−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−− Upajāti
(Indravajrā)
kāṣṭhaṁ
hi mathnan labhate hutāśaṁ bhūmiṁ khanan vindati cāpi toyam |
−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
nirbandhinaḥ
kiṁ cana nāsty asādhyaṁ
nyāyena yuktaṁ ca ktaṁ ca sarvam || 13.60
13.60
For by twirling the fire-stick
one obtains the oblation-scoffing
flame.
Again, by digging the earth one finds
water.
For one who persists, nothing is
impossible.
Done according to principle, everything
is truly done.
COMMENT:
The hallmark of happiness, asserted FM
Alexander, is doing well something you enjoy.
The paradoxical question for a follower
of Zen Master Dogen to answer, then, might be:
How to do well the sitting that
Dogen described as
最上無為の妙術
SAIJO-MUI NO MYO-JUTSU
a subtle method which is supreme and free
of doing
?
Words are useful in helping to clarify
how paradoxical the paradox is...
But words can only take us so far.
The principle of non-doing might most
truly be realized when the moving of the leg goes ahead and does
itself.
People say that the fundamentals of the
French economy are weak. But last summer I witnessed Frederique the
master builder and his assistant doing an extremely thorough building
job. Painful though it was to my ears, the work left a deep
impression on me of a master craftsman working to principle, or
working to a plan.
FM Alexander contrasted that kind of
effort with what he called end-gaining.
We used to joke in Birmingham in the
1970s that the tool-kit for a worker in the local British Leyland
car factory was a hammer and a condom – “If you can't fix it,
fuck it.” That is a colourful expression of Alexander's principle
of end-gaining which is opposed to working according to principle.
Working according to principle, in
building a house, or building a car, or realizing the truth of
non-doing, does not mean never going ahead and gaining the end. It
means not doing so in a haphazard unconscious manner, guided not by
principle but governed by an instinctive impatient desire to get the job
done.
The latter, end-gaining approach is the essence of ignorance,
and when we follow this approach, we can observe exactly how
ignorance gives rise to doings, just as Nāgārjuna describes in the
penultimate chapter of MMK:
The doings that lead to rebirth one veiled in ignorance, in three ways [by end-gaining with body, speech and mind], / Does do; and by these actions he enters a sphere of existence. //MMK26.1 // Consciousness seeps, with doings as causal grounds, into the sphere of existence./ And so, consciousness having seeped in, pychophysicality is infused. //26.2// Conversely, once psychophysicality is infused, there is the coming into existence of the six senses; / The six senses having arrived, contact arises; //26.3// And when the faculty of sight, going back, has met a physical form, and met indeed a meeting together, / – When sight has gone back, in this way, to psychophysicality – then consciousness arises. //26.4// The combination of the three – physical form, consciousness and faculty of seeing – / Is contact; and from that contact arises feeling. //26.5// On the grounds of feeling, there is thirst – because one thirsts for the object of feeling. / While the thirsting is going on, grasping hold takes hold in four ways. //26.6// While there is grasping hold, the becoming originates of the one who grasps – / Because becoming, in the absence of grasping hold, would be set free and would not become becoming. //26.7// The five aggregates, again, are the becoming. Out of the becoming rebirth is born. / The suffering of ageing and death, and all the rest of it – sorrows, along with lamentations; //26.8// Dejectedness, troubles – all this arises out of rebirth. / Thus there is the coming about of this whole mass of suffering. //26.9// The doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus does the ignorant one do. / The ignorant one therefore is the doer; the wise one is not, because of reality making itself known. //26.10// In the destruction of ignorance, there is the non-coming-into-being of doings./ The destruction of ignorance, however, is because of the allowing-into-being of just this act of knowing.//26.11// By the destruction of this one and that one, this one and that one are discontinued. / This whole edifice of suffering is thus well and truly demolished.//MMK26.12//
People
seem to think that the destruction of ignorance means realizing how
everything is causally connected with everything else, through
“dependent arising” or “interdependent origination” or some
similar translation of pratītya-samutpāda. All well and good. But
please can you demonstrate to me, then, exactly how, in this kind of
enlightenment, there is the non-coming-into-being of doings.
My
intention is to clarify that pratītya-samutpāda is better
understood not as “dependent origination” but as a complete
springing up, realized by going back to the root of
suffering – that root of suffering residing in ignorant doings.
Can
I demonstrate in practice what I mean by this kind of destruction of
ignorance? Not very well, I fear. But I do know, for damn sure, that
FM Alexander's niece, Marjory Barlow, did most truly demonstrate the
means-whereby to me.
Thus, as I approach the end of this blog, my end-point turns out to be the
same as my starting point six years, ago, which was also my starting
point when I came back from Japan to England twenty years ago. The
starting point was a desire to connect the teaching of Zen Master
Dogen, which I intuited to be true, and the teaching of FM Alexander,
which I also intuited to be true.
So
my new starting point this year will be the same as my old starting
point when I started Alexander teacher training back in 1995. Except
that some things have changed for the worse. And some things have
changed for the better.
One of the things that has changed for
the better is that, some time during the course of 2014, I saw the
usefulness of translating samskāran as “doings” and saṁskaroti
as “does do” in MMK26.10. Thus:
saṁsāra-mūlaṁ saṁskārān
avidvān saṁskaroty ataḥ
The
doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus does the
ignorant one do.
Now that Nāgārjuna's teaching has
been translated into English like that, the link to FM Alexander's
teaching should be easier to clarify.
As Marjory Barlow reminded me, however,
these things can't be hurried. We are dealing with a process of
growth, and growth cannot be hurried.
As Marjory during the
course of this video (around 56m in) says for herself: “I am not going to rush for
anybody!”
VOCABULARY
kāṣṭham
(acc. sg.): n. a piece of wood or timber , stick
hi:
for
mathnan
= nom. sg. m. pres. part. math / manth: to stir or whirl round
labhate
= 3rd pers. sg. labh: to get; to gain possession of ,
obtain ,
hutāśam
(acc. sg.): m. oblation-eater , fire
huta:
mfn. offered in fire , poured out (as clarified butter) , burnt (as
an oblation) , sacrificed
āśa:
m. eating
bhūmim
(acc. sg.): f. the earth
khanan
= nom. sg. m. pres. part. khan: to dig , dig up , delve , turn up the
soil , excavate , root up
vindati
= 3rd pers. sg. vid: to find , discover , meet or fall in
with , obtain , get , acquire
ca:
and
api:
also
toyam
(acc. sg.): n. water
nirbandhinaḥ
= gen. sg. nirbandhin: mfn. insisting upon (loc. or comp.)
nir-
√ bandh: to fix or fasten upon , attach one's self to , insist
upon , persist in , urge
kiṁ
cana na: in no way
asti:
there is
asādhyam
(nom. sg. n.): mfn. not to be effected or completed , not proper or
able to be accomplished ; incurable , irremediable
sādh:
to go straight to any goal or aim , attain an object , to be
successful , succeed , prosper; to bring straight to an object or end
, further , promote , advance , accomplish , complete , finish
nyāyena
(inst. sg.): m.that into which a thing goes back i.e. an original
type , standard , method , rule , (esp.) a general or universal rule
, model , axiom , system , plan , manner , right or fit manner or way
yuktam
(nom. sg. n.): mfn. yoked or joined or fastened or attached or
harnessed to (loc. or instr.) ; furnished or endowed or filled or
supplied or provided with , accompanied by , possessed of (instr. or
comp.) ; fitted , adapted , conforming or adapting one's self to ,
making use of (instr.)
ca:
and ( ca-ca may express immediate connection between two acts or
their simultaneous occurrence (e.g. mama ca muktaṁ tamasā mano
manasijena dhanuṣi śaraś ca niveśitaḥ , " no sooner is my
mind freed from darkness than a shaft is fixed on his bow by the
heart-born god ")
kṛtam
(nom. sg. n.): mfn. done , made , accomplished , performed ; prepared
, made ready ; obtained , gained , acquired , placed at hand ; well
done , proper , good
ca:
and
sarvam
(nom. sg.): n. everything
鑚木而得火 掘地而得水
精勤正方便 無求而不獲
精勤正方便 無求而不獲
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