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atha
kaṣṭa-tapaḥ-spaṣṭa-vyartha-kliṣṭa-tanur muniḥ |
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bhava-bhīrur
imāṁ cakre buddhiṁ buddhatva-kāṅkṣayā || 12.100
12.100
And so the sage
Whose body was
evidently being tormented,
to no avail, by
pernicious austerities,
Formed – while being
wary of becoming –
The following resolve,
in his longing for buddhahood.
COMMENT:
Today's verse, as I
read it now (not as I translated it six years ago, without
understanding the grammar of imāṁ buddhim), is another verse that
relates to the discussion in Chinese Zen of polishing a tile and
wanting to make a mirror.
The concluding 21
verses of this Canto describe the bodhisattva forming two resolves,
the first being the resolve to eat food; the second being the resolve
to keep sitting in the cross-legged posture until fulfillment of his
vow – bodhaye – in the direction of enlightened wisdom.
So imāṁ cakre
buddhim, “he formed the following resolve” or “he made this
decision,” in today's verse refers to the bodhisattva's first resolution, his decision to eat food.
The main clause –
imāṁ cakre buddhim “he formed the following resolve” – sits in the middle, framed by two adverbial compounds, bhava-bhīruḥ and
buddhatva-kāṅkṣayā.
buddhatva-kāṅkṣayā
means “in his longing for buddhahood.” Hence EHJ: “in his
longing for Buddhahood” and PO “longing for Buddhahood.” EBC
translated “in his longing to become a Buddha.”
The latter translation
is a red flag to Zen practitioners who are steeped in Dogen's
teaching 莫圖作佛 (Jap:
sa-butsu o hakaru koto nakare), “Don't try to become Buddha!”
So we need to
understand, based on a verse like today's verse, that “Don't try
to become Buddha!” is not a negation of the longing for
buddhahood.
"Don't try to become Buddha!" in terms of the tile and mirror metaphors, is not a
denial of the possibility of making a mirror, nor a denial of longing in that direction.
“Don't try to become Buddha!” can rather be understood, in light of Dogen's metaphor of the moon being reflected in a body of water, as a negation of becoming. Which is to say that when a human being realizes enlightened wisdom, nothing has become of reflecting subject and nothing has become of reflected object.
“Don't try to become
Buddha!” again, can be understood as a negation, a la Yoda in Star Wars,
of trying. "Trying," FM Alexander observed, while Yoda was but a glint in his grandfather's eye, "is only emphasizing
what you already know."
Broadly, I take “Don't try to become
Buddha!”as a cautionary admonition to
be alive to the danger of what FM Alexander called end-gaining,
i.e. going directly for an end in view without due consideration of
the means to be employed.
This attitude or
approach of trying to become something, or end-gaining, is represented in today's verse as I read it by the word bhava, which I have translated as “becoming” so that
bhava-bhīruḥ describes the bodhisattva as “wary of becoming.”
Being wary of becoming –
in other words, being alert to the dangers of end-gaining – is a very
different thing from dreading existence, or being afraid of life
itself. And yet “dreading continued existence” (EBC), “dreading
existence” (EHJ) and “afraid of continued existence” (PO) are
all perfectly literal translations of bhava-bhīruḥ.
“Being
afraid of life” is a perfectly literal translation of bhava-bhīruḥ,
but it might be a very misleading translation.
A translation like EHJ's “dreading existence” conveys the sense that the bodhisattva was afraid of bhava (existence) as something out there. But I think the deeper meaning of bhava (becoming) in today's verse is as a tendency in here.
The Chinese translation
also failed to catch the deeper meaning with:
怖畏生死苦
Fearing the suffering
of birth and death
專求正覺因
He sincerely sought the
true cause of awakening.
For reference, here is
how I translated today's verse back in 2008, wrongly taking imām to
refer to the cycle of becoming. That looks to me now like a rookie
translation error, which of course it was – but I don't regret
making it.
12.100
Harsh ascetic practice, it was clear,
Was torturing his figure to no purpose, and so the sage,
Wary of this cycle of becoming,
Resolved, in his longing for buddhahood:
Harsh ascetic practice, it was clear,
Was torturing his figure to no purpose, and so the sage,
Wary of this cycle of becoming,
Resolved, in his longing for buddhahood:
I regret any pain I
have caused others by all my errors, but I don't regret any of the
pain I have caused myself along the way, insofar as I am on the way to redeeming myself, by clarifying the
original practical meaning of the Buddha's teaching of pratītya-samutpāda.
Every verse that Aśvaghoṣa wrote is profoundly related with the practical teaching of pratītya-samutpāda, and today's verse is no exception.
Today's verse is certainly no exception, because (a) samutpāda, or "Complete Springing Up," can be taken as synonymous with realization of buddhatva, buddhahood, and (b), pratītya "going back," can be taken as expressing the direction which is opposite to bhava, becoming.
The Buddhist consensus is that pratītya-samutpāda means something like "Dependent Origination." But that is by no means the whole story.
To the extent that pratītya-samutpāda means "Dependent Origination" or "Conditional Arising," it is a kind of description of how reality is, in which case sitting-meditation is a means to realize that conditionally arisen reality.
But framing it like that already contains a bit of a seed of becoming.
So an alternative way of understanding pratītya-samutpāda, "Springing Up, by going back," is as just sitting-meditation itself.
Framed like that, pratītya-samutpāda already contains the negation of becoming.
And in that case pratītya-samutpāda "springing up, by going back," is synonymous with buddha-carita, "awakened action," and with saundara-nanda, "beautiful joy," and with 正法眼蔵, SHOBOGENZO, "the treasury of the eye of true dharma."
VOCABULARY
atha:
and, and so, then
kaṣṭa-tapaḥ-spaṣṭa-vyartha-kliṣṭa-tanuḥ
(nom. sg. m.): his body evidently tormented to no avail by pernicious
austerities
kaṣṭa:
mfn. bad, wrong ; painful ; grievous , severe , miserable ; injurious
tapas:
n. ascetic practice
spaṣṭa:
mfn. clearly perceived or discerned , distinctly visible , distinct ,
clear , evident , plain , intelligible
vyartha:
mfn. useless , unavailing , unprofitable , vain
kliṣṭa:
mfn. molested , tormented , afflicted , distressed ; wearied , hurt
, injured , being in bad condition , worn ; connected with pain or
suffering
tanus:
n. the body
muniḥ
(nom. sg.): m. the sage
bhava-bhīruḥ
(nom. sg. m.): being afraid of becoming
bhava:
m. coming into existence , birth , production , origin (= bhāva) ;
becoming , turning into (comp.) ; being , state of being , existence
, life ; worldly existence , the world (= saṁsāra L. ) ; (with
Buddhists) continuity of becoming (a link in the twelvefold chain of
causation) ; obtaining , acquisition (= āpti , prāpti)
bhīru:
mfn. fearful , timid , cowardly , afraid of (abl. or comp.) ; (with
paratra) dreading the beyond or the hereafter
imām
(acc. sg. f.): this
cakre
= 3rd pers. sg. perf. kṛ: to do, make
buddhim
(acc. sg. f.): mind, intention (buddhiṁ- √kṛ or pra- √kṛ ,
to make up one's mind , resolve , decide)
buddhatva-kāṅkṣayā
(inst. sg. f.): in his longing for buddhahood
buddhatva:
n. the condition or rank of a buddha
kāṅkṣā:
f. (ifc.) wish , desire , inclination
kāṅkṣ:
to wish , desire , long for , hope for (with acc.) , expect , wait
for , await (with acc.) , strive to obtain , look for anything (dat.)
怖畏生死苦 專求正覺因
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