside in the state whose defining feature is being without anything (nairguṇye) -- see discussion of nairguṇya,"the being-without virtue," in BC6.24 and BC6.38.
Either way, so long as this practice of abandonment is stuck in the area of saṁkhyā (saṁkhyādibhir amuktaḥ) then this abandonment has as its defining features a bit of something, and is therefore not yet a bit of nothing.
Either way, so long as this practice of abandonment is stuck in the area of saṁkhyā (saṁkhyādibhir amuktaḥ) then this abandonment has as its defining features a bit of something, and is therefore not yet a bit of nothing.
The
meanings of saṁkhyā include: reckoning
or summing up, numeration, calculation; a number, sum; deliberation,
reasoning, reason, intellect. So
being
stuck in the area of efforts like saṁkhyā means being stuck in the
area of miscellaneous intellectual philosophies – including, for
example, the Sāmkhya philosophy and Vaiśeṣika
philosophy of ancient India; and including also all approaches in
modern Western philosophy ranging from the logical positivism of the
Vienna Circle of the 1920s to the One True Buddhism so stupidly
expounded by my own Zen teacher in Tokyo from the 1980s.
Why do I
criticize my own teacher so severely, when he was so much more than a
reader of books and an expounder of theory? Because, although my
teacher was sincerely devoted through his life to sitting practice
itself, he failed to see the practical value of thinking as the
antagonist of doing. His objection to what FM Alexander called
“thinking” was based only on his own intellectual thinking. In
the final analysis, though he spent his whole life championing
realism and reality itself, my teacher was not so practical.
People
with some justification may point out a similar irony in me – maybe
that I devoted myself to asserting the practical value of thinking as
opposed to habitual doing, while at the same time hanging on to too
many bad habits.
Still, if I
am on the right track in reading today's verse as all about freedom
in actual practice, then previous efforts to understand today's verse
have been on the wrong track. And vice versa.
Way back in the 1890s
EBC translated today's verse:
The soul does not become free from qualities as long as it is not released from number and the rest; therefore, as long as there is no freedom from qualities, there is no liberation declared for it.
In the
1930s EHJ translated:
And as the soul is not released from the activity of reason and the like, it is not devoid of attribute; therefore, as it is not devoid of attribute, it is not admitted to be liberated.
In a footnote
in which he discussed today's verse from the standpoint of what he
knew about Sāmkhya philosophy, EHJ added:
The exact meaning of saṁkhyā here is uncertain; if it could be solved, we should perhaps know how the name Sāṁkhya arose. The use in Pali of saṁkhā is also enigmatical and not fully explained yet.... Here I take the reference to be to sampaśyan of verse 63, showing that the intelligence is still active, and I translate tentatively accordingly. What attributes are indicated by ādi also escapes me. It would be wrong to understand a secondary sense in the second line with reference to the guṇas of classical Sāṁkhya for the word guṇa in Aśvaghoṣa's day was ordinarily used in Sāṁkhya discussions of anything rather than the three factors of prakṛti, and in the Sāṁkhya known to the poet salvation was attained by the destruction of rajas and tamas only, sattva remaining alone in an enhanced state.
In 2005
Prof. Johannes Bronkhorst published a short paper titled Aśvaghoṣa
and Vaiśeṣika in which he tentatively suggested that today's verse
might better be read in light of Vaiśeṣika philosophy rather than Sāṁkhya.
For
Vaiśeṣika, the MW dictionary gives:
name of the later of the two great divisions of the nyāya school of philosophy (it was founded by Kaṇāda , and differs from the "nyāya proper" founded by Gautama, in propounding only seven categories or topics instead of sixteen; and more especially in its doctrine of viśeṣa , or eternally distinct nature of the nine substances, air, fire, water, earth, mind, ether, time, space, and soul, of which the first five, including mind, are held to be atomic).
Based on
EHJ's translation, JB translated today's verse (taking
samkhyā to mean “number,” as "number" is meant in the Vaiśeṣika
system) as follows:
And as the [soul] is not released from number etc.,it is not devoid of qualities; therefore, as it is not devoid of qualities, it is not admitted to be liberated.
In
his academic paper JB writes:
The difficulties surrounding the correct interpretation of saṁkhyā vanish when we consider the possibility that a Vaiśeṣika-like position is criticised here. The word saṁkhyā in classical Vaiśeṣika means number, and numbers are conceived of in this system as qualities (guṇa). Even a liberated soul will, from the Vaiśeṣika perspective, possess the quality ‘number’ by virtue of the fact that it has a number: each liberated soul by itself is one in number.
In 2008,
following Bronkhorst in translating saṁkhyā as “number,” PO
translated:
This soul is not attributeless when it is not released from number and the like; / And it is not viewed as released, when it's not free of attributes. //
PO added an endnote in
which he credited Bronkhorst with having shown [sic] this and that.
As Bronkhorst (2005) has shown, number here refers not to Sankhya, as had previously been thought, but to a category in the Vaisheshika system of philosophy. “Number” (saṁkhya) appears in a list of fourteen qualities in a soul. According to Vaisheshika, the first nine disappear in a liberated soul, whereas some of the remaining five headed by “number” remain. The Buddha says that when such qualities are present, a person cannot be viewed as liberated. Bronkhorst has shown that the entire argument of the following verses is also directed at doctrines of Vaisheshika rather than Sankhya.
In fairness to JB, he
never claimed to have shown
what PO claimed he had shown. JB's paper finishes with a concluding paragraph which is much more modest and tentative than that:
All this is of course pure speculation and should be taken as such. It may nonetheless be useful to ask the question whether the objection against Vaiśeṣika (if it is one) that we find in the Buddhacarita may also have occupied the minds of others, including the Vaiśeṣikas themselves, and whether the latter felt the need to find an answer to this objection.
Thus the conclusion of
JB's paper is much less tainted by the sin of certainty than PO's own
ineffably daft conclusion about Buddhacarita, which is that
Aśvaghoṣa presents Buddhism as the crowning and consummation of
the Brahmanical religion.
JB's
more tentative and more modest approach is much better suited,
in my view, to studying Aśvaghoṣa. The more enlightened approach
of JB probably has something to do with the fact that JB's academic
career, according to Wikipedia, began with study of Mathematics,
Physics and Astronomy – fields in which the opinions of academic
grandees, in the end, count for less than real evidence. But an
approach which is still better suited to studying Aśvaghoṣa, I
think, is to make an effort in the very direction which Aśvaghoṣa
points his reader, which is the direction of understanding no teaching other than the Buddha's teaching. And that direction is
followed primarily by seeking freedom on a round cushion.
Having praised JB for
not manifesting the sin of certainty, I am now nevertheless going unwaveringly to assert that all four of the eminent professors
made the same mistake, in assuming that ayam in today's verse
necessarily referred to ātman, the soul.
The basic wrong assumption, I think, is that Aśvaghoṣa might have been interested in engaging in any
kind of philosophical debate about Saṁkhyā or Vaiśeṣika
ideas about the soul. I think Aśvaghoṣa was not at all interested in
debating those ideas, beyond totally negating the existence of “the
soul” as a spiritual something that can leave a physical body like
a bird flying out of a cage.
What
the Buddha's teaching is about, and what I think in today's verse the
bodhisattva is interested in, is the practice of abandonment (parityagaḥ) in
which there is true freedom (mokṣaḥ).
For
this reason, and also for the grammatical reason that ayam in today's
verse is nom. sg. m., I read ayam in the 2nd
pāda of today's verse as referring back in yesterday's verse to
parityāgaḥ (nom. sg. m.), abandonment, and not to ātmani (loc.
sg. m.), the soul.
When the subject of today's verse is thus understood to be the actual practice of abandonment (and not a non-existent soul), today's
verse brings to my mind what Marjory Barlow told me when I showed
here how I had been taught to sit in Japan -- pulling in the chin “a
little” in order to keep the neck bones straight. Marjory took one
look at what I was doing and said, “There is no freedom in
it.”
I know almost nothing
about Sāṁkha or Vaiśeṣika,
and I have no intention of finding out more about those systems. But
I do know that Zazen as I was taught it in Japan had some very
definite defining features, one of which was the pulling in of the
chin in order to keep the neckbones straight. And I know for damn
sure that, so long as such a defining feature persists in a bloke's
sitting, there is no freedom in it.
The
irony was that for my teacher the chin being pulled in to keep the
neck bones straight vertically was a kind of hallmark of action which
is different from thinking. As my teacher saw it, when
we are
thinking something our neck is prone to incline slightly forward and
the face to incline slightly upward. So to prevent this we should do
something. We should make a postural adjustment, pulling the chin in
slightly to keep the neck bones straight vertically.
saṁsāra-mūlaṁ
saṁskārān avidvān saṁskaroty ataḥ
The
doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus does the dopey one
do.
Pulling in the chin was
a defining feature of my teacher's teaching. The suggestion in
today's verse, as I read it, is that this kind of defining feature is
symptomatic of practice that is not yet freed from the influence of
intellectual effort. I dare say that this was true in my own
teacher's case. By following my teacher's teaching as sincerely as I could, I found a fault in it. Or rather I presented myself to Alexander teachers who were able to show me the fault in me.
The silver lining here, unless I am deluding myself, is that making my mistake so thoroughly, guided by my teacher's wrong teaching, has given me a good basis from which to understand what Aśvaghoṣa is really wishing to convey in today's verse. A better basis, at least, than intellectual understanding of ancient Indian philosophical systems.
The final thing I have to acknowledge on this post, however, as a P.S., is that for my understanding that the compound nairguṇya might mean not only, as per the dictionary, "absence of virtue," but also, ironically, "the virtue of absence" or "the virtue of being without," I am pretty much totally indebted to Gudo Nishijima, who clarified that principle for me in connection with the Chinese Zen teaching of 無仏性, MU-BUSSHO, "being without, the Buddha-nature."
The final thing I have to acknowledge on this post, however, as a P.S., is that for my understanding that the compound nairguṇya might mean not only, as per the dictionary, "absence of virtue," but also, ironically, "the virtue of absence" or "the virtue of being without," I am pretty much totally indebted to Gudo Nishijima, who clarified that principle for me in connection with the Chinese Zen teaching of 無仏性, MU-BUSSHO, "being without, the Buddha-nature."
VOCABULARY
saṁkhyādibhiḥ
(inst. pl.): from numeration and the like
saṁkhyā:
f. reckoning or summing up , numeration , calculation ; a number ,
sum , total ; deliberation , reasoning , reflection , reason ,
intellect ; name , appellation (= ākhyā)
saṁkhya:
mfn. counting up or over , reckoning or summing up
sāṁkhya:
mfn. (fr. saṁ-khyā) numeral , relating to number ; n. (accord. to
some also m.) N. of one of the three great divisions of Hindu
philosophy (ascribed to the sage kapila [q.v.] , and so called either
from " discriminating " , in general , or , more probably ,
from " reckoning up " or " enumerating "
twenty-five tattvas [» tattva] or true entities [twenty-three of
which are evolved out of prakṛti " the primordial Essence "
or " first-Producer "...
amuktaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. not loosed , not let go , not liberated from
birth and death , not liberated from rāhu , still eclipsed
mukta:
mfn. loosened , let loose , set free , relaxed , slackened , opened
, open; liberated , delivered , emancipated (esp. from sin or worldly
existence) Mn. MBh. &c (with instr. or ifc. = released from ,
deprived or destitute of ;)
ca:
and
nir-guṇaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. having no cord or string ; having no good
qualities or virtues , bad , worthless , vicious ; devoid of all
qualities or properties ; having no epithet (said of the Supreme
Being)
guṇa:
m. string or thread ; a quality , peculiarity , attribute or property
; (in sāṁkhya phil.) an ingredient or constituent of prakṛti ,
chief quality of all existing beings (viz. sattva , rajas , and tamas
i.e. goodness , passion , and darkness , or virtue , foulness , and
ignorance; a property or characteristic of all created things (in
nyāya phil. twenty-four guṇas are enumerated , viz. 1. rūpa ,
shape , colour ; 2. rasa , savour ; 3. gandha , odour ; 4. sparśa ,
tangibility ; 5. saṁkhyā , number ; 6. parimāṇa , dimension ;
7. pṛthaktva , severalty ; 8. saṁyoga , conjunction ; 9. vibhāga
, disjunction ; 10. paratva , remoteness ; 11. aparatva , proximity ;
12. gurutva , weight ; 13. dravatva , fluidity ; 14. sneha ,
viscidity ; 15. śabda , sound ; 16. buddhi or jñāna ,
understanding or knowledge ; 17. sukha , pleasure ; 18. duḥkha ,
pain ; 19. icchā , desire ; 20. dveṣa , aversion ; 21. prayatna ,
effort ; 22. dharma , merit or virtue ; 23. adharma , demerit ; 24.
saṁskāra , the self-reproductive quality) ; good quality , virtue
, merit , excellence
na:
not
bhavati
= 3rd pers. sg. bhū: to be, become
ayam
(nom. sg. m.): this , this here , referring to something near the
speaker
tasmād:
ind. therefore
asati
(loc. abs.): there not being
nairguṇye
(loc. abs.): n. absence of qualities or properties ; want of good
qualities or excellencies ; mfn. having no connection with
qualities
na:
not
asya
(gen. sg. m.): this
mokṣaḥ
(nom. sg.): m. liberation, release
abhidhīyate
= 3rd pers. sg. passive abhi- √ dhā: (in classical Sanskrit
generally) to set forth , explain , tell , speak to , address , say ,
name ; abhi- √ dhī: to reflect upon , consider [see BC12.64]
是故有求那 當知非解脱
求尼與求那 義異而體一
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