Mining Aśvaghoṣa's Gold

Snakes & Ladders

2012-02-14T01:19:00.001-08:00

You know the feeling: a sense that things are going well, a sense of going in the right direction, when one false move . . . . and it is back to square one -- at which place the best thing one can possibly hope to find is the bottom rung of a ladder.

That is what happened to Nanda in Canto 12 when, for the first time, he found real confidence in the Buddha's teaching. He really believed in better. He found confidence in a better way than the ascetic end-gaining of the Brahmanical tradition and a better way than the Buddhist end-gaining of the Buddhist striver. Back in Cantos 4 and 5 what Nanda evinced was never real confidence in the Buddha's teaching, but only the sort of unexamined reverence that one sees on the adoring faces of superstitious Tibetans when the poor old Dalai Lama is in their presence. That kind of unexamined religious reverence, as I see it, is not any kind of ladder: it is a snake.

In a game of snakes and ladders, going up or going down is purely a matter of luck, not of judgement. But in the reality of snakes and ladders, intuition and awareness come into it, for better or for worse.

Alexander work, as I see it, is very much a ladder, beginning, like the Buddha's teaching, with inhibition of end-gaining. Working with developmental movements towards better integration of vestibular reflexes is so primitive it might be compared to preparation for stepping onto the first rung of a ladder, getting a better footing on the ground before even thinking of climbing up. And in listening work, the metaphor of a ladder has been used explicitly, by Alfred Tomatis no less, who referred to the Biblical example of Jacob's Ladder.

The voices I like to hear, talking of ladders, and snakes, are independent voices. Theravada Buddhism is not for me, but Ānandajoti Bhikkhu is not your average Theravada Bhikkhu. He is a genuine indie. Again, certain aspects of Tibetan Buddhism I am deeply skeptical about, not least the readiness to accept the Buddha's teaching around samsāra as if it were a literal affirmation of the ancient Hindu conception of rebirth. But the Tibetan monk Matthieu Ricard (M) is evidently another Indie and I recommend to anybody the record of the dialogue between him and his father Jean-Francois Revel (JF) published in English as "The Monk and the Philosopher."

Here is an excerpt:

J.F. -- (discussing the war in Bosnia) A total and bloody anarchy supervened, with Croats killing Muslims, Muslims killing Croats, and Serbs killing everyone. For several years no one managed to get the different factions to stick to any peace agreement at all. What we were witnessing, in fact, was the self-destruction of all the communities involved.

M. -- In place of an analysis of the political and geographical causes, I find it more useful to put it in terms of the mental processes that lead to such an eruption of hatred.

J.F: -- Absolutely. What I'm also trying to say is that the political and geographical causes don't explain anything. If that's what it had all been about, a rational solution could have been found.

M. -- All the causes of war in the world, whether territorial claims, the sharing of irrigation water, or whatever else it might be, come down to a feeling of oneself being wronged, which then gives rise to hostility. That's a negative thought, a divergence from the natural state, and is therefore a source of suffering. The obvious conclusion is that before such thoughts completely invade and take over the mind, we need to gain some mastery over them. A fire is easiest to put out at the very moment the first flames appear, not once the whole forest is ablaze. It's all too easy to get a very long way from the basic goodness within us.

J.F. -- But how do you explain the fact that we stray away from it so much more often than staying faithful to it?

M. -- When you're following a mountain path, it doesn't take much to put a foot wrong and tumble down the slope. The fundamental goal of a spiritual discipline is to maintain perfect watchfulness all the time. Attention and awareness are basic qualities that the spiritual life helps to develop.

J.F -- Yes. But if to eradicate evil from the world we have to wait for six thousand million individuals to reach that spiritual path, it could be a long wait!

M. -- As an oriental proverb says, "With patience, the orchard becomes jam." That it might take a long time doesn't alter the fact that there's no other solution. Even if violence doesn't stop arising overall, the only way to remedy it is the transformation of individuals.

Amen.

Mindfulness (4): Nothing to Be Proud of

2012-02-06T01:40:00.000-08:00

When I first started Alexander work in earnest, as a student-teacher of the FM Alexander Technique, from 1995 onwards, one of the things that struck me was that there was this virtuous circle of stopping and awareness, that had been waiting all the time to be discovered.

"Stopping," in Alexander terms means, in other words "inhibition," i.e. stopping those "wrong inner patterns" which constitute "the doing that has to be stopped."

For 13 years I had been striving hard to keep my spine straight vertically in Zazen, but when, under the hands of skilled Alexander teachers, I started to stop indulging in the resulting gross pattern of misuse, it was as if I had opened a floodgate of awareness. And the more awareness there was, the more I saw there was to stop, to inhibit, to see as a fault and say No to.

This virtuous circle of stopping and becoming aware has not necessarily got anything to do with Buddhism, any more than, say, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, or in short impermanence, has got anything to do with Buddhism.

But in the Saundarananda of Aśvaghoṣa, as I read it, the Buddha points Nanda in the direction of discovering this virtuous circle for himself, just as the Buddha and Ānanda join forces to make Nanda acutely aware of the truth of impermanence.

There was something arrogant about Zazen as I practised it while I was in Japan, and there is something inevitably humbling about getting inside the virtuous circle of stopping and becoming aware. It is humbling to become aware of what is doing wrong, and frequently humbling -- sometimes humiliating -- to be confronted with the difficulty of stopping it. Such difficulty has caused meeker and more virtuous individuals than me to say, "I wish I had never even bloody heard of FM Alexander!"

Even though, in ancient Pali suttas, the Buddha discusses cultivating or developing mindfulness, truly, mindfulness or awareness is not something that the practitioner generates. It is rather there already, as if waiting for us to stop doing the wrong thing, so that it can assert itself.

Thus, as described at the beginning of Canto 15 and the beginning of Canto 17, when a practitioner stops pulling himself down (or in other words allows the whole body to tend straight upwards), he or she is naturally attended by mindfulness.

Again, as described in Nanda's progress through the four dhyānas in Canto 17, Nanda in the first instance, sitting in solitude, has distanced himself from end-gaining desires and tainted things, and thus he feels joy. But in this joy, he sees a fault, which is the presence of disturbing ideas and thoughts, and so he stops those interferences and finds an even deeper joy. But in this joy also, he sees a fault, and so he stops indulging in joy, whereby he experiences a supreme state of ease. But even enjoyment of this ease involves a subtle form of interference, which Nanda sees as a fault. Stopping this interference, he becomes fully aware, fully mindful.

This, however, was by no means the end of Nanda's journey. Before the Buddha could affirm him as truly having realized the worthy state of an arhat, it still remained for Nanda to cut the upper fetters.

Mindfulness (3): Developing Awareness

2012-01-31T02:33:00.000-08:00

The problem of awareness, or lack of awareness, as I see it, is not primarily a psychological problem but is primarily a developmental problem.

So when the Buddha exhorts Nanda to rid the mind of polluting influences bhāvanayā (see 15.5 and 16.5), the meaning of bhāvanayā might be "by means of development" and at the same time "by developmental means."

For the last 40 years all my efforts in the direction of developing awareness have been hampered by, and at the same time motivated by gradually developing awareness of, a very imperfectly integrated Moro reflex (baby panic reflex).

One person who really understands what I am on about, from the inside, is my brother Ian, who shares my genetic inheritance and earns a crust as an Alexander Technique teacher working with nervous and phobic swimmers in the water.

If some desirous idea, a fever of the mind,
Should venture to offend you,
Entertain no scent of it but shake it off
As if pollen had landed on your robe.//15.3//

Even if, through insight,
You have dropped off desires,
You must, as if lighting up darkness,
Abolish them by means of their opposite.//15.4//

What lies behind them sleeps on,
Like a fire covered with ashes;
You are to extinguish it, my friend, by developmental means
As if using water to put out a fire.//15.5//

Thus, by methodically taking possession of the mind,
Getting rid of something and gathering something together,/
The practitioner makes the four dhyānas his own,
And duly acquires the five powers of knowing: //16.1//

The principal transcendent power, taking many forms;
Then being awake to what others are thinking;/
And remembering past lives from long ago;
And divine lucidity of ear; and of eye. //16.2//

From then on, through investigation of what is,
He applies his mind to eradicating the polluting influences,/
For on this basis he fully understands suffering and the rest,
The four true standpoints: //16.3//

This is suffering, which is constant and akin to trouble;
This is the cause of suffering, akin to starting it;/
This is cessation of suffering, akin to walking away.
And this, akin to a refuge, is a peaceable path. //16.4//

Understanding these noble truths, by a process of reasoning
While getting to know the four as one,/
He prevails over all the influences, by developmental means,
And, on finding peace, is no longer subject to becoming.//16.5//

For by failing to wake up and come round
To this four, whose substance is what is,/
Humankind goes from existence to existence without finding peace,
Hoisted in the swing of saṁsāra.//16.6//

Mindfulness/Awareness (2) : Textual Evidence

2012-01-24T05:11:00.000-08:00

The word smṛti appears in Saundara-nanda in the following verses or series of verses -- the most notable series being the Buddha's description of mindful everyday action in canto 14, and Aśvaghoṣa's description of Nanda's experience of four stages of sitting-meditation in canto 17.

Hitherto I have usually translated smṛti as "mindfulness," except in 9.33 where old-age is described as a robber of smṛti ("memory"), and in the description of sitting-meditation in which smṛti-mat seems to express the presence of "full awareness."

In the following verses smṛti has been translated in every case as mindfulness, highlighted in bold.

9.33
Robber of mindfulness; destroyer of looks;
Ender of pleasure; seizer of speech, hearing and sight;
Birthplace of fatigue; slayer of strength and manly vigour:
For those with a body, there is no enemy to rival aging.

13.30
On this basis, standing grounded in mindfulness,
The naturally impetuous senses
From the objects of those senses
You should hold back.

13.35-37
For smeared with the poison of ideas,
Are those arrows, produced from five senses,
Whose tails are anxiety, whose tips are thrills,
And whose range is the vast emptiness of objects.

They strike human fawns in the heart
Fired off by Desire, the hunter;
Unless they are warded away,
Men wounded by them duly fall.

Standing firm in the arena of restraint,
And bearing the bow of resolve,
The mighty man, as they rain down, must fend them away,
Wearing the armour of mindfulness.

14.1
And so using the floodgate of mindfulness
To close a dam on the power of the senses,
Be aware, in eating food, of the measure
That conduces to meditation and to health.

14.35-45
And so upon acts like sitting, moving, standing,
Looking, speaking and so on --
Being fully aware of every action --
You should bring mindfulness to bear.

When a man is like a gatekeeper at his gate,
His mindfulness directed,
The faults do not venture to attack him,
Any more than enemies do a guarded city.

No affliction arises in him
For whom mindfulness pervades the body --
Guarding the mind in all situations,
As a nurse protects a child.

But he is a target for the faults
Who lacks the armour of mindfulness:
As for enemies is he who stands in battle
With no suit of armour.

Know to be vulnerable that mind
Which mindfulness does not guard --
Like a blind man without a guide
Groping after objects.

When men attach to meaningless aims
And turn away from their proper aims,
Failing to shudder at the danger,
Loss of mindfulness is the cause.

When, each standing on its own patch,
The virtues which begin with integrity are engaged,
Then as a herdsman follows his scattered cows,
Mindfulness follows after those virtues.

The deathless nectar is lost to him
Whose mindfulness dissipates;
The nectar exists in the hands of him
Whose mindfulness pervades his body.

Where is the noble principle of him
To whom mindfulness is alien?
And for whom no noble principle exists,
To him a true path has been lost.

He who has lost the right track
Has lost the deathless step.
Having lost that nectar of deathlessness,
He is not exempt from suffering.

Therefore walking like this: "Walking, I am";
And standing like this: "Standing, I am" --
Upon moments such as these
You should bring mindfulness to bear.

15.1-15.2
"In whatever solitary place you are,
Crossing the legs in the supreme manner,
Aligning the body,
And thus being attended by mindfulness
that is directed...

... towards the tip of the nose
or towards the forehead,
Or right in between the eyebrows,
You may make the inconstant mind
Wholly engaged with the fundamental.

15.64
So for the giving up,
In short, of all these ideas,
Mindfulness of inward and outward breathing, my friend,
You should make into your own possession.

16.33
True mindfulness, properly harnessed
So as to bring one close to the truths; and true balance:
These two, pertaining to practice,
Are for mastery, based on tranquillity, of the mind.

17.3-17.4
Having washed his feet in that water,
He then, by a clean, auspicious, and splendid tree-root,
Girded on the intention to come undone,
And sat with legs fully crossed.

By first directing the whole body up,
And thus keeping mindfulness turned towards the body,
And thus integrating in his person all the senses,
There he threw himself all-out into practice.

17.23-17.25
As a bow of true knowledge, clad in the armour of mindfulness,
Standing up in a chariot of pure practice of integrity,
While his enemies, the afflictions, stood up in the battlefield of the mind,
He took his stance for victory, ready to engage them in battle.

Then, unsheathing a sword that the limbs of awakening had honed,
Standing in the supreme chariot of true motivation,
With an army containing the elephants of the branches of the path,
He gradually penetrated the ranks of the afflictions.

With arrows made from the presence of mindfulness,
Instantly he shot those enemies whose substance is upside-down-ness:
He split apart four enemies, four causes of suffering,
With four arrows, each having its own range.

17.50 - 17.55
And so experiencing the ease enjoyed by the noble ones, from non-attachment to joy,
Knowing it totally, with his body,
He remained indifferent, fully mindful,
And, having realised the third stage of meditation, steady.

Since the ease here is beyond any ease,
And there is no progression of ease beyond it,
Therefore, as a knower of higher and lower,
he realised it as a condition of resplendent wholeness
Which he deemed superlative -- in a friendly way.

Then, even in that stage of meditation, he found a fault:
He saw it as better to be quiet, not excited,
Whereas his mind was fluctuating tirelessly
Because of ease circulating.

In excitement there is interference,
And where there is interference there is suffering,
Which is why, insofar as ease is excitatory,
Devotees who are desirous of quiet give up that ease.

Then, having already transcended ease and suffering,
And emotional reactivity,
He realised the lucidity in which there is indifference and full mindfulness:
Thus, beyond suffering and ease, is the fourth stage of meditation.

Since in this there is neither ease nor suffering,
And the act of knowing abides here, being its own object,
Therefore utter lucidity through indifference and mindfulness
Is specified in the protocol for the fourth stage of meditation.

=========================================================================================

Here is the same series of verses with smṛti translated in every case as "awareness." It would be interesting to know which word, if either, people find more helpful.

9.33
Robber of awareness; destroyer of looks;
Ender of pleasure; seizer of speech, hearing and sight;
Birthplace of fatigue; slayer of strength and manly vigour:
For those with a body, there is no enemy to rival aging.

13.30
On this basis, standing grounded in awareness,
The naturally impetuous senses
From the objects of those senses
You should hold back.

13.35-37
For smeared with the poison of ideas,
Are those arrows, produced from five senses,
Whose tails are anxiety, whose tips are thrills,
And whose range is the vast emptiness of objects.

They strike human fawns in the heart
Fired off by Desire, the hunter;
Unless they are warded away,
Men wounded by them duly fall.

Standing firm in the arena of restraint,
And bearing the bow of resolve,
The mighty man, as they rain down, must fend them away,
Wearing the armour of awareness.

14.1
And so using the floodgate of awareness
To close a dam on the power of the senses,
Be aware, in eating food, of the measure
That conduces to meditation and to health.

14.35-45
And so upon acts like sitting, moving, standing,
Looking, speaking and so on --
Being fully conscious of every action --
You should bring awareness to bear.

When a man is like a gatekeeper at his gate,
His awareness directed,
The faults do not venture to attack him,
Any more than enemies do a guarded city.

No affliction arises in him
For whom awareness pervades the body --
Guarding the mind in all situations,
As a nurse protects a child.

But he is a target for the faults
Who lacks the armour of awareness:
As for enemies is he who stands in battle
With no suit of armour.

Know to be vulnerable that mind
Which awareness does not guard --
Like a blind man without a guide
Groping after objects.

When men attach to meaningless aims
And turn away from their proper aims,
Failing to shudder at the danger,
Lack of awareness is the cause.

When, each standing on its own patch,
The virtues which begin with integrity are engaged,
Then as a herdsman follows his scattered cows,
Awareness follows after those virtues.

The deathless nectar is lost to him
Whose awareness dissipates;
The nectar exists in the hands of him
Whose awareness pervades his body.

Where is the noble principle of him
To whom awareness is alien?
And for whom no noble principle exists,
To him a true path has been lost.

He who has lost the right track
Has lost the deathless step.
Having lost that nectar of deathlessness,
He is not exempt from suffering.

Therefore walking like this: "Walking, I am";
And standing like this: "Standing, I am" --
Upon moments such as these
You should bring awareness to bear.

15.1-15.2
"In whatever solitary place you are,
Crossing the legs in the supreme manner,
Aligning the body,
And thus being attended by awareness
that is directed...

... towards the tip of the nose
or towards the forehead,
Or right in between the eyebrows,
You may make the inconstant mind
Wholly engaged with the fundamental.

15.64
So for the giving up,
In short, of all these ideas,
Awareness of inward and outward breathing, my friend,
You should make into your own possession.

16.33
True awareness, properly harnessed
So as to bring one close to the truths; and true balance:
These two, pertaining to practice,
Are for mastery, based on tranquillity, of the mind.

17.3-17.4
Having washed his feet in that water,
He then, by a clean, auspicious, and splendid tree-root,
Girded on the intention to come undone,
And sat with legs fully crossed.

By first directing the whole body up,
And thus keeping awareness turned towards the body,
And thus integrating in his person all the senses,
There he threw himself all-out into practice.

17.23-17.25
As a bow of true knowledge, clad in the armour of awareness,
Standing up in a chariot of pure practice of integrity,
While his enemies, the afflictions, stood up in the battlefield of the mind,
He took his stance for victory, ready to engage them in battle.

Then, unsheathing a sword that the limbs of awakening had honed,
Standing in the supreme chariot of true motivation,
With an army containing the elephants of the branches of the path,
He gradually penetrated the ranks of the afflictions.

With arrows made from the presence of awareness,
Instantly he shot those enemies whose substance is upside-down-ness:
He split apart four enemies, four causes of suffering,
With four arrows, each having its own range.

17.50 - 17.55
And so experiencing the ease enjoyed by the noble ones, from non-attachment to joy,
Knowing it totally, with his body,
He remained indifferent, fully aware,
And, having realised the third stage of meditation, steady.

Since the ease here is beyond any ease,
And there is no progression of ease beyond it,
Therefore, as a knower of higher and lower,
he realised it as a condition of resplendent wholeness
Which he deemed superlative -- in a friendly way.

Then, even in that stage of meditation, he found a fault:
He saw it as better to be quiet, not excited,
Whereas his mind was fluctuating tirelessly
Because of ease circulating.

In excitement there is interference,
And where there is interference there is suffering,
Which is why, insofar as ease is excitatory,
Devotees who are desirous of quiet give up that ease.

Then, having already transcended ease and suffering,
And emotional reactivity,
He realised the lucidity in which there is indifference and full awareness:
Thus, beyond suffering and ease, is the fourth stage of meditation.

Since in this there is neither ease nor suffering,
And the act of knowing abides here, being its own object,
Therefore utter lucidity through indifference and awareness
Is specified in the protocol for the fourth stage of meditation.

What Is Mindfulness? (1)

2012-01-15T02:03:00.000-08:00

I don't know what mindfulness is.

The Sanskrit word that is generally translated (including by me) as "mindfulness" or "awareness" is smṛti.

Smṛti is from the root smṛ, which the dictionary gives as:
to remember , recollect , bear in mind , call to mind , think of , be mindful of.

When Chinese translators looked for a Chinese character to represent that word, they opted for 念 (NEN), whose two component radicals, appropriately enough, are 今, now, and 心 heart/mind.

In the original version of his rules of sitting-zen for everybody, Dogen writes of true mindfulness being distinct and clear.

"True mindfulness" is 正念 (SHO-NEN):

If ever anybody asked Gudo Nishijima what 正念 (SHO-NEN) actually meant, you wouldn't catch him saying "I don't know." What he would say, one hundred times out of a hundred, whenever he had the chance, was that 正念 (SHO-NEN) is the consciousness we have when the autonomic nervous system is in a state of balance.

I do not buy that attempt to reduce mindfulness to the physiology which may underpin it. Saying that mindfulness is the consciousness we have when the autonomic nervous system is in a state of balance is like saying mindfulness is the consciousness we have when our diet is healthy. The truth as the Buddha expresses it is not like that. The Buddha tells Nanda that a balanced diet conduces to mindful practice, not that diet itself is the means whereby mindfulness is cultivated. In much the same way, as I see it, balance of the autonomic nervous system is a condition that conduces to mindful practice, but what is required is practical understanding of the means whereby mindfulness can be cultivated, and a theory about the autonomic nervous system, in my book, does not cut the mustard.

Aśvaghoṣa in Saundara-nanda does not try to tell us what mindfulness is. But he gives us clues as to where mindfulness fits in the natural order of things. I shall consider these clues in more detail in a subsequent post, particularly in light of the description of Nanda's progress in Canto 17, where mindfulness features before, during, and after Nanda's practice of sitting-dhyāna.

Suffice to say, for a start, that in the same way that Dogen first discusses the practice of sitting upright and naturally becoming one piece, and then praises the virtue of true mindfulness, Aśvaghoṣa at the beginning of Canto 15 and then again at the beginning of Canto 17 seems to describe ṛjuṁ, lit. “tending in a straight direction," as a primary or prior cause, which is duly followed by smṛtiṁ, “mindfulness":

"In whatever solitary place you are,
Crossing the legs in the supreme manner,/
Aligning the body,
(ṛjuṃ kāyaṃ samādhāya)
And thus being attended by mindfulness
that is directed...//15.1//

... towards the tip of the nose
or towards the forehead,
Or right in between the eyebrows,/
You may make the inconstant mind
Wholly engaged with the fundamental."//15.2//

Having washed his feet in that water,
He then, by a clean, auspicious, and splendid tree-root, /
Girded on the intention to come undone,
And sat with legs fully crossed.//17.3//

By first directing the whole body up,
(ṛjuṃ samagraṃ praṇidhāya kāyaṃ)
And thus keeping mindfulness turned towards the body, /
And thus integrating in his person all the senses,
There he threw himself all-out into practice. //17.4//

Again, though Aśvaghoṣa in Saundara-nanda does not tell us what mindfulness is, he does tell us what it is like, and his favourite metaphor is smṛti-varma, "the armour of mindfulness," which appears three times, in 13.37, 14.38, and 17.23.

I started to write this post last night, before being overcome by the desire to watch Match of the Day. After watching the football, I sat for 15 minutes or so in a place where I could see the moon. Then when I sat this morning I looked up to see two sparrows in the branches of a tree in the front garden. So it occured to me to write that true mindfulness being distinct and clear might be a golden half-moon in black night sky, or might be a bird on a branch in a blue winter morning. But aren't these just the thoughts of somebody who is deluding himself that he knows what mindfulness is?

It may be that the mindfulness which thinks about itself is not true mindfulness. It might rather be that when mindfulness is thinking about itself, there is a great big gap in the armour of mindfulness, leaving a practitioner open to all kinds of attacks from manifold faults.

The latter understanding, I think, is more in line with the Buddha's teaching of mindfulness as Aśvaghoṣa presents it to us in Saundara-nanda -- the great thing to aspire to being not so much brilliant poetry and philosophy as a simple life of freedom from faults.

In the next post, I will try to let Aśvaghoṣa speak for himself, by quoting all the verses in Saundara-nanda in which smṛti is mentioned.

A Seed of Integration?

2012-01-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

I write this at 4.15 in the morning, having woken up before 3.00 with a very itchy ear and a bad taste in my mouth. I had a partial metal crown but on a back tooth on Tuesday and I seem to be reacting to it badly, unless I am imagining something. Yesterday (Thursday) I phoned the dentist to inquire where the crown had been made (thinking it might have been made on the cheap in some dodgy Chinese laboratory). The dentist invited me to come and see him at his surgery, so there I duly cycled. He confirmed that, yes, the crown had been made in China, but the laboratory was accredited, and dentistry in the UK is very tightly regulated. The dentist assured me that any symptoms I was experiencing were psycho-somatic. In the course of our discussion, I inquired if there might be any mercury (amalgam) in the crown, and he assured me that no, amalgam was not used in crowns, and that anyway many scientific studies had looked into it and the evidence was incontrovertible that amalgam is safe to use in dental fillings. I left the consultation unconvinced, and naturally enough, the dentist seemed offended that I seemed to think he might have done some harm by giving me a poisonous crown.

So as I sat just now, mindful of Dogen's words that the secret of sitting-dhyāna is JI-JO-IPPEN, "naturally/spontaneously to become one piece," and mindful also of how the presence of this metal crown a few inches from my brainstem makes my health and integrity dependent on the honesty and integrity of some person running a dental laboratory somewhere in China, I am more than usually aware of the fact that more than ever before human beings really are in the same big boat, so that we will all sink or we will float.

Who the hell I am, what role there is for me to play in preventing the ship sinking, I do not know. As I cycled back from the dentist, I reflected on the series of famous experiments in which Matthieu Ricard showed himself to be such an extraordinarily excellent person. In one of these experiments a grouchy professor was supposed to antagonize MR in a philosophical discussion, but found it impossible, as MR's metta-soaked brain continued to pump out gamma waves in massive profusion. MR, doubtless, would have handled the consultation with his dentist more skillfully than I had done. Before that, indeed, MR might have had the wisdom not to agree to having a metal crown put in, especially one made in China. An enlightened person might have had the wisdom to leave alone a tooth that was only a bit broken, and not bother going to the dentist at all.

As I cycled back from the dentist, pondering that my life has possibly been shortened by having some alloy of mercury, lead and god knows what else implanted into my head, I felt a surge of desire to do something useful with whatever is left of it.

The business of not really knowing what the Buddha is on about when Aśvaghoṣa quotes him talking about using different nimitta, apparently in the context of extinguishing the faults that start with thirsting by means of the water of bhāvanā, has sharpened my sense of being far behind a monk like Mathieu Ricard, trained in the Tibetan tradition and evidently highly skilled in the use of specific antidotes to specific faults, e.g. compassion as an antidote to hatred, as described in Saundara-nanda.

In one of the experiments Mathieu Ricard was subjected to, he astonished Prof. Paul Ekman by not showing even a slight facial flicker when subjected to a stimulus that triggered a startle response in everybody else that had ever done the experiment. MR rather demonstrated what FM Alexander called "constructive conscious control," and "inhibition of unduly excited fear reflexes and emotions." This is the kind of thing I aspire to. But in so aspiring, I reflected yesterday, as I cycled back from the dentist, I am like one of the guys in wheelchairs that take part in the London marathon, whereas MR is akin to one of the so-called "elite" athletes.

Thinking somewhat positively, I may never be a champion in the field of demonstrating what "constructive conscious control" is, but out of the failure which my life has been so far, I may at least have gleaned some insight into what disables, or shackles, a non-elite athlete, in the marathon whose finishing line is full realization of the buddha-nature. I am thinking primarily here of faults in the vestibular system, centred on an immature Moro reflex. Those of us who have grown up with such faults -- and we may be in the majority -- may forever in this life be up against it.

With this in mind, it occured to me as I cycled back yesterday, that I might at some point post on the internet my voluminous record of years of questions and answers with Gudo Nishijima, in case somebody could find my record useful -- as well, inevitably, as ridiculous. As ridiculous as a guy in a wheelchair dreaming of becoming a champion elite athlete.

So it seems that I did a lot of reflecting in a few hundred yards yesterday. And further to that, as I sat earlier on (it is now 5.05), I reflected that Aśvaghoṣa's writing is truly seminal. For practitioners like me whose starting point was Dogen's teaching, Aśvaghoṣa is a founding Zen patriarch. The same goes for any practitioner in China who reveres Bodhidharma; that is to say, any Chinese dental laboratory entrepreneur who reveres Bodhidharma as a grandfather also has to recognise Aśvaghoṣa as a great grandfather. Again, if any extraordinarily excellent Tibetan monk wishes to highlight the simplistic ignorance of his faulty Zen brother who knows nothing about the Buddha's teaching of using specific antidotes to specific faults, Aśvaghoṣa's writing provides a basis for so doing. And finally, it did not escape my notice that when a few months ago I googled "Aśvaghoṣa, Buddhacarita," I arrived at the website of a certain Ānandajoti Bhikkhu, a monk in the Theravada tradition who described himself to me as a fellow fan of Aśvaghoṣa.

At Ānandajoti's behest I have been dutifully preparing a transcription of the text of Saundara-nanda, painstakingly noting the variants, of which there are more than a hundred in most chapters. At time of writing, I am half-way through Canto 16, so should be finished noting the variants by next week. Then I intend to have several runs through the text and translation.

If Aśvaghoṣa's writing truly is as seminal as it seems to me to be, then planting this seed skillfully might be the most useful thing I could possibly do, notwithstanding my own multifarious faults.

Trying to be skillful, of course, is the very end-gaining that triggers a faulty individual's multifarious faults. So saying, at 5.26, I shall go back to bed.

Dogen's Teaching in Light of Aśvaghoṣa's

2012-01-10T00:58:00.001-08:00

What is there in Dogen's teaching, I asked myself this morning, while lying in bed, and then again while sitting, that corresponds to the use of what Aśvaghoṣa called bhāvanā, bringing into being, i.e. mental development or cultivation?

Paṭhavīsamaṁ Rāhula bhāvanaṁ bhāvehi,
the Buddha advizes Rāhula
in the The Long Discourse Giving Advice to Rāhula:

"Develop/cultivate the development/cultivation that is to be as even as the earth."

ZEN-AKU O OMAWAZU,
wrote Dogen.
"Don't think of good and bad."

ZE-HI KAN SURU KOTO NAKARE
"Don't care about right and wrong."

These are part of Dogen's instructions for sitting-dhyāna, but they can't be understood as the kind of instruction one can follow by doing something physically, like obeying the rule not to slouch or hyper-extend, not to lean left or right. They are rather pointing to something to be mentally cultivated, a mental attitude to be cultivated.

A hundred years ago in my country, Britain, in the days of the Great British Empire, racism was not only tolerated, it was pretty much an essential part of how colonial rule worked. But nowadays, racism is seen as the great evil. If a footballer smashes an opponent in the face with his elbow, he stands to get maybe a 3-match ban. Alleged racist taunting got Liverpool's Luis Suarez an 8-match ban. Evidently Uruguay is not so advanced as England is in the matter of not being racist -- or at least putting on a good show of not tolerating racism.

Dianne Abbot, a black woman MP, stupidly makes a sweeping generalization about white people in a late night internet posting (been there myself), and earns a "severe dressing down" from her leader, Ed Milliband, a Jew.

From where I sit, there is something about Dianne Abbot that is typical of black British women, which my wife for one admires, but which gets on my nerves. And there is equally something about Ed Milliband's response which is typically Jewish, and which I also find annoying, via the mirror principle. Pompous self-righteousness, and intellectual acuity without the coolness of the naturally talented sportsman -- those are tendencies that I don't want to see in myself, so I project them onto ones who are obviously other than me, a black woman and a Jewish man, and feel irritated by them.

Now that I recognize this tendency in myself, what is Dogen's teaching in light of Aśvaghoṣa's teaching? To abandon a wrong idea, and thereby show myself to be right? Yes, to abandon a wrong idea. But hell No, the teaching is never to try to be right.

Dianne Abbot issues a statement to show her non-racist credentials, but I don't believe her. I think she's as racist as I am. The difference is that her role in public life allows her to be racist only as long as she keeps that terrible evil hidden from public view. Whereas the teaching of Dogen and Aśvaghoṣa, as I see it, requires me, if I am harbouring a racist idea, not just to hide it but to abandon it. Before that, however, the teaching requires me to cultivate an attitude of not worrying about good and evil, right and wrong. Or else how can I look that bugger Māra squarely in the eye?

Going More & More Mental

2012-01-07T14:37:00.000-08:00

When I first got my hands on a copy of Linda Colvill's translation of Saundara-nanda, just over three years ago, in the autumn of 2008, the first thing I sought out was Aśvaghośa's description of the four dhyānas, or stages of sitting-meditation.

I was particularly keen to see if there was any evidence to support my understanding of what Dogen meant by sitting with body, sitting with mind, and sitting as body and mind dropping off --- this understanding having been informed on the one hand by the teaching of a Zen teacher who described Zazen as "a kind of physical gymanstics" and on the other hand by the teaching of Alexander teachers who describe learning to use oneself well in an activity like sitting as "the most mental thing there is."

My Zen teacher in Japan, Gudo Nishijima, taught me that the most important thing in sitting was effort to keep the spine straight vertically as a physical act ("a kind of physical gymnastics"). When the sympathetic nervous system is in the ascendancy, we feel tense, self-conscious, aware of our own minds -- this, Gudo taught, is sitting with mind. Conversely, when the para-sympathetic nervous system is in the ascendancy, we feel sleepy or sensual, aware of the body and of physical desires -- this is sitting with the body. But if we just devote ourselves to the action of keeping the spine straight vertically, the sympathetic and para-sympathetic nervous systems balance each other out, which is a state of zero, or a state of emptiness, that buddha-ancestors described as "dropping off body and mind."

This as I see it is, at best, a very crude approximation of the truth.

To use Alexander jargon, Gudo's approach to sitting in the right posture was extremely "doing." There was, in Marjory Barlow's words, "no freedom in it."

The Alexander approach to sitting well, based on the principle of "non-doing," requires much less physical and much more mental effort, in order to bring about not only a lengthening direction up the spine but also a widening direction across the two sides of the body. This lengthening and widening direction is associated with release, or "undoing," and it is axiomatic in Alexander work that one cannot do an undoing. Undoing is rather something (or a bit of nothing) that, when the conditions are right, tends to do itself.

Alexander described working like this as "the most mental thing there is."

So, as a follower of Dogen and a teacher of the FM Alexander Technique, I expected to find in Aśvaghoṣa's writing a description of the four dhyānas which tallied with my understanding that sitting well is primarily a mental challenge, not a physical one. The wrong inner patterns are the doing that has to be stopped, and unconscious doing cannot be the means of stopping them. A more mindful approach must be necessary, in which habitual unconscious doing is opposed by conscious means, in the way that dark is opposed by light. Unconsciously end-gaining, vs consciously working to the means-whereby principle, Alexander wrote are different -- nay opposite -- conceptions and opposite procedures.

In Aśvaghoṣa's description of Nanda's successive passage through four stages of sitting-meditation, which involved the practice of saying "no, not that" on deeper and deeper levels, to unconscious tendencies, I found -- as a bad scientist is wont to find -- exactly what I expected to find.

What I have been slow to find is what I never expected to find, even though it has been staring me in the face.

Translating nimitta as "subject [for cultivation]", I certainly wasn't expecting to find anything as mental as this:

16.52
Having given due consideration to the time and place

As well as to the extent and method of one's practice,

One should, reflecting on one's own strength and weakness,

Persist in an effort that is not inconsistent with them.

16.53
A subject [for cultivation] that is said to be "garnering"

Does not serve when the emotions are inflamed,

For thus the mind does not come to quiet

Like a fire being fanned by the wind.

16.54
A subject one has ascertained to be calming

Has its time when one's mind is excited;

For thus the mind subsides into quietness,

Like a blazing fire doused with water.

16.55
A subject ascertained to bring calm

Does not serve when one's mind is dormant;

For thus the mind sinks further into lifelessness,

Like a feeble fire left unfanned.

16.56
A subject ascertained to be garnering,

Has its time when one's mind is lifeless,

For thus the mind becomes fit for work,

Like a feebly-burning fire plied with fuel.

16.57
Nor is not interfering valid as a subject [for cultivation]

When one's mind is either lifeless or excited.

For that might engender severe adversity,

Like the neglected illness of a sick man.

16.58
A subject ascertained to lead to non-interference,

Has its time when one's mind is in its normal state;

For thus one can set about the work to be done,

Like a wagon setting off with well-trained horses.

16.59
Again, when the mind is filled with the red joys of passion,

Direction towards oneself of loving-kindness is not to be practised;

For a passionate type is stupefied by love,

Like a sufferer from phlegm taking oil.

16.60
Steadiness lies, when the mind is excited by ardour,

In resorting to a disagreeable subject;

For thus a passionate type obtains relief,

Like a phlegmatic type taking an astringent.

16.61
When the mind is wound up, however, with the fault of malice,

One should not resort to a disagreeable subject;

For unpleasantness is destructive to a hating type,

As acid treatment is to a man of bilious nature.

16.62
When the mind is agitated by the fault of malice,

Loving-kindness should be practised, towards oneself;

For loving-kindness is calming to a hate-afflicted soul,

As cooling treatment is to the man of bilious nature.

16.63
Where there is wandering of the mind, tied to delusion,

Both loving-kindness and unpleasantness are unsuitable,

For a deluded man is further deluded by these two,

Like a windy type given an astringent.

16.64
When working of the mind is delusory,

One should appreciate the causality therein;

For this is a path to peace when the mind is bewildered,

Like treating a wind condition with oil.

16.65
Holding gold in the mouth of a furnace,

A goldsmith in this world blows it at the proper time,

Douses it with water at the proper time,

And gradually, at the proper time, he leaves it be.

16.66
For he might burn the gold by blowing at the wrong time,

He might make it unworkable by plunging it into water at the wrong time,

And he would not bring it to full perfection

If at the wrong time he were just to leave it be.

16.67
Likewise, for garnering as also for calming,

As also when appropriate for leaving well alone,

One should readily attend to the proper subject [for cultivation];

Because even diligence is destructive when accompanied by a wrong approach."

16.68
Thus, on retreat from muddling through

And on the principle to come back to, the One Who Went Well spoke to him;

And knowing the varieties of behaviour,

He detailed further the directions for abandoning ideas.

16.69
Just as a physician, for a disorder of bile, phlegm, or wind,

-- For whatever disorder of the humours has manifested the symptoms of disease --

Prescribes a course of treatment to cure that very disorder,

So did the Buddha prescribe for the faults:

16.70
“It may not be possible, following a single method, to kill off

Bad ideas that habit has so deeply entrenched;

In that case, one should commit to a second course

But never give up the good work.

16.71
Because of the instinct-led accumulation, from time without beginning,

Of the powerful mass of afflictions,

And because true practice is so difficult to do,

The faults cannot be cut off all at once.

16.72
Just as a deep splinter, by means of the point of another sharp object,

Is removed by a man skilled in that task,

Likewise an unpromising subject [for cultivation] may be dispensed with

By turning to a different subject.

And again, when Aśvaghoṣa describes Nanda sitting alone by a stream in the forest, his legs fully crossed, readying his consciousness prior to entering the first dhyāna, and at that stage changing his nimitta, or subject [for cultivation], the kind of practice Aśvaghoṣa seems to be describing is news to me:

17.9
He re-directed his energy so as to still his mind,

But in his doing so an unhelpful thought reasserted itself,

As when, in a man intent on curing an illness,

An acute symptom suddenly reappears.

17.10
In order to fend against that he turned skillfully to a different subject,

One favourable to his practice,

Like an enfeebled prince who seeks out a powerful protector

When being overthrown by a mighty rival.

So it as if for the past 3 years I have been diligently piecing together a big jig-saw, and now that I come to look at the whole picture, a lot of the picture makes sense to me on the basis of experience gleaned in Zen and Alexander practice hitherto. The part that makes sense contains: repeated descriptions of sitting with the body tending in a straight direction, and being thereby attended by mindfulness; a totally lucid description of the four dhyānas; and the Buddha's exhortation to Nanda
- to believe in better (canto 12),
- not to be a slave to faulty sensory appreciation (canto 13)
- to find some solitary spot at which to dive headlong into mindful action (canto 14)
- to abandon ideas (canto 15)
- to understand the four noble truths, exactly and comprehensively (canto 16).

But one chunk of the jigsaw has been as if blocked out by a big blind spot; namely, the description of how to prevail over the mental pollutants, not only by the general means of just sitting, but also on a specific, targeted basis, as part of the field of endeavour that the Buddha evidently called bhāvanā, or cultivation of the mind.

I was looking for something mental but not that mental!

The more I reflect on it, however, the more it starts to make sense, especially in light of my journey so far in pursuit of the Buddha's truth, aided and abetted by Alexander work and his discovery of the fundamental principle that he called "antagonistic action."

Observing a universal human tendency to stiffen the neck and pull the head back and down, Alexander advocated thinking (not trying to do) the opposite -- freeing the neck and letting the head go forward and up.

Is this so very different from mentally cultivating the diametric opposite tendency to whatever pernicious influence is polluting one's mind? Or is this kind of "cultivation" in fact a particular application of the general principle of antagonistic action?

If where my thoughts are leading now is on the right lines, then how is it possible that something so overtly mental as Aśvaghoṣa seems to be describing, could get turned into its opposite, so that Dogen invariably wrote of the body-mind, and never the mind-body, and so that my Japanese teacher could describe sitting-meditation as "a kind of physical gymnastics"?

How could such a thing happen? The answer, over many generations, might be: very easily.

Looking at what was happening to Alexander's work in only two or three generations, Marjory Barlow saw with horror that a lot of bodywork was going on in the name of the FM Alexander Technique. People were qualifying as Alexander teachers without getting to grips with why FM described the work as "the most mental thing there is."

Gudo once said in a lecture in English, "I believe Master Dogen is the most excellent Buddhist master in Japan. Therefore, I believe Master Dogen is the most excellent Buddhist master in the world."

I thought at the time that this logic was stupid and absurd.

But maybe it is only now, 25 years later, that I am beginning to realize how truly stupid and absurd that statement was.

Cultivating Mindfulness

2012-01-04T03:13:00.000-08:00

Ānāpānasatiṁ Rāhula bhāvanaṁ bhāvehi.

"Cultivate the cultivation, Rāhula,"
the Buddha advises Rahula,
"that is mindfulness while breathing."

How does one cultivate this mindfulness?

Not by trying, not by striving, not by going for it directly, not by end-gaining -- but rather by the opposite process of attending to a process.

Mindfulness is cultivated, in my limited experience, primarily by giving up the idea of gaining some end while directing the body to be "tending in a straight direction" (Sanskrit ṛjum; Pali: ujum), in such a way that this straightening direction does not bring with it a narrowing direction.

Expressed positively, the direction is that the body both lengthens and widens.

Such cultivation of mindfulness evidently belongs to what the Buddha, as quoted in ancient Pali texts, and also as quoted by Aśvaghoṣa, called bhāvanā.

Hence:

"If some desirous idea, a fever of the mind,
Should venture to offend you,
Entertain no scent of it but shake it off
As if pollen had landed on your robe.//15.3//

Even if, through insight,
You have dropped off desires,
You must, as if lighting up darkness,
Abolish them by means of their opposite.//15.4//

What lies behind them sleeps on,
Like a fire covered with ashes;
You are to extinguish it, my friend, by means of cultivation (bhāvanā),
As if using water to put out a fire."//15.5//

"Understanding these noble truths, by a process of reasoning
While getting to know the four as one,
He prevails over all the influences, by means of cultivation (bhāvanā),
And, on finding peace, is no longer subject to becoming."//16.5//

So far so good. Translating bhāvanā as "cultivation" and understanding it along these lines, seems to work for me, seems to tally with what little experience I have got of cultivating mindfulness.

The word whose translation into English I am continuing to struggle with is nimitta, whose meanings include both "target" and "cause."

In the above description of cultivating that mindfulness which is the very opposite of end-gaining desires, and which is the means-whereby a practitioner prevails over the influences that pollute the mind, one could say that "to lengthen and widen" is a target; and one could say that mindfulness itself is the target for cultivation. One could also say that the whole procedure, including finding some empty time and space in which to sit or to lie down in order to cultivate mindfulness, is the cause of cultivating mindfulness.

Aśvaghoṣa uses nimitta in the sense of a "cause" in several places in Saundara-nanda, viz. in the words of the grieving Nanda in Canto 7, in the words of the striver who rails against women in Canto 8, and, maybe most tellingly in the words of the Buddha in Cantos 12 and 16:

"When the minds of the Sun's son Vaivasvata and the fire god Agni turned to enmity, When their grip on themselves was shaken, /
There was war between them for many years, over a woman
(strī-nimittaṃ; lit. with a woman as the cause).
What lesser being, here on earth, would not be shaken off course by a woman?" //7.27//

"When men of good families fall on hard times,
When they rashly do unfitting deeds, /
When they recklessly enter the vanguard of an army,
Women in those instances are the cause (nimittam)." //8.34//

"Again, I call it the Seed
Since it is the cause (nimittam) of betterment; /
And for its cleansing action, in the washing away of wrong,
Again, I call it the River. //12.39//

Since in the emerging of dharma
Confidence is the primary cause (kāraṇamuttamam), /
Therefore I have named it after its effects
In this case like this, in that case like that." //12.40//

Thus in 12.39-12.40 the Buddha seems pointedly to identify his usage of the more ambiguous word nimitta (target/sign/cause) and his usage of the less ambiguous word kāraṇa (cause). The Buddha does exactly the same thing again in 16.17-18, highlighting the identity of nimitta and kāraṇa:

"And this, the suffering of doing, in the world,
Has its cause (nimittam) in clusters of faults which start with thirsting -- /
Certainly not in God, nor in primordial matter, nor in time;
Nor even in one’s inherent constitution, and not in predestination or self-will. //16.17//

Again, you must understand how, due to this cause (etena kāraṇena),
Because of men's faults, the cycle of doing goes on, /
So that they succumb to death
who are afflicted by the dust of the passions and by darkness;
He is not reborn who is free of dust and darkness."//16.18//

Ānandajoti Bhikkhu, however, is evidently of the view that, in the context of discussion of cultivating
(a) the mindfulness which is the general antidote to end-gaining, along with
(b) specific antidotes to mental pollutants such as liking and disliking, ill-will, violence, discontent, passion, and "I am" conceit,
the meaning of nimitta is not "cause" but is more towards "target."
In developing the specific antidote to ill-will, for example, friendliness may be said to be the target.

Especially in view of 16.69, this seems eminently reasonable.

Just as a physician, for a disorder of bile, phlegm, or wind,
-- For whatever disorder of the humours has manifested the symptoms of disease --
Prescribes a course of treatment to cure that very disorder,
So did the Buddha prescribe for the faults. //16.69//

So the writing of today's post is part of the process whereby I am considering whether translating nimitta as "target" tallies with reason, tallies with the judgements of people who might know better than me, tallies with Aśvaghoṣa's own words, and tallies with what little experience I have got in this field of cultivation.

My own feeling is that whatever word brings us back in the direction of attending to the means, or the cause, is a good word, a safe word. And conversely a word like "target" is liable to be a dangerous word, a word that invites end-gaining.

Thus, a cursory search of the internet for modern-day interpretations of the meaning of nimitta yields some fairly whacky and exotic attempts, involving various kinds of imaginary objects, symbols, signs, and the like. Was it ever thus? Was it so in Aśvaghoṣa's time? Was Aśvaghoṣa seeking to draw us back to a more real and practical understanding of nimitta and bhāvanā, grounded in cause and effect?

I feel he might have been.

Aware of the fact, however, that my feeling is ever liable to be wrong, and not wishing to produce a translation that is unduly idiosyncratic, for the present I am leaning in the direction of translating nimitta, in the series of verses from 16.53 to 16.67, as "target."

But if anybody thinks nimitta is better translated as "a cause" or as "[both a] cause [of] and target [for cultivation]," I am open to persuasion -- or, in other words, am still wobbling.

Putting the 'Just' in 'Just Sitting'

2012-01-03T02:02:00.000-08:00

Before coming across the Saundara-nanda of Aśvaghoṣa, I had read about the four dhyānas, or stages of sitting-meditation, but hadn't found any satisfactory description of them.

Representation of ancient Indian words by Chinese pictographs is liable to raise more questions than it answers. It has struck me forcibly in recent days that if we translate both dhyāna and bhāvanā as "meditation," we are in danger of creating the same kind of confusion in English (which we needn't do, because English, like Sanskrit, is more amenable than Chinese and Japanese to saying what needs to said, be it ambiguous or unambiguous). Cultivating gladness, for example, is one thing. Sitting-dhyāna is another thing. Except there may be instances where they are one and the same thing. But that might be a topic for another post.

A cause (nimittam?) of great gladness, as far as I am concerned, is that in the Sanskrit of Aśvaghoṣa we have got a seminal description, which is very clear, of what the four dhyānas are -- or at least, more to the point, what their gist is, what their direction is.

17.35
Sprung free from pernicious theories,

Seeing an end to becoming,

And feeling horror for the consequences of affliction,

Nanda trembled not at death or hellish realms.

17.36
As full of skin, sinew, fat, blood, bone, and flesh,

And hair and a mass of other such unholy stuff,

He then observed the body to be;

He looked into its essential reality,
and found not even an atom.

17.37
He, firm in himself,
minimised the duality of love and hate

By the yoke of that very practice.

Being himself big across the chest,
he made those two small,

And so obtained the second fruit in the noble dharma.

17.38
A small vestige of the great enemy, red passion,

Whose straining bow is impatient desire
and whose arrow is fixity,

He destroyed using weapons
procured from the body as it naturally is --

Using the darts of the disagreeable,
weapons from the armoury of practice.

17.39
That gestating love-rival, malice,

Whose weapon is hatred
and whose errant arrow is anger,

He slayed with the arrows of kindness,
which are contained in a quiver of constancy

And released from the bow-string of patience.

17.40
And so the hero cut the three roots of shameful conduct

Using three seats of release,

As if three rival princes,
bearing bows in the van of their armies,

Had been cut down by one prince using three iron points.

17.41
In order to go entirely beyond the sphere of desire,

He overpowered those enemies that grab the heel,

So that he attained, because of practice,
the fruit of not returning,

And stood as if at the gateway to the citadel of nirvāṇa.

17.42
Distanced from desires and tainted things,

Containing ideas and containing thoughts,

Born of solitude and possessed of joy and ease,

Is the first stage of meditation, which he then entered.

17.43
Released from the burning of the bonfire of desires,

He derived great gladness
from ease in the act of meditating --

Ease like a heat-exhausted man diving into water.

Or like a pauper coming into great wealth.

17.44
Even in that, he realised, ideas about aforesaid things,

And thoughts about what is or is not good,

Are something not quieted,
causing disturbance in the mind,

And so he decided to let them go.

17.45
For, just as waves produce disturbance

In a river bearing a steady flow of tranquil water,

So ideas, like waves of thought,

Disturb the water of the one-pointed mind.

17.46
Just as, to one who is weary, and fallen fast asleep,

Noises are a source of bother,

So, to one indulging in his original state
of unitary awareness,

Ideas become bothersome.

17.47
And so gradually bereft of idea and thought,

His mind tranquil from one-pointedness,

He realised the joy and ease born of balanced stillness --

That inner wellbeing
which is the second stage of meditation.

17.48
And on reaching that stage, in which the mind is silent,

He experienced an intense joy
that he had never experienced before.

But here too he found a fault, in joy,

Just as he had in ideas.

17.49
For when a man finds intense joy in anything,

Paradoxically, suffering for him is right there.

Hence, seeing the faults there in joy,

He kept going up, into practice that goes beyond joy.

17.50
And so experiencing the ease enjoyed by the noble ones,
from non-attachment to joy,

Knowing it totally, with his body,

He remained indifferent, fully aware,

And, having realised the third stage of meditation,
steady.

17.51
Since the ease here is beyond any ease,

And there is no progression of ease beyond it,

Therefore, as a knower of higher and lower,
he realised it as a condition of resplendent wholeness

Which he deemed superlative -- in a friendly way.

17.52
Then, even in that stage of meditation, he found a fault:

He saw it as better to be quiet, not excited,

Whereas his mind was fluctuating tirelessly

Because of ease circulating.

17.53
In excitement there is interference,

And where there is interference there is suffering,

Which is why, insofar as ease is excitatory,

Devotees who are desirous of quiet give up that ease.

17.54
Then, because he had let go of ease and suffering,

And of working on the mind, already,

He realised the lucidity
in which there is indifference and full awareness:

Thus, beyond suffering and ease,
is the fourth stage of meditation.

17.55
Since in this there is neither ease nor suffering,

And the act of knowing abides here, being its own object,

Therefore utter lucidity
through indifference and awareness

Is specified in the protocol
for the fourth stage of meditation.

17.56
Consequently, relying on the fourth stage of meditation,

He made up his mind to win the worthy state,

Like a king joining forces with a strong and noble ally

And then aspiring to conquer unconquered lands.

nimitta & bhavana: work in progress

2012-01-01T00:04:00.000-08:00

Aśvaghoṣa is 12th in a line of 51 patriarchs linking the Buddha in India and Dogen in Japan, all of whom, according to Zen tradition, preached the primacy of sitting-meditation (ZA-ZEN; sitting-dhyāna).

In the Zen teaching of Dogen, represented by the famous phrase "just sitting," (SHIKAN-TAZA) there is no subject of meditation other than sitting itself: upright sitting is the meditation, and the meditation is to sit upright. Other than sitting itself, there aren't any meditation techniques.

In Canto 16 of the Saundara-nanda of Aśvaghoṣa, however, when the Buddha instructs Nanda how, having found solitude in the forest, to go about working on himself, the Buddha guides Nanda in the appropriate use of a nimitta.

EH Johnston in a footnote to his translation writes, “nimitta, properly the general characteristic of an object, is used of the general characteristic of an object selected to secure any particular type of bhāvanā and so may be translated as [subject of meditation]."

The context of Canto 16 is that the Buddha is instructing Nanda how a sitting practitioner who has already gained possession of the four dhyānas (stages of meditation) and duly acquired the five powers of knowing, then applies his mind to eradicating the āsravas, those influences which pollute the practitioner's mind and prevent him from fully appreciating the four noble truths. The practitioner prevails over these influences, the Buddha tells Nanda, by means of bhāvanā – a term which is generally lumped together with dhyāna and translated as “meditation.”

Thus, by methodically taking possession of the mind,
Getting rid of something and gathering something together,/
The practitioner makes the four dhyānas his own,
And duly acquires the five powers of knowing: //16.1//

The principal transcendent power, taking many forms;
Then being awake to what others are thinking;/
And remembering past lives from long ago;
And divine lucidity of ear; and of eye. //16.2//

From then on, through investigation of what is,
He applies his mind to eradicating the polluting influences,/
For on this basis he fully understands suffering and the rest,
The four true standpoints: //16.3//

This is suffering, which is constant and akin to trouble;
This is the cause of suffering, akin to starting it;/
This is cessation of suffering, akin to walking away.
And this, akin to a refuge, is a peaceable path. //16.4//

Understanding these noble truths, by a process of reasoning
While getting to know the four as one,/
He prevails over all the influences, by means of meditation (bhāvanayā, inst. sg.)
And, on finding peace, is no longer subject to becoming.//16.5//

For by failing to wake up and come round
To this four, whose substance is what is,/
Humankind goes from existence to existence without finding peace,
Hoisted in the swing of saṁsāra.//16.6//

Among multiple definitions of bhāvanā in the Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary7 are: “1. the act of producing or effecting; 2. forming in the mind, thought, meditation; 3. reflection, contemplation (with Buddhists said to be of five kinds); and 4. water.”

In light of extensive knowledge of ancient Buddhist texts, Ānandajoti Bhikkhu asserts that “the idea of using meditation (bhāvanā) to overcome defilements is very well established in early Buddhism.” This assertion would seem to be supported by Aśvaghoṣa's use of the term bhāvanā in Canto 15, when he quotes the Buddha comparing bhāvanā to water that can put out a smouldering fire:

If some desirous idea, a fever of the mind,
Should venture to offend you,
Entertain no scent of it but shake it off
As if pollen had landed on your robe.//15.3//

Even if, through insight,
You have dropped off desires,
You must, as if lighting up darkness,
Abolish them by means of their opposite.//15.4//

What lies behind them sleeps on,
Like a fire covered with ashes;
You are to extinguish it, my friend, by means of meditation (bhāvanayā),
As if using water to put out a fire.//15.5//

What is problematic for a devotee of “just sitting,” is the principle of sitting cross-legged and using particular types of meditations to overcome specific defilements, as opposed to the indirect principle of just sitting for the sake of sitting, and letting defilements come out, as it were, in the wash.

EH Johnston's translation of nimitta as “subject of meditation,” rests upon his understanding of a direct correspondence between various types of nimitta and particular types of bhāvanā. It is in the process of developing a particular type of bhāvanā, according to Johnston's explanation, that a specific nimitta , or "subject of meditation" is employed.

To glean some understanding of where EH Johnston was coming from, let us consider what the ancient Pali texts have to say about the development of bhāvanā, taking as our starting point the traditional practice of contemplating impermanence, suffering, and non-self.

In Canto 17 of Saundara-nanda, Aśvaghoṣa describes how Nanda, sitting upright with legs crossed, contemplates the elements of earth, water, fire, and so on, as being impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal. By this means, Aśvaghoṣa tells us, Nanda causes the tree of the afflictions to shake (17.17). This is in accordance with what the Buddha tells Rāhula in The Long Discourse Giving Advice to Rāhula. In this ancient Pali text the Buddha instructs Rāhula, in a step preliminary to the development of bhāvanā, to see the elements of earth, water, fire, and so on, as they really are:

Whatever there is, Rāhula, that is inside, in oneself, that is hard or has become solid, and is attached to, like this: head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone-marrow, kidney, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, undigested food, excrement - or whatever else there is that is inside, in oneself, that is hard, or has become solid, and is attached to, that, Rāhula, is called the internal earth element. Now, that which is the internal earth element, and that which is the external earth element, that is only the earth element. “This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self,” like this it ought to be seen, as it really is, with right wisdom. Having seen it like this, as it really is, with right wisdom, one loses interest in the earth element, one detaches the mind from the earth element.

The Buddha continues in the same vein, describing as “not my self” the other elements of water, fire, wind, and space. He then exhorts Rāhula to progress further and, with regard to the earth element, to develop bhāvanā, thus:

Develop the meditation (bhāvanaṁ bhāvehi), Rāhula, that is to be even as the earth, for, Rāhula, from developing the meditation that is to be even as the earth, appealing and unappealing contacts that have arisen in the mind will not take a hold there. Just as, Rāhula, they throw what is clean on the earth, and they throw what is unclean, and they throw what has become dung, and they throw what has become urine, and they throw what has become spit, and they throw what has become pus, and they throw what has become blood, but the earth is not distressed, or ashamed, or disgusted by it, just so do you, Rāhula, develop the meditation that is to be even as the earth, for, Rāhula, from developing the meditation that is to be even as the earth, appealing and unappealing contacts that have arisen in the mind will not take a hold there.

Continuing in like fashion for the other elements of water, fire, wind, and space, the Buddha points out that water is not worried about what it washes, fire about what it burns, and wind about what it blows over, while space does not settle anywhere.

Thus, if we follow EH Johnston's line of reasoning, we can understand that the nimitta in question is the general characteristic that all the elements share, which is not to react emotionally, whatever the circumstance. The nimitta is a general characteristic shared by all the elements, and there is one bhāvanā in view, i.e, the meditation that is to be even.

As the Long Discourse continues, however, the Buddha evidently exhorts Rāhula further to develop six bhāvanas:

Develop the meditation, Rāhula, that is friendliness, for, Rāhula, from developing the meditation that is friendliness, whatever ill-will there is will be given up. Develop the meditation, Rāhula, that is kindness, for, Rāhula, from developing the meditation that is kindness, whatever violence there is will be given up. Develop the meditation, Rāhula, that is gladness, for, Rāhula, from developing the meditation that is gladness, whatever discontent there is will be given up. Develop the meditation, Rāhula, that is equanimity, for, Rāhula, from developing the meditation that is equanimity, whatever resentment there is will be given up. Develop the meditation, Rāhula, on the unattractive, for, Rāhula, from developing the meditation on the unattractive (asubhaṁ bhāvanam), whatever passion there is will be given up. Develop the meditation, Rāhula, that is the perception of impermanence, for, Rāhula, from developing the meditation that is the perception of impermanence, whatever (kind of) ‘I am’ conceit there is will be given up.

Still following EH Johnston's argument, we can understand that the Buddha has here enumerated six bhāvanās each with a corresponding nimitta, namely friendliness, kindness, gladness, equanimity, the unattractive, and impermanence.

Subsequently, when we read in Saundara-nanda 16.63 that the Buddha taught Nanda to resort, at a time of heightened passion, to aśubham nimittam (a nimittam which is unattractive, disagreeable or impure), knowledge of the ancient Pali text would naturally tend to lead us to understand that aśubham nimittam belongs to what is described in the The Long Discourse Giving Advice to Rāhula as asubhaṁ bhāvanam (meditation on the unattractive/disagreeable/impure). Hence the following translations of Saundara-nanda 16.63:

EH Johnston:
But when the mind is excited by passion, the subject of meditation called 'impure' (a-śubham nimittam) should be selected so as to reach steadfastness; for thus the man of passionate nature obtains relief, like the man subject to phlegm who uses astringent remedies.

Linda Colvill:
When the mind is stirred up by passion, one should find stability and practice the impurity meditation (a-śubham nimittam), for that is how a man of passionate nature finds relief, like a patient with a phlegm condition using astringent treatments.

In this understanding, then, a subject of meditation (nimitta) is specifically linked to the development of a particular type of meditation (bhāvanā), with the aim of overcoming a specific defilement.

The essential oneness of sitting-meditation (in Japanese: ZA-ZEN) is Dogen's fundamental teaching, and I would like to think that it is Aśvaghoṣa's fundamental teaching too.

As I said above, the approach to defilements of a devotee of "just sitting," as I understand it, is an indirect one: Just sit, accepting and using the whole self well, and let everything come out in the wash.

But when I re-read Canto 16 and survey the textual evidence impartially, Aśvaghoṣa almost seems to be making a point of falsifying my generalist idea:

Just as a physician, for a disorder of bile, phlegm, or wind,
-- For whatever disorder of the humours has manifested the symptoms of disease --
Prescribes a course of treatment to cure that very disorder,
So did the Buddha prescribe for the faults. //16.69//

So I go into the New Year with a sense that something is not adding up, and a sense that there is work to do -- very probably in the direction of abandoning a cherished idea.

Individual Use of the Head (7): Dorebelle

2011-12-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

Hi Mike,

As you know I was interested not in the translation of Saundarananda or other teachings of this type, but in you and your relationship with Nishijima, with the Alexander Technique and Marjory Barlow. You pointed me out the one thing I was looking for in Nishijma, you made me discover the Alexander Technique and the work of John Appleton that gave me some precious insights.

Interacting with you in the blog has been somewhat difficult :)

Thinking about what else to say in this blog a couple of dreams came to my mind.

The first one dates back to something like five or six years ago.

I was with my children on the beach and I called them for a walk: "Come with me, let go of playing with those toys on the beach! Come with me up there, come with me to the top of the horizon." We left the beach and walked on the sea (yes, in the dream we were walking on water). We were soon almost out of breath: the sea was very steep (!). After a while we reached the top and looked down from the cliff edge of the sea: "Look! how big is the sea...". Then one of my sons fell down the cliff, I plunged after him trying to save him, and I woke up. And I thought: "Why? why it has to be so hard? Why for someone (like me!) even the sea has to be uphill?"

The search for gold in the title reminded me of another dream I had when I was a teenager:

I was a man (I was very often male in my dreams when I was a child, they changed later when I became "a woman" with sexual desires and the rest - the woman of the "tirade" I suppose XD ) and I was climbing a mountain. I had been climbing for a long time (years?) and I was still in the forest but I knew that the top of the mountain was made of gold. It was a perfect pyramid of shining gold.Suddenly I found myself in a place, a house, looking from a window at the sunset on the golden mountain in front of me. For some reason I couldn't understand, I had given up that search for gold as meaningless and I was resting at home. There is a flavor of "waiting for something that it is going to happen" in that resting but I cannot say if I'm adding it right now...

☺♥
d.

Individual Use of the Head (6): Happi

2011-12-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

Pre-amble:

It's somewhat difficult for me to sort out the contribution that Saundarananda has made in my understanding of what the Buddha taught from the contributions made by your commentary and my reading of Dogen (not to mention other reading, events, and influences), especially since I began reading Dogen and this blog within a couple of months of each other. I think they complemented each other to keep me on my toes questioning, rather than accepting, my understanding of other things I was learning. One uniqueness of Saundarananda is that as an epic poem it attempts to teach at least in part by example rather than by concept. The examples that come most readily to mind relate to the concepts of asceticism, holding views, striving (or end-gaining), compassion and skillful means, as well as how these concepts are inter-related.

You recently asked me to say something about how I, as a woman and a scientist, responded to the striver's tirade against women. My short answer at the time was "that it seemed only to reflect on his own inability to work through for himself what is probably the most difficult subject in the history of the human race and, I think it's safe to say, continues to be so to this day."

For a couple of reasons I've decided to respond at greater length:

(1) I realized that my answer "it seemed only to reflect on his own inability to work through for himself" is basically the same answer I've been giving most of my life as I encounter difficulties in my interactions with people in order to keep myself from taking things too personally (or at least drop off my defensive responses more readily). Although the answer has truth in it and thus is frequently taught in Western Buddhism and its derivatives and spin-offs, for me I think I learned it sometime in my teens. And to be honest, that answer, in retrospect, typically hasn't worked out that well for me. In addition, because I typically have not been outspoken I also haven't done much in the way of correcting what I see as flaws in the attitudes of either the scientific community or society in general -- though it should be said I have no wish for one of my major roles in life to be a crusader.

(2) When you asked me to respond as a woman and a scientist to the striver's tirade against women, I was initially offended because I thought it was rude and insensitive. I read your blog because I am interested in the Buddha-Dharma -- it shouldn't matter whether I am a woman (or a scientist for that matter). In fact I think this has been a source of some the friction in our exchanges.

Whether your request reflects a progressive attitude or a regressive one I don't know. Using the mirror principle and examining the reasons for my initially offended response, I decided to use this opportunity to treat the request progressively. Here's why: In science, the large majority of women have to bury the fact that they are women to succeed beyond their attainment of PhD (or whatever degree). I could go on about this in greater length but I think making the point is probably enough here. The fact is I am a student of the Buddha-Dharma, a scientist, ... and a woman.

My answer:

At the time you presented and discussed the canto, I didn't have a strong reaction to the striver's tirade against women. The striver's attitude seemed so absurd that I dismissed it thinking he must have a horrible experience in his history to warrant such a tirade. And yes, it identified that he had some work to do study self. Not too long ago though, I happened to encounter some graffiti in a John that read "Boys Suck!" Even though I cannot ever remember having that thought before, on that particular day I could relate because my actions on that day had been interpreted as coming from me as a woman rather than me as a scientist, and used in a way that I consider abuse. (I will say that I recognize that my own attempts to retain a good sense of humor and to be compassionate and make allowances for people gives not only those people but others behaving out of ignorance permission to continue abusive behavior.)

In short, I can find something in me that, rather than responding to the striver's tirade against women with a tirade about how stupid he was, can relate and even see the potential causes and conditions that could give rise to such a tirade. That's an interesting surprise to me. Dogen says to 'study the self is to forget the self'. Is that because when we study ourselves long enough and hard enough, we can find the capacity for, if not the actual existence of, every possible human role and/or response? Does studying the self eventually teach us what real compassion is in order to allow us to deal with those who treat us badly out of their own ignorance? What would that compassion actually look like? I think it would differ in different circumstances and vary depending on the person. It is something that's not always easy to identify. Dogen, I think, would say to just keep practicing and the appropriate response arises naturally.

What I was originally going to try to write was a redux of modern equivalents to some of the situations and characters in Saundarananda. A few that come readily to mind:

1. What were Nanda, the Buddha and/or Aśvaghoṣa thinking having Nanda leave Sundarī without informing her at least by sending a messenger?
2. What would have happened if Nanda could have gone back and asked Sundarī if she wanted to accompany him -- as would be the case in the present day. I can imagine all sorts of scenarios coming out of that that might have been equally skillful means and would have resolved Nanda's attachment to Sundarī one way or another. I guess it would have depended on what kind of woman Sundarī was.
3. The modern day equivalent to the Buddha's skillful means would be something like a brother taking his recently separated brother to a topless bar or something. Is that actually helpful in the majority of cases?

I don't have an answer to how to resolve the difficulties in interactions between the sexes. It's not enough to bury gender as is commonly done in the sciences. I could give you a number of reasons why that approach is a failure as well. Although it seems ludicrous maybe everyone needs to wear tags to identify what role we are speaking or acting from at any particular moment. I think everyone has to continue working at it.

I think a more complete redux of Saundarananda might be fun. As I mentioned, I plan on continuing with the cantos that I missed and then review the cantos without the commentary, but exactly when I'd get to it I don't know. At the moment I still have a substantial amount to read in the Shobogenzo and I have to admit I give the Shobogenzo priority over Saundarananda. The logic behind the priority relates to another difference I perceive between the Shobogenzo and Saundarananda, though not having completely read either. The difference relates to the fact that the Shobogenzo, which translates to The True Dharma Eye Treasury, gives Dogen's best advice on how to see with and use our Dharma eye in our practice. I'm not yet convinced that Saundarananda accomplishes that as well though I have a few cantos yet to read through. Also as far as the Buddha-Dharma is concerned and Zen in particular, Dogen appears to have one of the most enlightened attitudes towards women I've encountered to date.

As always thanks for your efforts Mike -- both in this translation and your daily digging away at your own good self (and others) for the cause of the Buddha-Dharma.

Princess Leia

P.S. I have to admit that on the occasions I've seen the movie(s) I haven't gotten into the Princess Leia character that much. She seems like a snooty know-it-all with a goodly dose of airhead. These days, partially due to to your commentary and dissecting of your own self, I have a better sense of why her character grated. At least she wasn't too bad with a gun.

Individual Use of the Head (5): Malcolm

2011-12-06T00:47:00.000-08:00

Part One

I started to write in response to your call for testimony a few days ago. Late last night (Nov 25) I was getting close to signing off on my well-considered, nicely expressed thoughts and sending them to you. But this morning, checking whether I'd honestly written what I honestly thought, and having read the latest instalment of your chat with Happi/Gisela (Nov 24/25), I got to thinking…and I noticed, not for the first time, that not having read Saundarananda, I was at a disadvantage.

I’ve read the verses as they’ve appeared each day and sped through one or two finished cantos, but I’ve not read the whole thing from beginning to end or, I confess, given it that much thought. I have been listening, but not always intently. I regret that I can’t tell you that Saundarananda has helped my practice, given me great insights, or knocked my socks off in any way – not that there haven’t been moments of admiration and recognition. I regret not having been affected by Saundarananda because it’s clear that Ashvaghosha’s poem means a lot to you. As they say in these parts, I ain't gonna lie - the truth is, I’ve not been moved by Ashvaghosha’s very skilful, very ancient poem one way or the other.

But your response to Gisela, and hers to you, made me ask myself what I, as a man, thought of the striver's tirade against women. And that led me to reconsider the testimony I’d written, the gist of which was (among other things) that a man like Ashvaghosha, an ancient Indian Buddhist renunciate would say that, wouldn’t he? Just like he has the striver recommend focussed meditative practices (nimittam) such as following the breath, putting attention between the eyebrows and the inhibition of sexual desire by ruminating on rotting female flesh; that's what they did in them days - some still do. But I hadn’t properly asked myself the question ‘Why, if the striver’s advice – the advice of a sincere practitioner - was such good advice, didn’t it work for Nanda? Why would Ashvaghosha want us to see such a highly recommended method for fashioning buddhas fail?’ And I realised that as I hadn’t yet read Suandarananda, not as a story should be read, it was no surprise that the irony you’ve insisted is present in much of the poem might have eluded me.

And then I thought: Well, to an ancient Indian renunciate like Ashvaghosha the striver is merely a man; a striver - but the Buddha is The Buddha, a kind of god; a being who has transcended striving. As a poet and dramatist, Ashvaghosha has got to give the Buddha something fancy to do for a climax or we've got a dull story, no difference between a striver and a buddha and no mahayana. Then: 'Where did that come from,' I wondered - 'mahayana'? Why did that word pop into my head? And so I didn’t know until this morning - until I googled "Ashvaghosha/mahayana" - what every schoolboy knows, that Ashvaghosha is the first Mahayana poet. Although Wiki says he isn't. Whether he is or he isn't, I was led to re-consider your insistence, which I had found unconvincing, that by showing the striver’s method as ineffective, at least as regards Nanda, Ashvaghosha may be pointing to another way; a better way.

That I could have been about to commit myself to an uninformed and ill-considered opinion makes me feel pretty stupid, a bit too eager to come when called; a bit too eager to be right and be seen to be right. But the fact that I stopped myself short makes me not quite so stupid, I like to think...or perhaps demonstrates just how very right I want to be. As soon as you've finished translating it, I’m going to read Saundarananda properly. I may still feel that Richard Gombrich is right about the meaning of nimittam; I may still feel that Ashvaghosha had the striver expound much that he, Ashvaghosha, considered sound Buddhist theory and good Buddhist practice. I may regret having said this much here and now. Ainsi va la vie.

I suppose this is the first part of my testimony, Mike. Whether or not I’ll have anything further to say on the subjects of irony, sex, the true dharma, vehicles great and small or what Ashvaghosha really meant, I do want to say a little more about your blog and your translation. I’ll get back to you soon.

Part Two

As someone who does, on occasion, tell his friends “Yes, I suppose I am a Buddhist… But there are lots of different kinds, you know!” I’ve been reluctant to respond to your request for testimony for fear of disappointing you (see testimony part one) and for fear of not being up to it; of not knowing very much about Sanskrit, Ashvaghosha or Buddhism, and not much about myself, an ex-junkie who many years after reading about Zen Buddhism and dreaming of enlightenment found out he could actually give it a go. But it is appropriate to respond, if only to thank you for the effort you’ve made every day for these past months and years. I’ve already given you some reactions to the poem – to the limited extent that I’m familiar with it. Here are some more thoughts - about your translation and your blog.

As a fellow student of Sanskrit it’s clear to me that your translation is excellent. It's faithful to the Sanskrit text, elegant, economical, and easy to read. To the best of my recollection you’ve never claimed that your translation is right, but you must have a feeling that it isn’t so very wrong, or why would you bother? Just to aim - as an expression of the means-whereby - may be a good thing, but to aim and hit the target surely can’t be a bad thing, and in my opinion you have hit the target time after time. In my opinion, you’ve every right - perhaps I should say it's not inappropriate - to be proud of the gold you’ve mined and to want to show it to others, great big bit of nothing that it is.

Your blog comments, however much you might protest, have been an essential part of your project, certainly for me. The comments are what draw me to your blog every day. You're a good writer. You often make me think and you often make me laugh. Having no real experience of Alexander Technique much of what you say about it can have no real meaning for me, but you have explained something of what AT is and what it means to you in such a way that I can see how it must be relevant to what we are; to what we do and how we do it. And so AT can’t be a million miles away from the Buddhadharma and the various other truths. AT aside, it’s your ongoing struggle to be honest with yourself and other people that is not merely entertaining to voyeuristic Buddhists looking for some excitement, but, I hope, is valuable to anyone interested in the self. If the Buddhadharma is about anything useful, it cannot be merely a model of how we should be, but must be a way of seeing how we are, and that's something you acknowledge.

Maybe there are differences between what the Buddha, Ashvaghosha, Dogen and Gudo Nishijima taught. Maybe they're not teaching the same thing. If that's so, I don't see it as a problem. I can’t deny that I find similarities between the many different Buddhisms and other teachings like science reassuring, satisfying my desire to be right and to feel safe; to have laid claim to a view which is true for all people at all times and in all places. But no view can be that. So I'm content to understand that the true dharma, the truth, is beyond views - and there is no end to the different forms of its expression.

Thanks a lot, Mike, for deciding to do this great big bit of nothing, sticking at it, and doing it so well.

Malcolm

Part Three

Slowly reading Saundarananda...

Individual Use of the Head (4): George

2011-12-05T00:42:00.000-08:00

Following the Saundarananda, for the last few years, is a daily activity for me. Some times I feel tired and very little of what is written sinks into my mind. Some times what I read has so much relevance with the specific circumstances of my life that is almost freaky, it makes me wonder if someone is following me! Like the other day where after a long sleepless night I hear Buddha talking to Saundarananda about sleep and Mike about people have not conquered even the state of natural sleep.

I wish I could be able to say that since following the blog my sitting has become like a mountain and that I have experienced the great pleasures the masters of the past have talked about! No I did not! But I think, day after day, I am becoming a bit more clear about the true nature of my ongoing difficulties with sitting and of course life.

I am also happy that through the blog I actually managed to meet Mike in person. Every time we meet he (and his wife) gives me generously Alexander lessons, we sit together, have cups of tea, fish and chips, long walks, discussions! Through this contact I discovered that behind this blog there is a sincere practitioner, teacher and friend.

George

Individual Use of the Head (3): Harry

2011-12-04T01:16:00.000-08:00

Hi Mike,

Re your suggestion about individual accounts of 'the work'.

What I'm at might look something like this:

I'm working at relinquishing my desire to know and achieve imagined goals, including some based on deeply accepted enduring assumptions about myself that I have internalised and retained for years. This isn't a passive, negative process though, as increasingly I realise that I have to use and express this relinquishing positively and actively in things like parenting, making music, dealing with people, and other everyday tasks.

Besides sitting for set periods I try to integrate relinquishing striving and selfish desire into all areas of my life by 'checking' myself at points through the day. In this way I find I can consciously unyoke myself from selfish desires and striving and proceed in a way not dictated by restricted courses of action. Sounds good written down, of course, but the reality of it is inconsistent and messy.

Regards,

Harry.

Individual Use of the Self (2): Ian

2011-12-03T00:38:00.000-08:00

I’m Mike’s brother, a teacher of swimming and the Alexander Technique. I’m not a sitting-zen practitioner.

I’m essentially lazy, not an explorer, a digger, a seeker of truth. More than twenty years ago, when I was 19, I had some experience of the Dogen Sangha, briefly living with a group of Tokyo westerners studying under Gudo Nishijima. I didn’t feel I belonged there and never wanted to sign up to a life following the Buddha’s teaching. One thing I’ve always been clear about in my own mind is that I wouldn’t give up the desire to be with a woman. So I have no real interest in Nanda’s struggle with that.

But, on the advice of my brother (MC), I did start having Alexander Technique lessons in my mid-twenties and something about this felt suitable for me. Looking back, I don’t think I had the sense or self-awareness at that time to see that I really needed the AT. I went for lessons wanting to find out how to be right, perhaps even wanting confirmation that I already was! Many kicks up the backside later the penny started to drop.

The Alexander Technique, with its roots in the performing arts, perhaps engenders the feeling that there’s room just to be oneself. I am beginning to understand from MC’s translation of Ashvaghosha that following the Buddha is the same. But something has kept me going with the Alexander Technique, and stopped me from sitting. Having said that, maybe there’s too much room for interpretation in the AT world of what one can be and the discipline of daily sitting practice, as MC recommends it, would be good for all AT teachers. But with the Alexander Technique I like the fact that there is nothing to conform to, that it’s always a matter of individual choice - I can end-gain if I want to!

This isn’t to say I’m ruling out the possibility of sitting-zen practice. If anything, the translation and the blog inspire me to sit. But apart from odd periods of sitting, I can’t claim to be a practitioner. I do practise the AT though (that is, I devote some time to it each day, often with my hands on a pupil) and on a daily basis explore the meaning of the words: I’d like my neck to be free so that my head goes forward and up, out of my body, so that my back lengthens and widens and my knees go forward and away from each other.

But as I don’t sit, or follow the Buddha, how can I answer this question about accomplishment of the work that has to be done in order to make the teaching of the four noble truths one's own?

What attracts me to the translation and the comments is this: the possibility of change through work on yourself as an individual.

The translation and blog have helped me because they encourage me in my quest for forward movement, albeit imperceptibly slow, with the Alexander Technique. Yes, change is very gradual, and possibly imperceptible, like the growth of a tree. But there are moments where there’s ‘a bit of nothing’ among all the fixing and doing. Perhaps very slowly a new direction is emerging. And my understanding of these experiences, though not the experiences themselves, come largely from MC.

Here are a few gems from the blog, which I’ve jotted down in my diary in 2011.

‘Being wrong is the best friend you’ve got.’ Marjory Barlow, quoted often.

In sitting, there is the ‘possibility of transcending the vestibular system, for which purpose the vestibular system has in the the first place to be still, quiet, undisturbed.’ MC 14th June

‘Keep coming back to those words. They will take you where you want to go’ MB (quoted 6th July)

On 26th August (As an example of how my understanding of AT experiences are informed by MC) I noted after giving an AT lesson that I ‘worked to do less.. small desires.. not trying to feel anything. Not trying to achieve the end. She floated out of chair and said it was a lovely experience.’

Negative feedback is the principle upon which a thermostat functions to prevent a central heating system from creating too much heat. It is a truly excellent principle, a preventive principle. MC (16th September)

Tomatis recognized that the ear is the primary route whereby the brain and nervous system receive nourishment from the environment. MC (October)

Paul Madaule describes the ear as a battery that energises the brain. (October)

Sometimes MC mentions me as someone who applies AT to swimming and gives a brief description of my modus operandi. I look at it and think, yes, this is how I would like to be working and it gives me new inspiration. For example, there was something (I can’t find it) about helping people get rid of their misconception that to overcome fear of water they are required to do something.

I find that when teaching the AT, I can’t go too far wrong if I remember Marjory Barlow’s clear message, as remembered by MC. Something like, Say no to your reaction, give your directions and go into movement without a care in the world - let it come out in the wash.

For me the AT work is primarily about direction, from the brain, of energy. From darkness and uselessness, you can get yourself going in a new direction and carry out an activity quietly. It is something you can always do and get others to do. You’re working to a principle rather than a feeling. ‘Be present to endgaining rather than endgaining to be present.’ ‘Stop doing the wrong thing, and the right thing does itself’, I am reminded of Alexander’s words and appreciate the emphasis on the Buddha’s teaching primarily not to do wrong.

MC brings colour to the translation of Ashvaghosha by understanding the verses from the viewpoint of one who knows about the human condition through practise of sitting-zen, teaching of AT, and work as a neuro developmental therapist. I often look at the two other translations and they don't seem so grounded in practice; the influence of Christianity possibly limits EHJ's understanding. The other two translations of Saundara-nanda would never have interested me. But if I’m honest I wouldn’t be interested in MC's translation either, if it wasn’t for his comments. There’s too much about kings and warriors, chariots and snakes. So all the more credit to MC for wading through the Sanskrit and attempting to dig out the real meaning, as a gift to lazy armchair followers like me.

I often glaze over and fail to give the translation the attention it deserves. MC has attempted to do the translation, as a daily job, according to the means whereby principle. All I have to do is sit and read it but I don’t often do so attending to that principle, especially as I usually read in the morning, before I’ve got myself going. I collapse over the computer with a coffee and if anything catches my attention it is MC’s new interpretations, trains of thought or notes on his personal experiences. So, as with so many things from my brother, my understanding is second hand. He does the work, he works it out, he bangs on until others get the point. And despite being a poor listener, I do listen to him.

So ...the Four Noble Truths

What are they?

From Wikipedia. A simple rendition of the Four Noble Truths is as follows:

1. Suffering does exist
2. Suffering arises from attachment to desires
3. Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases
4. Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the eightfold path.

From the translation, canto 16.

Suffering does exist.

The cause of suffering is faults which start with thirsting (redness and darkness, attachment, doing).... [Yep.]

There is the possibility of cutting out faults .....[This is where I think I am and will remain, increasingly aware of my faults and working to prevent them from getting the better of me. But Is there really the possibility of cutting them out?]

Cessation means peace and well being, rest, absence of redness and the taint of thirsting.....[I get glimpses of this in AT work.]

There is the possibility of an eternal refuge which is irremovable and noble, where there is total wellbeing, wanting little, with no fondness for worldy activity..... [I don’t know about that.]

16.25
So my friend, with regard to the many forms of becoming,

Know their causes to be [the faults] that start with thirsting

And cut out those [faults], if you wish to be freed from suffering;

For ending of the effect follows from eradication of the cause.

16.26
Again, the ending of suffering
follows from the disappearance of its cause.

Experience that reality for yourself as peace and well-being,

A place of rest, a cessation,
an absence of the red taint of thirsting,

An eternal refuge which is irremovable and noble,

16.37
Giving oneself to this path with its three divisions

And eight branches
-- this straightforward, irremovable, noble path --

One abandons the faults, which are the causes of suffering,

And comes to that step which is total well-being.

16.38
Attendant on it are constancy and straightness;

Modesty, attentiveness, and reclusiveness;

Wanting little, contentment,
and freedom from forming attachments;

No fondness for worldly activity, and forbearance.

The following two verses are useful.

16.41
So with regard to the truth of suffering,
see suffering as an illness;

With regard to the faults,
see the faults as the cause of the illness;

With regard to the truth of stopping,
see stopping as freedom from disease;

And with regard to the truth of a path,
see a path as a remedy.

16.42
Then comprehend that suffering is doing

And witness the faults moving it forward.

Realise its stopping as non-doing,

And know the path as a turning back.

I think I find myself at, and momentarily step on to, a new path but then set off again along the old, familiar one, fixing and holding my breath, pushing forward against the wind and through thick, slippery mud.

In the Alexander teaching room, I glimpse the truth of the noble truths. The overall aim, and effect, of the work for me personally seems to be the unblocking of energy. And the fact of the unblocked energy gives me hope re. the possibility of an energised life.

Faults including laziness, habits including fixing and breath-holding, modern life and a weak vestibular system..... all these things and lack of commitment... close the window of hope. But the more often it’s opened, the more easily it opens again.

Individual Use of the Head (1): Jordan

2011-12-02T00:41:00.001-08:00

Hi Mike,

I used to play with the 8-fold path a whole lot. I don't know if maybe it could even have been too much. But I know there was a whole lot of repetition and maybe even the gratuitous act of trying to convince myself I knew what "It" all meant. And I do recall I wrote a few posts on it in the past that I would probably be embarrassed by if I looked at them now. My quick answer today in how I make it my own is not a zen parrot "Don't know" but a frank I know that I fail at it, but I do my best. I might try to answer the question again after some thinking, if I remember. But judging by my current e-mail address, my answer might be noisy and may wobble from side to side a bit.

Yours from the sea,

Jordan

Individual Use of the Head: Preamble

2011-12-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

As a translation of ājñā-vyākaraṇa, I feel very happy to have arrived at "affirmation of full autonomy." Because this translation is both literal and, at least to me, totally meaningful, it feels right.

This feeling, due to the problem that FM Alexander identified as faulty sensory appreciation, is generally a bad sign. Again, if what felt right to me yesterday also feels right today, that probably only means I haven't grown...

This pre-amble is in danger of turning into a pre-ramble.

What is paramount for Aśvaghoṣa, we have heard, is liberation, mokṣa, the coming undone of all the bonds that tie us, so that we are free.

Following the noble eightfold path of cessation in this direction is no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise. Being required to let go of cherished ideas, beliefs, views, misconceptions, along with the familiarity and security of old habits and emotional attachments, is a bitter pill to have to swallow. But the more we succeed in this work, the more fully autonomous we are. And the more fully autonomous we are, not only in the abstract but in a real situation like sitting on a round black cushion or walking in the open air, the more truly upright the whole body is, centred upon use of the head. (But do not call it right posture!)

With this in mind, even before alighting upon "Affirmation of Full Autonomy" as a translation of the title of the final canto, I had thought to call the contributions that follow:

Individual Use of the Head (1): Jordan

Individual Use of the Head (2): Ian

and so on.

So now I will shut up for a while.

All being well, towards the end of this month or at the beginning of the New Year I will get going again on Aśvaghoṣa's other kāvya poem, Buddha-carita. But for the time being I intend to keep quiet and let a half dozen or so other individuals have their say, in the order they sent in their contributions, starting with Jordan.

Canto 18: Affirmation of Full Autonomy

2011-12-01T01:00:00.000-08:00

18.1
And so like a young initiate who mastered the Vedas,

Like a trader who turned a quick profit,

Or like a royal warrior who conquered a hostile army,

Nanda, a success, approached the Guru.

18.2
For it is pleasant,
at a time when wisdom has been fully realized,

For teacher to see student, and for student to see teacher,

Each thinking, "Your toil has rewarded me";

For which same reason
the wish to see Nanda arose in the Sage.

18.3
Thus is a noble person obliged to pay respect, to his face,

To the one through whom he has acquired distinction.

Even a noble person who retains the taint of redness
is so obliged, out of gratitude:

How much more is one with no red taint,
all pride having perished?

18.4
For when devotion springs from an agenda or desire,

There it remains rooted;

But when there is love and devotion for dharma,

That person is steeped to the core in tranquillity.

18.5
And so, a glowing gold in his yellow-red robe,

He bowed his head to the Guru

Like a karnikāra tree, with an outburst of ruddy shoots,

And a glorious blaze of flowers, nodding in the wind.

18.6
Then,
as a manifestation of his individual merit as a student

And, indeed, of the great Sage's merit as a teacher

-- Not out of pride --

He described his own accomplishment
of the work that has to be done:

18.7
"The splinter of a view, that had penetrated to my core,

O Mighty One,
was paining me intensely, being very sharp;

Via the jaws of the pincers of your words
-- by means of a means and by way of a mouth --

It was pulled out of me
as a splinter is removed by a surgeon.

18.8
A doubt,
by which I fell into a state of hesitant questioning,

O One Beyond Doubt, has been eradicated in me --

Through your teaching I have arrived at a true path

Like a straggler, under a good guide, getting on the road.

18.9
With senses ruled by relishing,

I madly drank the drug of love;

Its action was blocked in me
by the antidote of your words,

As a deadly poison is by a great remedy.

18.10
Rebirth is over, O Refuter of Rebirth!

I am dwelling as one with observance of true dharma.

What was for me to do,
O Doer of the Necessary! is totally done.

I am present in the world without being of the world.

18.11
Having drunk from the milk-cow of your voice,
whose udder is loving-kindness,
whose lovely dewlap is figures of speech,

Who is milked for true dharma,
and whose horns are boldness of expression,

I am properly satisfied, O Most Excellent One,

Like a little calf that, because of thirst, has drunk milk.

18.12
And so, O Sage, hear from me in brief

What, through seeing, I have made my own.

Though you know it anyway, O All-knowing One,

Still I wish to mention how I have worked on myself.

18.13
For true freedom-loving people
(however individual they are)

When they hear of another person's plan
that led to freedom

-- Like sick men hearing the plan
of one who became free from a disease --

Will happily work at freedom via that same path.

18.14
In a birth, I perceive earth and the other elements,

But in earth and those other elements, no self at all.

On that basis,
there is no attachment in me to those elements;

My orientation is equal
with regard to my body and outside.

18.15
Again, the five skandhas,
beginning with the organized body,

I see to be inconstant and without substance,

As well as unreal and life-negating;

Therefore I am free from those pernicious constructs.

18.16
Since I see for myself an arising and a vanishing

In all situations in the realms of the senses,

Therefore, again, there is in me no clinging

To those aforementioned elements which are
impermanent, impersonal, and unsatisfactory.

18.17
Again, on the grounds that I see the whole world
as emerging and in the same moment passing away,

As having no essential meaning
and not being as it ought to be,

On these grounds, because of meditation,
the world is bound fast by my mind

In such a way that there is no flicker in me of 'I am.'

18.18
There is all manner of indulging in four sorts of food,

But since I am not attached to how I take food,

Since when it comes to food
I am not congealed or trussed up,

I am free, on that score,
from the three realms of becoming.

18.19
In the daily round of dharma-practice

Since I am neither certain about nor bound in mind to
visual, auditory and other kinds of perception,

And since through that dharma-round
I am graced by trailing equanimity,

On that account I am detached and am free."

18.20
After speaking thus,
out of deep appreciation of the Guru

He prostrated himself on the ground
with his whole body.

He looked like a great fallen column

Of gold tinged with red sandalwood.

18.21
Then, after listening to him
who had emerged already out of heedlessness,

After hearing his firmness and his testimony

And a clarity consistent with the gist of dharma,

The Sage boomed at him like a thundercloud:

18.22
"You who stands firm
in the dharma loved by those who study it,
stand up!

Why are you fallen with your head at my feet?

The prostration does not honour me so much

As this surefootedness in the dharma.

18.23
Today, conqueror of yourself, you have truly gone forth,

Since you have thereby gained sovereignty
over yourself.

For in a person who has conquered himself,
going forth has worked;

Whereas in an impulsive person
whose senses remain unconquered, it has not.

18.24
Today you are possessed of purity of the highest order,

In that your voice, body, and mind are untainted,

And in that, henceforward, my gentle friend,
you will not again be confined

In the ungentle womb of unready slumber.

18.25
Listening ears open to the truth replete with listening,
and with purpose,

Today you stand surefooted in the dharma,
in a manner that befits the listening tradition.

For a man equipped with listening ears who is wavering

Is like a swordsman lacking valour:
he is worthy of blame.

18.26
Ah! What firmness in you,
who is a slave to objects no more,

In that you have willed the means of liberation.

For it is a fool in this world who,
thinking 'I will be finished,'

Gives in, in the face of the end of existence,
to a state of quivering anxiety.

18.27
Happily, this meeting with the present moment,
which is so hard to come by,

Is not being wasted under the sway of ignorance.

For a man who has been down goes up with difficulty,

Like a turtle to a hole in a yoke, in the foaming sea.

18.28
Having conquered Māra,
who is so hard to stop in battle,

Today, at the forefront of the fight,
you are a hero among men.

For even a hero is not recognized as a hero

Who is beaten by the foe-like faults.

18.29
Today, having extinguished the flaming fire of redness,

Happily, you will sleep well, free of fever.

For even on a fabulous bed he sleeps badly

Who is being burned in his mind by the fires of affliction.

18.30
You used to be markedly mad about possessions;

Today, because you have stopped thirsting, you are rich.

For as long as a man in the world thirsts,

However rich he may be, he is always deprived.

18.31
Today you may fittingly proclaim

That King Śuddhodana is your father.

For it is not commendable for a backslider,
after falling from the dharma alighted on by ancestors,

To proclaim his lineage.

18.32
How great it is
that you have reached the deepest tranquillity,

Like a man making it through a wasteland
and gaining possession of treasure.

For everyone in the flux of saṁsāra is afflicted by fear,

Just like a man in a wasteland.

18.33
Thinking 'When shall I see Nanda settled,

Given over to the living of a forest beggar's life?',

I had harboured from the start the desire to see you thus.

What a wonderful sight you are for me to behold!

18.34
For even an unlovely sort is a sight to behold

When well-adorned with his own best features.

But a man who is full of the befouling faults,

Strikingly beautiful man though he may be, is truly ugly.

18.35
Developed in you today is the real wisdom

By which you have done, totally,
the work you had to do on yourself.

For even a highly educated man lacks wisdom,

If wisdom fails to show in his practice of a better way.

18.36
So it is with seeing,

Among people with eyes open and with eyes closed.

For when a man lacks sight packed with intuition,

Though he has eyes, the Eye is not present in him.

18.37
Struck by calamity,
stung to do something to combat suffering,

The world exhausts itself with work like ploughing;

And yet it is ceaselessly re-visited by that suffering,

To which,
using what you know, you today have put an end.

18.38
'There might be for me no hardship;
there might be for me just happiness....'

Thus is the world impelled ever forward:

And yet it does not know a means whereby
that happiness might come to be --

That rarely attained happiness
which you today have realized, properly."

18.39
While the Tathāgata told him this and more
for his benefit

Nanda remained firm in his judgement and thinking

And was indifferent to plaudits or criticisms.

With hands joined, he spoke these words:

18.40
"Oh, how particular, O Seer of Particularities,

Is this compassion that you have shown to me!

Since I who was sunk, Glorious One, in the mire of love

Have been a reluctant refugee from the terror of saṁsāra.

18.41
If not set free by you, a brother,
a guide along a better way,

A fruitful father, and equally a mother,

I would be done for;

Like a straggler dropped from a caravan,
I would not have made it.

18.42
Solitude is sweet for one who is calm and contented,

Who looks into and has learned what is.

Again, for one who is sober and shorn of conceits,

For one who is detached in his decision-making,
dispassion is a pleasure.

18.43
And so, through squarely realising what is,

Through shaking off faults and coming to quiet,

I worry now neither about my own place,

Nor about the person there,
nor about apsarases, nor about gods.

18.44
For now that I have tasted this pure, peaceful happiness,

My mind no longer hankers
after happiness born of desires --

Just as the costliest earthly fare cannot entice

A god who has supped the heavenly nectar.

18.45
Alas, the world has its eyes closed
by blind unconsciousness;

It does not see utmost happiness in a different robe.

Flinging away lasting inner happiness,

It exhausts itself so, in pursuit of sensual happiness.

18.46
For just as a fool, having made it to a jewel mine,

Might leave the jewels and carry off inferior crystals,

So would one reject the highest happiness
of full awakening

And struggle to gain sensual gratification.

18.47
Oh! high indeed, then, is the order of that desire
to favour living beings

Which the Tathāgata,
overflowing with benevolence, has:

Since, O Sage, you throw away
the highest-order happiness of meditation

And are consumed by your effort
to stop others suffering.

18.48
How today could I possibly repay you,

My compassionate Guru whose desire is others' welfare,

By whom I was taken totally up and out
of the foaming sea of becoming,

Like a man out of a great ocean
when his boat is being battered by waves?"

18.49
Then the Sage, hearing his well-founded words

Which signified the end of everything superfluous,

Voiced, as the Very Best of Speakers,

These lines that none but a buddha,
being 'Sheer Radiance,' should voice:

18.50
"As a man of action who got the job done
and who knows the primary task,

None but you, O crafty man!,
should express this affirmation --

Like a great trader,
having crossed a wasteland and got the goods,

Who affirms the work of a good guide.

18.51
An arhat, a man of action whose mind has come to quiet,

Knows the Buddha as a charioteer
of human steeds who needed taming:

Not even a seer of truth
appreciates the Buddha in this manner:

How much less does the common man,
however intelligent he may be?

18.52
This gratitude is fitting, again, in none but you

Whose mind has been liberated
from the dust of the passions and from darkness.

For while dust prevails in the world,

O man of gratitude! real gratitude is a rare state of being.

18.53
O possessor of dharma!
Since, because of abiding by dharma,

You have skill in making it your own
and quiet confidence in me,

I have something else to say to you.

For you are surrendered and devoted,
and up to the task.

18.54
Walking the transcendent walk,
you have done the work that needed to be done:

In you, there is not the slightest thing left to work on.

From now on, my friend, go with compassion,

Loosening others up
who are pulled down into their troubles.

18.55
The lowest sort of man only ever sets to work
for an object in this world.

But a man in the middle does work
both for this world and for the world to come.

A man in the middle works for a result,
I repeat, in the future.

The superior type, however,
tends towards abstention from goal-oriented action.

18.56
But deemed to be higher than the highest in this world

Is he who, having realized the supreme ultimate dharma,

Desires, without worrying about the trouble to himself,

To teach tranquillity to others.

18.57
Therefore
forgetting the work that needs to be done
in this world on the self,

Do now, stout soul, what can be done for others.

Among beings who are wandering in the night,
their minds shrouded in darkness,

Let the lamp of this transmission be carried.

18.58
Just let the astonished people in the city say,

While you are standing firm, voicing dharma-directions,

'Well! What a miracle this is,

That he who was a lover boy is preaching liberation!'

18.59
Surely then, when she hears of your steadfast mind

With its chariots turned back from sundry objects,

Your wife following your example will also talk,

To women at home, the talk of dispassion.

18.60
For, with you showing constancy of the highest order,
as you get to the bottom of what is,

She surely will not enjoy life in the palace,

Just as the mind of an enlightened man
does not enjoy sensual pleasures

When his mental state is tranquil and controlled,
and his thinking is detached, distinct, separate."

18.61
Thus spoke the Worthy One,
the instructor whose compassion
was of the highest order,

Whose words and equally whose feet
Nanda had accepted, using his head;

Then, at ease in himself, his heart at peace,
his task ended,

He left the Sage's side like an elephant free of rut.

18.62
When the occasion arose
he entered the town for begging
and attracted the citizens' gaze;

Impartial towards gain, loss,
comfort, discomfort, and the like,
his senses composed, he was free of longing;

And being there, in the moment,
he talked of liberation to people so inclined --

Never putting down others on a wrong path
or raising himself up.

18.63
This work is pregnant with the purpose of release:
it is for cessation, not for titillation;

It is wrought
out of the figurative expression of kāvya poetry
in order to capture an audience
whose minds are on other things --

For what I have written here
not pertaining to liberation,
I have written
according to the conventions of kāvya poetry.

This is through asking myself
how the bitter pill might be made pleasant to swallow,
like bitter medicine mixed with something sweet.

18.64
Seeing, in general, that the world
is moved primarily by fondness for objects
and is repelled by liberation,

I for whom liberation is paramount
have told it here like it is,
using a kāvya poem as a pretext.

Being aware of the deceit,
take from this what pertains to peace
and not to idle pleasure.

The elemental (verb-root-rooted) dust,
assuredly, shall yield up abundant gold.

The 18th canto in the epic poem Handsome Nanda,
titled "Affirmation of Full Autonomy."

This is the work of a beggar, the respected teacher Aśvaghoṣa of Saketa, son of the noble Suvarṇākṣī, crafter of epic poetry and talker of the great talk.

SAUNDARANANDA Colophon: Great New Beginnings?

2011-11-30T01:39:00.000-08:00

saundaranande mahā-kāvya ājñā-vyākaraṇa nāmaṣṭādaśaḥ sargaḥ/

ārya-suvarṇākṣī-putrasya sāketakasya bhikṣor ācārya-bhadant'-āśvaghoṣasya mahā-kaver mahā-vādinaḥ kṛtir iyam //

The 18th canto in the epic poem Handsome Nanda,
titled "Affirmation of Full Autonomy."

This is the work of a beggar, the respected teacher Aśvaghoṣa of Saketa, son of the noble Suvarṇākṣī, crafter of epic poetry and talker of the great talk.

COMMENT
My working title for Canto 18 was originally simply "Affirmation" but for the last couple of months, further to commenting on 18.6, I have favoured "Bearing Witness."

In 18.21, I translated vyākaraṇaṁ as "testimony" (EHJ: "declaration;" LC: "discriminating analysis"). Canto titles consistent with that translation might be "Attesting to Enlightenment" or "Enlightened Testimony."

But I have reverted to "affirmation" for the vyākaraṇaḥ of the canto title," firstly because (as already mentioned in comments to 18.6) vyākaraṇa corresponds to 授記 JUKI, the title of Shobogenzo chap. 32, which in the Nishijima-Cross translation is translated as "affirmation" or "giving affirmation;" and secondly because "affirmation" fits the content of Canto 18, in which the Buddha and Nanda affirm each other's respective virtues.

That leaves the problem of how to understand ājñā, which as a noun is given first in the dictionary as order, command, unlimited authority, power -- "Affirmation of a Mission"? "Affirmation of Unlimited Authority/Power"?

As a verb, ā-√jñā means to notice, undertand or realize. Hence, according to a note by EHJ, "ājñā is the special knowledge of the man who has attained salvation" -- and hence EHJ's chapter title "The Declaration of Insight." Accepting EHJ's gist might lead us in the direction of "Affirmation of Insight" or "Affirmation of Enlightenment."

This would fit well enough with the content of Canto 18. But since the original meaning of ājñā, according to the dictionary, has to do not so much with the exercise of wisdom as with the exercise of power, I am drawn back to translations like "Affirmation of Free Rein" or "Affirmation of Unlimited Power" or "Affirmation of Full Autonomy."

The canto title I have thus arrived at could hardly be further away from the spirit of LC's "His Instructions Revealed." But again, it would be not uncharacteristic of Aśvaghoṣa to choose a title which seemed to mean one thing while really meaning the opposite.

Some readers might like to ask a supreme Buddhist authority for a ruling on the canto title -- they might like to ask some Buddhist Patriarch or other to reveal his instructions. Some might prefer to use their own head.

You pays your money and you takes your choice. But it is Aśvaghoṣa fans from the latter group whose individual testimonies I am interested in, and I will start publishing those contributions the day after tomorrow, beginning with Jordan's, on Friday. Anybody who wishes to contribute but hasn't yet is welcome to do so by emailing me at mike.cross@the-middle-way.org.

Moving from the canto title to the closing sentence (or "colophon"), this line represents Aśvaghoṣa taking individual responsibility for a work of Sanskrit literature -- the first buddha-ancestor, as far as we know, who thus announced that "I, So and So, son of So and So, wrote this."

This attitude of Aśvaghoṣa, it might be argued, also says something about the affirmation of full individual autonomy.

To what extent was Aśvaghoṣa approach a new departure?

The Monier Williams dictionary defines mahā-yāna as: "great vehicle" (as opposed to hīna-yāna), name of the later system of Buddhist teaching said to have been first promulgated by Nāgārjuna and treated of in the Mahā-yāna-sūtras.

I regard with skepticism this designation of a great vehicle beginning with Nāgārjuna. Should we recognize that there was anything great in the teaching of later ancestors like Nāgārjuna, Bodhidharma, and Dogen that wasn't already greatly present in the teaching of earlier ancestors like Gautama, Ānanda, and Aśvaghoṣa?

As a rule, probably not. At the same time, I remember Dogen praising, as a secret of the great vehicle, the tradition of wearing a buddha-robe to sit in, regardless of distinctions such as male and female monk, lay man and lay woman.

However one understands the significance of the mahā in the closing words of the colophon, I think the attempts of EHJ and LC to translate mahā-kaver mahā-vādinaḥ (great eloquent poet; great poet and eloquent speaker) fail to reflect real understanding of the value system of a buddha-ancestor like Aśvaghoṣa, according to which the primary thing -- as he has just told us -- is never great poetry. The first way these epithets should be undestood, as I read them, is ironic self-deprecation.

mahā-vādin is given in the dictionary as "a great controversialist." In this sense Aśvaghoṣa following on from yesterday's verse, I am sure, was describing himself in a self-deprecating way, as a purveyor of verb-root-rooted dust, as a great talker of the talk -- that is to say, not necessarily a great walker of the walk.

At the same time, mahā-vādin can also be understood as "a propounder of the great" i.e. "teacher of the great vehicle" or "proponent of the mahāyāna teaching." Might this also be what Aśvaghoṣa intended?

My answer is the usual refuge of the dabbler whose staff lacks the iron thump of Zen enlightenment: I don't know.

In the end, the only certainty is that Saundara-nanda is full of ironic twists and ambiguity. From the first verse to the colophon, what Aśvaghoṣa seems to mean on the surface is not what he seems to mean after one has dug around for a while. And there may be deeper and deeper levels of meaning that requie a spade sharper than mine to dig them out.

It is perhaps permissible, nevertheless, to hope that this work, despite its shortcomings, may attract readers to a very fine poem, and that it may help them to the understanding and enjoyment of it. So wrote EH Johnston, 80 years ago in October 1931 in the preface to his English translation of Saundara-nanda. It is perhaps permissible to hope, in other words, even as Aśvaghoṣa himself may have hoped and intuited two thousand years ago, that this moment might not be the end of anything but rather the beginning of something, based on true foundations.

* The discoveries of FM Alexander.
* Practical understanding of how vestibular reflexes underpin all human behaviour.
* Reliable translations (based on the original words, not some poser's Buddhist intuition) of ancient texts.
*Devotion to upright sitting in the traditional cross-legged manner.

These are my four corners stones. Whether they are solid enough foundations for what Gudo Nishijima called "the establishment of true Buddhism" in the world, time will tell. My sense, as an old rugby player, is that, deep into the second half, we are several converted tries behind.

EH Johnston:
This poem was written by the great eloquent poet, the mendicant and teacher, his reverence Ashvaghosha, the noble son of Suvarnakshi of Saketa.

Linda Covill:
End of Canto 18: His Instructions Revealed

This is the composition of the Venerable Ashva-ghosha of Saketa, noble son of Suvarnakshi, monk, teacher, great poet and eloquent speaker.

VOCABULARY:
saundara-nande mahaa-kaavye (loc.): in the epic poem Handsome Nanda
aajNaa-vyaakaraNaH (nom. sg. m.)
aajNaa: f. order , command ; authority , unlimited power ; permission
ā- √ jñā: to mind , perceive , notice , understand ; (causative) to order , command , direct ; to assure
vyaakaraNa: n. separation , distinction , discrimination ; explanation , detailed description ; manifestation , revelation ; (with Buddhists) prediction , prophecy (one of the nine divisions of scriptures)
vy-aa-√kR: to undo , sever , divide , separate from (instr.) ;
to expound , explain , declare ; (with Buddhists) to predict (esp. future births)
naama: by name
aShTaa-dashaH sargaH (nom. sg. m.): 18th canto

aarya-suvarNaakShii-putrasya (gen. sg.): the son of noble Suvarṇakṣī
aarya: noble
suvarNaakShii: f. name
suvarNa: of a good or beautiful colour , brilliant in hue , bright , golden , yellow ; gold , made of gold ; of a good tribe or caste
putra: m. son
saaketakasya (gen. sg.): of Saketa
bhikShoH = gen. sg. bhikShu: m. a beggar , mendicant
aacaarya-bhadant'-aashvaghosasya (gen. sg. m.): the respected/celebrated teacher Aśvaghoṣa
aacaarya: m. "knowing or teaching the aacaara or rules" , a spiritual guide or teacher (especially one who invests the student with the sacrificial thread , and instructs him in the vedas , in the law of sacrifice and religious mysteries)
bhadanta: m. (from √bhand) a term of respect applied to a Buddhist , a Buddhist mendicant
√bhand: to be greeted with praise , receive applause
ashva: m. a horse
ghosa: m. indistinct noise , tumult , confused cries of a multitude , battle-cry , cries of victory , cries of woe or distress , any cry or sound , roar of animals ;
mahaa-kaveH = gen. sg. mahaa-kavi: m. a great or classical poet ; a great seer, an eminently sly man, a man of great cunning
mahat: great (in space , time , quantity or degree) i.e. large , big , huge , ample , extensive , long , abundant , numerous , considerable , important , high , eminent
kavi: mfn. gifted with insight , intelligent , knowing , enlightened , wise , sensible , prudent , skilful , cunning ; m. a thinker , intelligent man , man of understanding , leader ; m. a wise man , sage , seer , prophet
mahaa-vaadinaH = gen. sg. mahaa-vaadin: m. a great controversialist ; a great talker ; a propounder of the great
vaadin: mfn. saying , discoursing , speaking , talking , speaking or talking about ; m. a speaker , asserter , (ifc.) the teacher or propounder
kRtiH (nom. sg.): f. the act of doing , making , performing , manufacturing , composing; creation , work ; literary work
iyam (nom. sg. f.): this

SAUNDARANANDA 18.64: Mining Aśvaghoṣa's Gold

2011-11-29T02:39:00.000-08:00

prāyeṇālokya lokaṃ viṣaya-rati-paraṃ mokṣāt pratihataṃ
kāvya-vyājena tattvaṃ kathitam-iha mayā mokṣaḥ param-iti /
tad-buddhvā śāmikaṃ yat-tad-avahitam-ito grāhyaṃ na lalitaṃ
pāṃsubhyo dhātu-jebhyo niyatam-upacitaṃ cāmīkaram-iti // 18.64 //

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Suvadanā

18.64
Seeing, in general, that the world
is moved primarily by fondness for objects
and is repelled by liberation,

I for whom liberation is paramount
have told it here like it is,
using a kāvya poem as a pretext.

Being aware of the deceit,
take from this what pertains to peace
and not to idle pleasure.

The elemental (verb-root-rooted) dust,
assuredly, shall yield up abundant gold.

COMMENT:
As we limp towards the finishing line, rather than sailing through victorious and unimpeded, we find that last line of the last verse of Saundara-nanda presents some difficulties and dangers -- like fences, walls, tiles and pebbles, not to mention potholes.

LC translates upakaraṁ cāmīkaram as "serviceable gold," which might be difficult to improve upon if one accepts the reading upakaraṁ. EHJ, however, notes that upakara is not met with elsewhere, nor is there any obvious amendment, so that its exact sense is uncertain.

Setting that difficulty aside for a moment, another difficulty is that the last line of the last verse of Saundara-nanda, as I read it, contains one of Aśvaghoṣa's most memorable, and least easily translatable, plays on words.

dhātu-jebhyaḥ is defined as 1) elemental, born of primary elements of the earth, and 2) derived from a verbal root.

The latter definition "derived from a verbal root," describes the vast majority of the words in Saundara-nanda. In today's verse, for example, prāyeṇa is derived from the root √i, to go; ālokya is derived from the root √lok, to see; lokaṃ is thought possibly to be derived from the root √ruc, to shine; viṣaya is derived probably either from √viṣ, to act, or from vi + √si, to extend; rati is derived from the root √ram, to delight; and so on, and so on.

Following only the former definition, dhātu-jebhyaḥ is a literal description of dust: it describes the dust from which gold is to be extracted as "born from the primary elements of the earth." In that case the 4th line, as a bare statement of the facts about dust and gold, sounds almost apologetic:
"Out of dust born from earth elements, necessarily, [comes] serviceable gold."

But what Aśvaghoṣa is really saying in the 4th line, as I read it, is not only self-deprecating but also cocksure: his intention is explicitly to describe his own poem as only so many words, so much verbage, so much of the dust that is dhātu-jebhyaḥ "derived from verbal roots." And yet from this verbal dust, Aśvaghoṣa is confident -- for those of us who are inspired on a regular basis to get off the sofa, put down the remote, and sit on a round cushion swallowing the bitter pill -- the essence of the Buddha's teaching can be extracted. Read like this, the fourth line is an assurance, a confident prediction, a guarantee, and an expression of Aśvaghoṣa's own prajñā:
"Out of [this] dust derived from verbal roots, it is guaranteed, [there shall be] abundant gold."

Read like this, the last line of Saundara-nanda is very close to the last line of Fukan-zazengi, in which Dogen promises that the treasure house will spontaneously open, allowing us to accept and use the treasure as we please.

For that reason I have dared to amend the uncertain upakaraṁ into upacitaṁ, which means furnished abundantly, posessed plentifully, from the verbal root upa- √ci: to heap up, to furnish oneself with.

The difficulty of the last line does not allow any sense of going out in a blaze of glory, or of closure. Rather one is left with a sense of lingering ambiguity and uncertainty, of difficulty continuing.

So the rainbow-chaser in me cannot help but feel empty and disappointed: there is evidently no pot of gold waiting to be found at the end of this particular rainbow, just continuing uncertainty and the promise of gold. The miner in me who likes mining, however, is undeterred, because Aśvaghoṣa's Buddha-carita might be another goldmine -- or it might be another bottle of bitter pills, deceitfully presented in the guise of kāvya poetry.

EH Johnston:
Since I saw mankind mainly given over to the pleasure of the objects of the senses and averse from Salvation, I have here told of the final truth under the guise of a Kavya, considering Salvation to be supreme. Let the reader understand this and study attentively in it that which leads to tranquillity and not that which is merely pleasurable, as only the residue of gold is taken after it has been separated from the metal dust.

Linda Covill:
Seeing that the world generally holds the pleasure of sensory experience uppermost and is resistant to liberation, I, holding liberation to be paramount, have described the truth in the guise of poetry. Knowing this, that part which relates to peace should be carefully extracted from it, not the entertaining part; serviceable gold necessarily comes from ore-born dust.

VOCABULARY:
praayeNa: ind. mostly , generally , as a rule
aalokya = abs. aa - √ lok: to look at, behold
lokam (acc. sg.): m. the world
viShaya-rati-param (acc. sg. m.): delighting in objects as its paramount aim
viShaya: m. an object of sense; anything perceptible by the senses , any object of affection or concern or attention , any special worldly object or aim or matter or business , (pl.) sensual enjoyments , sensuality
rati: f. pleasure , enjoyment , delight in , fondness for (loc. or comp)
paraa: f. any chief matter or paramount object (ifc. having as the chief object , given up to , occupied with , engrossed in
mokShaat (abl. sg.): liberation, release
pratihatam (acc. sg. m.): mfn. struck or striking against ; repelled ; hostile
prati- √ han: to beat against (gen.) ; to attack ; to strike in return , strike back , ward off, remove , dispel , check , prevent , frustrate

kaavya: m. a poem
vyaajena (inst.): treacherously , deceitfully , under the pretext or guise of
vyaaja: m. deceit , fraud , deception , semblance , appearance , imitation , disguise , pretext , pretence
tattvam (nom. sg.) n. true or real state , truth , reality
kathitam (nom. sg. n.): mfn. told, related, narrated
iha: here
mayaa (inst. sg.): by me
mokShaH (nom. sg.): m. liberation, release
param (acc. sg.): mfn. best, highest, supreme, chief, paramount
iti: thus

tad (acc. sg. n.): that, it
buddhvaa = abs. to wake , wake up , be awake ; to perceive , notice , learn , understand , be aware of
shaamikam (acc. sg.) : (from √ sham) tranquillity, peace
√ sham: be quiet or calm or satisfied or contented ; to cease , be allayed or extinguished
yat (acc. sg. n.): [that] which
tat (acc. sg n.): that [which]
avahitam (acc. sg.): mfn. plunged into (loc.); fallen into , placed into , confined within
itaH: ind. (used like the abl. case of the pronoun idam) from this, from it
graahyam = acc. sg. gerundive grah: to seize , take ; to pluck , pick , gather ; to receive into the mind , apprehend , understand , learn
na: not
lalitam (acc. sg.): mfn. sported , played , playing , wanton , amorous ;
n. sport , dalliance , artlessness , grace , charm ; languid gestures in a woman (expressive of amorous feelings , " lolling , languishing " &c )

paaMsubhyaH = abl. pl. paaMsu: m. crumbling soil , dust , sand (mostly pl.)
dhaatu-jebhyaH = abl. pl. m dhaatu-ja: mfn. produced or derived from a verbal root ; born from a primary element of the earth
dhaatu: primary element of the earth i.e. metal , mineral , are (esp. a mineral of a red colour) ; element of words i.e. grammatical or verbal root or stem
ja: mfn. ( √jan) ifc. born or descended from , produced or caused by ; prepared from ; belonging to , connected with , peculiar to
niyatam (nom. sg. n.): fixed , established , settled , sure , regular , invariable , positive , definite; : ind. always , constantly , decidedly , inevitably , surely
upakaram (nom. sg. n.): doing a favour (?), providing a service (?), being yielded up (?);
upa- √ kR: to bring or put near to , furnish with , provide ; to assist , help, favour; to serve
upakāra: m. help , assistance , benefit , service , favour; use , advantage ; preparation , ornament , decoration , embellishment (as garlands suspended at gateways on festivals , flowers &c )
upakaraNa: n. the act of doing anything for another , doing a service or favour , helping , assisting , benefiting
upacitam (nom. sg. n.): mfn. heaped up , increased; big , fat , thick ; covered over , furnished abundantly , possessing plentifully
upa- √ ci: to heap up, to furnish oneself with
upagatam (nom. sg. n.): mfn. obtained
upacaram (nom. sg. n.): mfn. accessory , supplementary
upanatam (nom. sg. n.): fallen to one's share
uparavam (nom. sg. n.): mfn. eclipsed, obscured
caamiikaram (nom. sg.) n. gold
iti: "....," thus

SAUNDARANANDA 18.63: A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down

2011-11-28T00:59:00.000-08:00

ity-eṣā vyupaśāntaye na rataye mokṣārtha-garbhā kṛtiḥ
śrotṛṛṇāṃ grahaṇārtham-anya-manasāṃ kāvyopacārāt kṛtā /
yan-mokṣāt kṛtam-anyad-atra hi mayā tat-kāvya-dharmāt kṛtaṃ
pātuṃ tiktam-ivauṣadhaṃ madhu-yutaṃ hṛdyaṃ kathaṃ syād-iti // 18.63 //

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Śārdūlavikrīḍitā

18.63
This work is pregnant with the purpose of release:
it is for cessation, not for titillation;

It is wrought
out of the figurative expression of kāvya poetry
in order to capture an audience
whose minds are on other things --

For what I have written here
not pertaining to liberation,
I have written
according to the conventions of kāvya poetry.

This is through asking myself
how the bitter pill might be made pleasant to swallow,
like bitter medicine mixed with something sweet.

COMMENT:
Here is Aśvaghoṣa, as a named individual, taking ownership in the first person singular of a poem -- a kāvya poem replete with courtly imagery and metaphors, and written in strict conformity with the rules of classical Sanskrit metre -- that he has written himself.

Hence in the 3rd line yad... kṛtam... mayā tat... kṛtaṃ (lit. "what was done by me... that was done by me").

In the 4th line, as I read it "the bitter pill" is understood.

A bitter pill is something that is difficult to accept -- like, for example, the fact that I can't hope to change for the better, in the direction of release or liberation, while hanging on to all my old views, bad habits, and attachments.

Being in the Śārdūlavikrīḍitā metre, today's verse as I read it, is composed in four distinct lines, and so the kind of four-phased progression which my teacher Gudo Nishijima was so adept in identifying is readily apparent. That is to say, the 1st line relates to meaning, aim, or purpose. The 2nd line describes the stuff the poem is wrought out of. The 3rd line is subject expressing object realized by his own action -- what was done by me was done by me. And the 4th line just points us exactly to where we are, still struggling to swallow the bitter pill.

EH Johnston:
This poem, dealing thus with the subject of Salvation, has been written in the Kavya style, not to give pleasure, but to further the attainment of tranquillity and with the intention of capturing hearers devoted to other things. For, that I have handled other subjects in it besides Salvation is in accordance with the laws of Kavya poetry to make it palatable, as sweet is put into a bitter medicine to make it drinkable.

Linda Covill:
This composition on the subject of liberation is for calming the reader, not for his pleasure. It is fashioned out of the medicine of poetry with the intention of capturing an audience whose minds are on other things. Thinking how it could be made pleasant, I have handled in it things other than liberation, things introduced due to the character of poetry, as bitter medicine is mixed with honey when it is drunk.

VOCABULARY:
iti: thus
eShaa (nom. sg. f.): this
vyupashaantaye = dat. sg. vyupashaanta: mfn. calmed , allayed , ceased (as pain) ; desisting
vy-upa- √ śam: to become quiet , be allayed , cease
na: not
rataye = dat. sg. rata: mfn. pleased , amused , gratified; n. pleasure , enjoyment , (esp.) enjoyment of love , sexual union , copulation
mokSh'-aartha-garbhaa (nom. sg. f.): filled with the purpose of release
mokSha: m. emancipation , liberation , release
artha: aim, purpose
garbha: m. womb; ifc. f. (garbhaa), having in the interior , containing , filled with
kRtiH (nom. sg.): f. act of doing; creation , work ; literary work

shrotRRnaaM = gen. pl. m. shrotR: mfn. one who hears, a hearer
grahaN'-aartham: in order to capture
grahaNa: n. seizing , holding , taking; n. catching , seizure , taking captive
artha: aim, purpose
anya-manasaam = gen. pl. m. anya-manas: mfn. whose mind is fixed on something else, absent
anya: other, something else
manas: mind
kaavy'-opacaaraa (abl. sg.): out of the figurative expression of a kāvya poem
kaavya: mfn. (fr. kaví) , endowed with the qualities of a sage or poet , descended or coming from a sage , prophetic , inspired , poetical; m. a poem , poetical composition with a coherent plot by a single author
upacaara: mode of proceeding towards (gen.) , treatment ; attendance on a patient , medical practice , physicking; present , offering , bribe; usage , custom or manner of speech ; a figurative or metaphorical expression (upacaaraat ind. metaphorically) , metaphor , figurative application
upa- √ car: to come near , wait upon , serve , attend ; to attend on (a patient) , physic (a person) , treat , tend , nurse; to use figuratively or metaphorically , apply figuratively
kRtaa (nom. sg. f.): mfn. done , made , accomplished ; worked, wrought

yat (acc. sg. n.): what (relative pronoun)
mokShaat (abl. sg.): liberation, release
kRtam (nom./acc. sg. n.): done, worked
anyat (acc. sg. n.): other than , different from , opposed to (abl. or in comp.)
atra: ind. in this matter , in this work, in it; here, at this time
hi: for
mayaa (inst. sg.): by me
tat: (correlative of yat) that
kaavya-dharmaat (abl. sg.): because of the law of the poem, because of the conventions of poetry
kaavya: poem, poetry
dharma: that which is established or firm, law; usage , practice , customary observance or prescribed conduct.
kRtam (nom./acc. sg. n.): done, worked

paatum = infinitive paa: to drink, suck, swallow
tiktam (acc. sg. n.): mfn. bitter
iva: like
auShadham (acc. sg.) n. herbs used in medicine , simples , a medicament, drug , medicine in general
madhu-yutam (acc. sg. n.): combined with something sweet, mixed with honey
madhu: mfn. sweet , delicious , pleasant ; n. anything sweet (esp. if liquid) , mead &c ; honey ; n. the juice or nectar of flowers , any sweet intoxicating drink ; sugar
yuta: mfn. united , combined , joined or connected or provided or filled or covered with , accompanied by , possessed of (instr. or comp.)
hRdya (acc. sg. n.): mfn. being in the heart ; pleasing or dear to the heart ; pleasant to the stomach, savoury , dainty (as food)
katham: how
syaat (3rd pers. sg. optative as): it might be
iti: [thinking] thus

SAUNDARANANDA 18.62: Nanda Uses His Head Nicely

2011-11-27T01:40:00.000-08:00

bhikṣārthaṃ samaye viveśa sa puraṃ dṛṣṭīr-janasyākṣipan
lābhālābha-sukhāsukhādiṣu samaḥ svasthendriyo niḥspṛhaḥ /
nirmokṣāya cakāra tatra ca kathāṃ kāle janāyārthine
naivonmārga-gatān parān paribhavann-ātmānam-utkarṣayan // 18.62 //

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Śārdūlavikrīḍitā

18.62
When the occasion arose
he entered the town for begging
and attracted the citizens' gaze;

Impartial towards gain, loss,
comfort, discomfort, and the like,
his senses composed, he was free of longing;

And being there, in the moment,
he talked of liberation to people so inclined --

Never putting down others on a wrong path
or raising himself up.

COMMENT:
Nanda has walked the walk of liberation following a course prescribed by the Buddha, which involved going alone into the forest, sitting with the legs crossed in the manner traditionally prescribed for yoga practitioners, observing progress (or regress) through four stages of sitting-meditation, and so on.

The point of today's verse, and especially the 3rd line, seems to be that talking the talk of liberation is less a question of following a protocol and more a question of intuiting what is appropriate at a particular place and time.

Note to self -- putting down others who are on a wrong path, and thereby seeming to big oneself up, might not be enlightened behaviour at any place or time.

The point about wrong paths might be not to put down people who are on them, but rather to steer clear of them oneself and point them out to others, so that eventually a lot of long grass and brambles might grow over them.

EH Johnston:
Indifferent to gain or loss, to pleasure or suffering etc., free from yearnings and with senses stilled, he entered the city to ask for alms at the due time and attracted the gaze of the folk ; and there in due course he told the tale of Salvation to the folk who had need of it, neither contemning others still wandering far from the true Path nor exalting himself.

Linda Covill:
At the appropriate time he entered the city for alms, catching the eye of the people. Staying the same in gain or loss and in happiness and sadness alike, he was free of longings, with his senses in sound health. There in due course he spoke of deliverance to people in need of it, not disparaging those on the wrong path nor vaunting himself.

VOCABULARY:
bhikShaa: f. the act of begging or asking
artham: for, for the purpose of
samaye: ind. (loc.) at the appointed time, at the right moment, in good time for
samaya: m. coming together; appointed or proper time , right moment for doing anything, opportunity , occasion , time , season
vivesha = 3rd pers. sg. perfect vish: to enter, to into
saH (nom. sg. m.): he
puram (acc. sg.): n. a fortress , castle , city , town
dRShTiiH = acc. pl. dRShTi: f. seeing , viewing , beholding; regard , consideration; eye , look , glance
janasya = gen. sg. jana: m. people , subjects (the sg. used collectively)
akShipan = 3rd pers. pl. imperfect aa-√ kSip: to draw or take off or away ,
√ kSip: to throw, send; to throw a glance

laabha: m. obtaining , getting , attaining , acquisition , gain , profit
alaabha: m. non-acquirement, loss
sukha: n. n. ease , easiness , comfort , prosperity , pleasure , happiness
asukha: n. sorrow , pain , affliction
aadiShu (loc. pl.): and so on
samaH (nom. sg. m.): always the same , constant , unchanged , fair , impartial towards (loc.)
svasth'-endriyaH (nom. sg. m.): being well in his senses
svastha: mfn. self-abiding , being in one's self , uninjured , unmolested , contented , doing well , sound, well , healthy ; relying upon one's self , confident , resolute , composed
indriya: n. power of the senses; n. faculty of sense , sense , organ of sense
niH-spRhaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. not longing for (loc. or comp.) , abstaining from (abl.)
√spRh: to be eager , desire eagerly , long for ; to envy , be jealous

nirmokShaaya (dat. sg.): m. liberation , deliverance
cakaara = 3rd pers. sg. kR: to do, make
tatra: ind. there, therefore, in those circumstances
ca: and
kathaam (acc. sg.): f. conversation , speech , talking together ; talk
kaale: ind. in due time, in due course
janaaya (dat. sg.): m. the people
arthine = dat. sg. m. arthin: mfn. one who wants or desires anything

na: not
eva: (emphatic)
unmaarga-gataan: on a/the wrong way
unmaarga: m. deviation from the right way , wrong way (lit. and fig.)
gata: being located on, situated in
paraan (acc. pl. m.): others
paribhavan = nom. sg. m. pres. part. pari-√bhuu: to be superior , excel , surpass , subdue , conquer ; to pass round or over , not heed , slight , despise , insult ; to disgrace
aatmaanam (acc. sg. m.): himself
utkarShayan = nom. sg. m. pres. part. causative ut-√ kRSh: to draw or drag or pull up

SAUNDARANANDA 18.61: What the Buddha Taught

2011-11-26T01:24:00.000-08:00

ity-arhataḥ parama-kāruṇikasya śāstur-
mūrdhnā vacaś-ca caraṇau ca samaṃ gṛhītvā /
svasthaḥ praśānta-hṛdayo vinivṛtta-kāryaḥ
pārśvān-muneḥ pratiyayau vimadaḥ karīva // 18.61 //

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Vasantatilaka

18.61
Thus spoke the Worthy One,
the instructor whose compassion
was of the highest order,

Whose words and equally whose feet
Nanda had accepted, using his head;

Then, at ease in himself, his heart at peace,
his task ended,

He left the Sage's side like an elephant free of rut.

COMMENT:
Why is the Buddha's compassion described as supreme, or of the highest order (parama)?

I think Aśvaghoṣa described the Buddha's compassion as being of the highest order in the sense that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day; whereas if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.

This principle has from an early age informed, I confess, my own ambition.

Translation is in essence very modest work, sort of like being a referee in a football match. If you stand out, it is probably because you have committed some major blunder, like impulsively reaching for a red card in the first twenty minutes, or like neglecting the real meaning of the author's original words in your eagerness to assert your own crappy views and opinions. No young lad is likely to have a photo pinned on his bedroom wall of a referee or a translator in some heroic pose -- vigorously blowing his whistle, or stooping over the Monier-Williams dictionary.

The reason I have been doing such modest work all these years, ironically, is a big desire to do something momentous with my life. I always thought, and indeed was very much encouraged so to think by Gudo Nishijima, that if I could succeed in helping to clarify what the Buddha really taught, then I might thereby live a supremely meaningful and valuable life.

Now, according to Dogen, the one and only way to live a life which in meaning and value surpasses the Buddha himself, is to spend it sitting in full lotus.

At the same time, in the final chapter of Shobogenzo Dogen quotes the ultimate teaching of the Buddha on the night before he died as to have small desire and know satisfaction.

Mindful of these two points, I am limping to the end of this final canto at something of a low ebb, feeling like a failure, unable to sit in full lotus due to a torn bit of cartilage in my left knee that resulted from falling off my push-bike at the end of May, and at the same time suffering, as has been my wont for 30 years, from a gnawing sense of frustrated ambition.

Such are the clouded eyes of the bad referee who wants to be a sporting legend, or the rubbish translator who wants to broadcast his own pet theory.

Endeavouring nonetheless, with my whole body and mind, to keep my clouded eye on the ball, I am struck in line 2 by the word mūrdhnā, which is instrumental singular of mūrdhan (forehead, head). So the point might be that Nanda used his own head.

And that may be why needy Nanda was finally able to leave the Sage's side, like a great war elephant free of all wildness -- because he had learned for himself how to use his head.

What was it that the Buddha taught about the use of the head?

I haven't yet fully understood. But it wasn't what Gudo Nishijima taught me in the Zazen Hall of Tokei-in temple, when he grabbed my chin and yanked it several inches backwards, wishing to cause my neck bones to become straight vertically. That is for damn sure.

If the teaching of a buddha-ancestor like Gudo Nishijima can patently be so utterly unreliable, what else is there for each of us to do but to learn to use our own heads?

With this in mind I am looking foward next week to publishing contributions from individual readers of this blog. So far I have received individual testimonies (in the order of receiving them) from Jordan, Ian, Harry, George, and Malcolm. Anybody else is welcome to contribute, whether man or woman, Buddhist or non-Buddhist. The only criterion is that you have to be an individual who, instead of subscribing to anybody's Buddhist view, is willing to use his or her own head.

EH Johnston:
Then Nanda grasped with his head the words and the feet simultaneously of the worshipful, supremely compassionate Master, and cheerful with heart at rest and his aims accomplished, he left the Sage, being freed from conceit like an elephant from must.

Linda Covill:
So with his head he grasped the words and feet together of the worthy one, the supremely compassionate teacher ; and sound in himself, his heart at ease, his task ended, he left the sage's side like an elephant free of rut.

VOCABULARY:
iti: "....", thus
arhataH (gen. sg. m.): worthy , venerable , respectable
parama-kaaruNikasya (gen. sg. m.): supremely compassionate
parama: highest, supreme
kaaruNika: mfn. compassionate
shaastur (gen. sg.): m. a chastiser , punisher ; a ruler , commander ; a teacher , instructor

muurdhnaa = inst. sg. muurdhan: m. the forehead , head in general , skull
vacaH = acc. sg. vacas: n. speech , voice , word ; advice , direction , command , order
ca: and
caraNau = acc. dual caraNa: foot
ca: and
samam: ind. in like manner , alike , equally , similarly
gRhiitvaa = abs. √grah: to seize , take, lay hold of ; to lay the hand on , claim ; to place upon (instr. or loc.) ; to take on one's self ; to receive hospitably (a guest) , take back (a divorced wife) ; to perceive (with the organs of sense or with m/anas) , observe , recognise ; to receive into the mind , apprehend ; to accept , admit , approve ; to obey, follow

sva-sthaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. self-abiding , being in one's self (or " in the self " Sarvad. ), being in one's natural state , being one's self uninjured , unmolested , contented , doing well , sound well , healthy (in body and mind ; comfortable , at ease
prashaanta-hRdayaH (nom. sg. m.): his heart at peace
prashaanta: mfn. tranquillized , calm , quiet ; extinguished , ceased , allayed
hRdaya: n. heart
vinivRtta-kaaryaH (nom. sg. m.): his work to be done having ended
vinivRtta: mfn. turned back , returned , retired , withdrawn ; desisting from (abl.) , having abandoned or given up R, disappeared , ended , ceased to be
kaarya: n. work or business to be done , duty , affair

paarshvaat (abl. sg.): n. the side
muneH (gen. sg.): m. the sage
pratiyayau = 3rd pers. sg. perfect prati- √yaa:to come or go to
vi-madaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. free from intoxication , grown sober ; free from rut ; free from pride or arrogance
karii = nom. sg. karin: m. " having a trunk " , an elephant
iva: like

SAUNDARANANDA 18.60: What the Buddha Foresaw -- a Woman Walking the Walking of Dispassion

2011-11-25T00:51:00.000-08:00

tvayi parama-dhṛtau niviṣṭa-tattve
bhavana-gatā na hi raṃsyate dhruvaṃ sā /
manasi śama-damātmake vivikte
matir-iva kāma-sukhaiḥ parīkṣakasya // 18.60 //

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Puṣpitāgrā

18.60
For, with you showing constancy of the highest order,
as you get to the bottom of what is,

She surely will not enjoy life in the palace,

Just as the mind of an enlightened man
does not enjoy sensual pleasures

When his mental state is tranquil and controlled,
and his thinking is detached, distinct, separate."

COMMENT:
In my inelegant endeavour to capture the meaning of today's verse, I have translated manasi twice (mental state, thinking) and vivikte three times (detached, distinct, separate).

Today's verse as I read it contains a kind of meditation by the Buddha, in his final words in Saundara-nanda, on the meaning of separation (vivikte), which can be the essence of suffering, and the essence of a solitary sitter's enlightenment.

So the love story between Nanda and Sundarī is not a fairy story that ends, once Nanda has slain dragons and crossed moats, with the two of them re-united and living together happily ever after. On the contrary, the story ends with the Buddha foreseeing that Sundarī, following Nanda's example, may opt herself for the higher-order happiness of solitude and detachment -- separation without stress.

Getting to the bottom of what is (niviṣṭa-tattve) might be akin to water that is totally transparent, in which fishes are swimming like fishes.

Understood like that, both constancy of the highest order (parama-dhṛtau) and getting to the bottom of what is (niviṣṭa-tattve), are expressions of nothing but the lifeblood, which is sitting-dhyāna.

Being an enlightened man (or woman -- though parīkṣakasya is masculine), that is to say, a person who is truly looking all around, having abandoned all views, might be an expression of nothing but the lifeblood, which is sitting-dhyāna.

And being in a mental state of tranquillity, composure, and separated thinking (manasi śama-damātmake vivikte) might also be an expression of nothing but the lifeblood, which is sitting-dhyāna.

EH Johnston:
For certainly since you are filled with supreme steadfastness and have entered into reality, she will find no pleasure in the palace, just as the intelligence of the enlightened man, whose mind is discriminating and characterised by tranquillity and self-restraint, finds none in the pleasure of love.'

Linda Covill:
Since your firmness is paramount and you have penetrated the real nature of things, she will certainly not enjoy being in the palace -- just as when the mind of a careful examiner is discerning, tranquil and subdued in its nature, his thoughts find no enjoyment in sensuality."

VOCABULARY:
tvayi (loc. sg.): you
parama-dhRtau (loc. sg.): firmness of the highest order
parama: chief , highest , primary, best
dhRti: f. firmness , constancy , resolution ,
niviShTa-tattve (loc. sg.): penetrating reality
niviShTa: mfn. settled down , come to rest; entered , penetrated into
ni- √ viś: to enter or penetrate into (acc. or loc.) ; to alight , descend ; to come to rest , settle down or in a home ; to encamp ; to sit down upon. ; to resort to (acc.) ; to settle , take a wife ; to be founded (said of a town) ; to be fixed or intent on (loc. , said of the mind) ; to sink down , cease , disappear , vanish
tattva: n. true or real state , truth , reality

bhavana-gataa (nom. sg. f.): being in the palace
bhavana: n. a place of abode , mansion , home , house , palace
gata: mfn. being in, contained in
na: not
hi: for
raMsyate = 3rd pers. sg. future ram: to stop , stay ; to delight ; to enjoy one's self
dhruvam: ind. surely, certainly
saa (nom. sg. f.): she

manasi (loc. sg.): n. mind (in its widest sense as applied to all the mental powers) , intellect , intelligence , understanding , perception , sense , conscience , will
shama-dam'-aatmake (loc. sg.): being tranquil and tamed in nature
shama: m. tranquillity , calmness , rest , equanimity
dama: mfn. ifc. " taming , subduing "; m. taming; self-command , self-restraint , self-control
aatmaka: mfn. having or consisting of the nature or character of (in comp.)
vivikte (loc. sg.): mfn. separated , kept apart , distinguished , discriminated ; isolated , alone , solitary; discriminative , judicious ;

matiH (nom. sg.): f. the mind , perception , understanding , intelligence , sense , judgement
iva: like
kaama-sukhaiH (inst. pl.):
kaama: m. desire; love , affection , object of desire or of love or of pleasure ; pleasure , enjoyment ; love , especially sexual love or sensuality
sukha: n. ease , easiness , comfort , prosperity , pleasure , happiness
pariikShakasya = gen. sg. pariikShaka: m. a prover , examiner , judge
pariikSh: to look round , inspect carefully , try , examine , find out , observe , perceive

SAUNDARANANDA 18.59: More Talk of Dispassion, By a Woman for Women

2011-11-24T02:33:00.000-08:00

dhruvaṃ hi saṃśrutya tava sthiraṃ mano
nivṛtta-nānā-viṣayair-mano-rathaiḥ /
vadhūr-gṛhe sāpi tavānukurvatī
kariṣyate strīṣu virāgiṇīḥ kathāḥ // 18.59 //

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Vaṁśastha

18.59
For, surely, when she hears of your steadfast mind

With its chariots turned back from sundry objects,

Your wife following your example will also talk,

To women at home, the talk of dispassion.

COMMENT:
The 2nd line of today's verse can be read as referring back to Aśvaghoṣa's description of Nanda at the beginning of Canto 12:

Turning back from heaven, the chariot of his mind, whose horse was willpower, / Was like a great chariot turned back from a wrong road by an attentive charioteer. // 12.5 //

At that time, thanks to the Buddha's skillfulness, the chariot of Nanda's mind turned back from one particular desired object, namely celestial nymphs. In the interventing cantos, through learning well the backward step of turning his light and letting it shine, Nanda has turned back his mental chariots, or heart's desires, not only from one sort of object but from all sorts of objects (nānā-viṣaya).

Such is talking the talk of dispassion -- or more literally making "dispassionate mentions/overtures" (virāgiṇīḥ kathāḥ [plural]).

Dispassion means freedom from, mainly, greed and anger.

A starting point of dispassion might be to see greed as it is and anger as it is, without fear of being wrong. When I observe anger welling up in me, and observe my habitual reaction to it, I am not sure that I have even quite arrived yet at this starting point. Even if one understands in principle that it is OK to be wrong, even if one understands that being wrong is both fuel and raw material for work on the self, still in practice fear of being wrong runs deep -- it does in me, for one -- because of habit, and because of fear itself.

Voice the dharma-directions, Marjory Barlow might say, and go into movement without a care in the world. Let it come out in the wash....

My overriding response to seeing Gudo Nishijima's so-called "translation" of mūla-madhyamika-kārikā out in print has turned out to be a reaction of anger. As Gisela pointed out in a comment some time ago, to walk away from a problem is not always the same as leaving it behind, or letting go of it. And so my anger shows me that there is much I haven't let go of yet. One might argue that I haven't even walked very far away.

When I reflect on my anger, and my habitual response to it (trying to suppress it, witnessing it explode, et cetera) in light of Aśvaghoṣa's teachings, it seems appropriate and pertinent to dwell on the method by which Nanda is described in Canto 17 as shaking the tree of afflictions.

For, on those grounds, on the grounds of impermanence and emptiness, on the grounds of absence of self, and of suffering, / He, by the most discerning empirical path, caused the tree of afflictions to shake. // 17.17 //

In this verse "on the grounds of emptiness" is śūnyatas.

And exactly what Aśvaghoṣa means by this he explains in 17.20:

Since separateness is a construct, there being no-one who creates or who is made known, / But doing arises out of a totality, he realised, on that basis, that this world (lokam) is empty (śūnyam). // 17.20 //

śūnyatā, emptiness, is thus described as a condition of the world, to be investigated while the tree of afflictions is flowering and fruiting. Aśvaghoṣa does not describe emptiness as a state that is realised when the autonomic nervous system has become balanced by keeping the spine straight vertically. He describes it as an objective condition of the world which Mr. Angry, when the red taint of his passion is at its very height, can investigate. So when Sanskrit scholars foam at the mouth at Gudo's translation of śūnyatā as balanced state [of the autonomic nervous system], I am on their side. "Balanced state [of the autonomic nervous system]," is not only a terrible translation of śūnyatā; it is also a wrong interpretation of śūnyatā.

On such matters Gudo Nishijima, IMHO, encouraged his students to take sides, either with him or against him. To a man who he deemed to be on his side, even a deeply deluded man, he happily transmitted the Dharma. A bloke who told him he was wrong, like me, he treated like an enemy. For that I am eternally angry with him. And for that I am angry with those who, in awe of the Buddha-Dharma, sided with him even when it was not reasonable to do so. That kind of sectarian prejudice is the typical attitude of the religious believer, and to my nostrils it stinks -- not that I wasn't like that myself for many years.

However we understand the goal of dispassion, which thus seems to me at time of writing a very distant one, and however we understand the possible starting points for pursuing it (as described for example in 13.10 and 17.17), what is clear from today's verse and even moreso from tomorrow's verse, is that the Buddha by no means saw dispassion as an exclusively male pursuit. Rather, he saw dispassion as a virtue to be discussed among women at home, and as a virtue that a woman like Sundarī might wish to pursue by going forth from her home.

EH Johnston:
For certainly when your wife hears that your mind has become steadfast with its desire turned away from the various objects of the senses, she too will imitate you in the palace and will preach among the women of freedom from passion.

Linda Covill:
When your wife at home hears about your stability of mind, now that its desires for the various sense-objects have been turned away, she too is sure to follow your example, and speak of dispassion to her women.

VOCABULARY:
dhruvam: ind. firmly , constantly , certainly , surely
hi: for
saMshrutya = abs. saM- √shru: to hear
tava (gen. sg.): your
sthiram (acc. sg. n.): mfn. firm, strong; not wavering or tottering , steady ; constant , steadfast , resolute , persevering
manaH (acc. sg.): n. mind

nivRtta-naanaa-viShayaiH (inst. pl.): turned back from manifold objects
nivRtta: turned back
naanaa: ind. differently , variously , distinctly , separately , (often used as an adj. = various , different)
viShaya: object ; an object of sense ; anything perceptible by the senses , any object of affection or concern or attention , any special worldly object or aim or matter or business , (pl.) sensual enjoyments , sensuality
mano-rathaiH (inst. pl.): m. " heart's joy " , a wish , desire (also = desired object) ; fancy , illusion ; (in dram.) a wish expressed in an indirect manner , hint ; the heart compared to a car
mano = manas: mind
ratha: 1. m. (from √ ṛ, to go) " goer " chariot; 2. m. ( fom √ ram, to enjoy) pleasure , joy , delight

vadhuuH (nom. sg.): f. a bride or newly-married woman , young wife spouse any wife or woman
gRhe = loc. sg. gRha: n. a house , habitation , home; (also) domestic or family life
saa (nom. sg.): f. she
api: even, also
tava (gen. sg.): of you, your
anukurvatii = nom. sg. f. pres. participle anu-√kR: to follow in doing ; to imitate , copy

kariShyate = 3rd pers. sg. future kR: to do, make
striiShu = loc. pl. strii: f. woman
vi-raagiNiiH = acc. pl. f. vi-raagin: mfn. indifferent, without colour/passion
kathaaH = acc. pl. kathaa: f. talk, story, mention

SAUNDARANANDA 18.58: Miraculous Directions

2011-11-23T01:44:00.000-08:00

bravītu tāvat puri vismito janas-
tvayi sthite kurvati dharma-deśanāḥ /
aho batāścaryam-idaṃ vimuktaye
karoti rāgī yad-ayaṃ kathām-iti // 18.58 //

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Vaṁśastha

18.58
Just let the astonished people in the city say,

While you are standing firm, voicing dharma-directions,

'Well! What a miracle this is,

That he who was a lover boy is preaching liberation!'

COMMENT:
If my translation of the 2nd line of today's verse seems to have been informed by my practice of the FM Alexander Technique, damn right it has.

In Alexander work, directions (deśanāḥ [plural]) are what Alexander called "the means-whereby," which he opposed to the attitude of going directly for an end without due attention to process.

Thus Alexander work, rather like translation work, is very modest work. Intuition plays a part, but trying to show oneself to be inspired or original sometimes produces results that are not so good -- because trying is always end-gaining.

In Alexander work we usually talk about giving directions, or attending to directions, or thinking directions (as opposed to trying to do directions), as an internal process. But in the context of today's verse, kurvati (lit. doing or making) is understood to mean speaking, teaching or voicing directions.

For example: "I wish to allow my whole self to expand in expanding space, so that the neck releases, to allow the head to go forward and up, so that the back lengthens and widens, and the limbs are released out."

The approach of working indirectly for future ends by paying attention to present directions caused Alexander to get results which people who had previously been suffering from various ailments related to "bad posture" regarded as miraculous. But Alexander did not see himself as a miracle-worker, just a bloke in the middle way working to a means-whereby principle. "There are many miracles in nature" was how Alexander put it.

EH Johnston:
Just let the inhabitants of the town be astonished while you preach the Law and let them say, "Look, this is a miracle that he who was addicted to passion now tells the tale of final emancipation!"

Linda Covill:
Just let the astonished people in the city say, when you stand giving instruction in dharma, 'Goodness! It's amazing that this man, who was a libertine, gives talks on liberation!'

VOCABULARY:
braviitu (3rd pers. sg. imperative bruu): let it say!
taavat: ind. at once , now , just ; indeed, truly etc.
puri = loc. sg. pur: f. a rampart , wall , stronghold , fortress , castle , city , town
vismitaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. amazed , surprised
janaH (nom. sg.): m. people

tvayi = loc. sg. tvad: you
sthite = loc. sg. sthita: mfn. standing firm (yuddhe , " in battle ") ; standing , staying , situated
kurvati = loc. sg. pres. participle kR: to do , make , perform , accomplish , cause , effect , prepare , undertake ; to execute , carry out (as an order or command); to think of (acc.); to give an order ; to proceed , act , put in practice
dharma-deshanaaH (acc. pl.): dharma-directions
dharma: m. the Dharma, the law, the teaching
deshanaa: f. (fr. dish, to point out) direction , instruction

aho: ind. a particle (implying joyful or painful surprise) Ah! ; often combined with other particles of similar signification , as aho bata , &c
bata: ind. an interjection expressing astonishment
aashcaryam (nom. sg. n.) mfn. appearing rarely , curious , marvellous , astonishing , wonderful , extraordinary; n. a wonder , miracle , marvel , prodigy
idam (nom. sg. n.): this
vimuktaye = dat. sg. vimukti: f. release , deliverance , liberation ; release from the bonds of existence , final emancipation

karoti = 3rd pers. sg. kR: to do, make etc.
raagii = nom. sg. m. raagin: mfn. coloured ; red , of a red colour ; impassioned , affectionate , enamoured ; m. a lover , libertine
yad: that
ayam (nom. sg. m.): this one, this man
kathaam (acc. sg.): f. conversation , speech , talk ; story , tale , fable
iti: ".....", thus

SAUNDARANANDA 18.57: Let There Be Light

2011-11-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

vihāya tasmād-iha kāryam-ātmanaḥ /
kuru sthirātman para-kāryam-apy-atho/
bhramatsu sattveṣu tamo-vṛtātmasu
śruta-pradīpo niśi dhāryatām-ayam // 18.57 //

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Vaṁśastha

18.57
Therefore
forgetting the work that needs to be done
in this world on the self,

Do now, stout soul, what can be done for others.

Among beings who are wandering in the night,
their minds shrouded in darkness,

Let the lamp of this transmission be carried.

COMMENT:
Implicit in the first line, as I read it, might be the principle that truly to work on the self is sometimes to forget the self. That might mean losing oneself in doing some job for the future -- like, say, chopping up wood to be used in a future winter for keeping warm; or like, say, clearly describing the meter of Sanskrit and Pali verse for future students of those languages to use -- as opposed to going around the whole time trying mindfully to be in the present moment.

In line 2 the appellation sthirātman, "stout soul," I can only find in one other verse ("man of grit," 8.57). sthirātman might be the opposite of the frequently recurring calātman (fickle, 1.20; out of balance in himself, 8.11; one who easily changes his mind, 8.24; fickle, 8.46; an imbalanced person, 9.48; an impulsive person 18.23).

In the second half of today's verse, the darkness of night can be understood as representing ignorance or unconsciousness, and a light or lamp can be understood as representing enlightenment or consciousness.

One can't become less unconscious, Marjory Barlow insightfully stated, relying on unconsciousness. The conditions are rather created for the growth of consciousness when one inhibits unconscious behaviour.

This is the truth I first stumbled on, as I alluded to yesterday, at the age of around 19 or 20 in the context of tournament karate, while stalking an opponent and waiting for the opportunity to counter-punch. Marjory Barlow very skillfully created laboratory-like conditions to study this principle in the less physically demanding context of lying on her teaching table, investigating the decision to move or not to move a leg.

While writing yesterday's comment I googled mūla-mādhyamika-kārikā and found a whole lot of praise and criticism directed at Gudo Nishijima's English version, which I found by sheer coincidence has just been published. I felt so tempted to add my two-pennyworth at once. Even though I didn't wade in, I wouldn't say that I totally inhibited my desire to say something sharp and insightful.

I suppose that if, in a thought experiment, I put myself back on Marjory's teaching table and saw myself through Marjory's eyes, she might see a bloke who still hadn't totally given up trying to be right.

This delusory desire to be right, which is itself generally unconscious, being all bound up with fear of being wrong, seems to be at the root of a lot of the darkness that shrouds people's minds.

EH Johnston:
Therefore abandoning all concern with your own affairs in this world, work with steadfast soul for others and hold up this torch of revelation for the beings who with souls clouded with mental darkness are wandering in the night.

Linda Covill:
Therefore give up doing things for yourself here in the world, O you who are firm in yourself, and do things for others. Let this lantern of learning be carried among living beings enveloped in dark ignorance who roam in the night.

VOCABULARY:
vihaaya = abs. vi- √ haa: to leave behind , relinquish , quit , abandon, give up ; to get rid of or free from (acc.)
tasmaad: ind. therefore
iha: here, in this world
kaaryam (acc. sg.): n. work or business to be done , duty , affair
aatmanaH (gen. sg.): of/for yourself, your own

kuru = 2nd pers. sg. imperative kR: to do
sthir'-aatman (voc. sg. m.): O stout individual!
sthira: mfn. firm , hard , solid , compact , strong
aatman: m. the individual soul , self ; the person
para-kaaryam (acc. sg. n.): work to be done for others
api: even (emphatic)
atho = atha: now, then, etc.
[EHJ queried avyathaḥ]
avyathaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. untroubled ; intrepid ; painless

bhramatsu = loc. pl. m. present participle bhram: to wander or roam about , rove , ramble
sattveShu (loc. pl. m.): living beings
tamo-vRt'-aatmasu (loc. pl. m.): minds shrouded in darkness
tamas: n. darkness
vRta: mfn. concealed , screened , hidden , enveloped , surrounded by , covered with (instr. or comp.)
aatman: m. the individual soul , self ; the person ; essence , nature , character , peculiarity (often ifc. e.g. karmātman, active); (ifc.) " the understanding , intellect , mind " » naṣṭātman , deprived of mind

shruta-pradiipaH (nom. sg. m.): lamp of transmission
shruta: n. anything heard , that which has been heard (esp. from the beginning) , knowledge as heard by holy men and transmitted from generation to generation , oral tradition or revelation , sacred knowledge
pradiipa: m. a light , lamp , lantern (often ifc. " the light i.e. the glory or ornament of " ; also in titles of explanatory works = elucidation , explanation)
nishi = loc. sg. nishaa: f. night
dhaaryataam = 3rd pers. sg. causative, passive dhR: to bear, carry
ayam (nom. sg. m.): this

SAUNDARANANDA 18.56: Desire to Teach Tranquillity

2011-11-21T02:54:00.000-08:00

ihottamebhyo 'pi mataḥ sa tūttamo
ya uttamaṃ dharmam-avāpya naiṣṭhikam /
acintayitvātma-gataṃ pariśramaṃ
śamaṃ parebhyo 'py-upadeṣṭum-icchati // 18.56 //

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Vaṁśastha

18.56
But deemed to be higher than the highest in this world

Is he who, having realized the supreme ultimate dharma,

Desires, without worrying about the trouble to himself,

To teach tranquillity to others.

COMMENT:
No.

Having decided, in the middle of last night, to leave today's comment there, I slept like a baby until 8.30 this morning.

And though when I decided before to go for a one-word comment, I really meant it, now that I have sat for an hour there is more I want to say.

Having walked a thousand days in Aśvaghoṣa's tracks, I with the benefit of hindsight am sure about one thing, which is that when it came to prajñā/foresight, Aśvaghoṣa was higher than the highest in this world (ihottamebhyaḥ uttamaḥ).

The man in the middle who Aśvaghoṣa described in yesterday's verse as working for a result in the future, I am sure, was nobody but Aśvaghoṣa himself.

kriyām-amutraiva phalāya madhyamaḥ
Translating the expletive eva more freely than I did yesterday:
A man in the middle [does] work for a result -- now wake up and listen! -- in the future.

Was Aśvaghoṣa a monk or a poet? scholars ask, supposing that he must have been a superior type, but truly neither knowing nor caring who Aśvaghoṣa really was.

Aśvaghoṣa was a man in the middle working for a result -- wake up! -- in the future.

And one very conspicuous future result that Aśvaghoṣa was working towards, as a man in the middle (madhyamaḥ) was Nagarjuna's writing of his mūla-mādhyamika-kārikā, which means something like "a rudimentary statement in verse of being in the middle."

Higher than the highest in this world (uttamebhyaḥ uttamaḥ) sounds like a state that is very exalted and grand, but the irony buried in this and the previous verse, as I read them, is that the Buddha is pointing to the supreme ultimate dharma as something that is realized not by the superior type, but just by the bloke in the middle way, whose desire is to teach tranquillity.

In practice, how does a man or woman in the middle teach tranquillity -- or, to coin a phrase, stillness without fixity? In my experience of stumbling on tranquillity as a young bloke, and eventually being taught tranquillity by an old woman in the middle who understood the process well, there is paradoxical consciousness of (a) working towards a future result, like the throwing of a counter-punch or the movement of a leg or the completion of a translation, and (b) keeping one's eye on the ball; that is to say, giving all one's attention to what is going on here and now, which involves total giving up of all temptation to do anything yet.

The whole process rests on saying "no" -- on saying, to the impatient desire to go directly or hurriedly for the end, "no."

EH Johnston:
But he is deemed best among the best in this world who, after obtaining the supreme, ultimate Element, desires, careless of the trouble it involves for him, to teach this tranquillity to others also.

Linda Covill:
However, the man who is considered better than the best in the world is he who has obtained the supreme and ultimate dharma and wishes to guide others to tranquillity, without thinking of the trouble to himself.

VOCABULARY:
iha: here, in this world
uttamebhyaH = abl. pl. uttama: mfn. uppermost, highest, best
api: even, also (emphatic)
mataH (nom. sg. m.): thought, considered, deemed
saH (nom. sg. m.): he [who]
tu: but
uttamaH (nom. sg m.): uppermost, highest, best

yaH (nom. sg. m.): [he] who
uttamam (acc. sg. m.): uppermost, best
dharmam (acc. sg.): m. the Dharma, the teaching
avaapya = abs. avaap: to reach , attain , obtain , gain , get
naiShThikam (acc. sg. m.): mfn. forming the end , final , last

a-cintayitvaa (abs.): without taking into consideration
a: (negative prefix)
cint: to think , have a thought or idea , reflect , consider ; take into consideration
aatma-gatam (acc. sg. m.): coming to himself, brought upon himself
parishramam (acc. sg.): m. fatigue , exertion , labour , fatiguing occupation , trouble , pain
pari- √ śram: to fatigue or exert one's self

shamam (acc. sg.): m. tranquillity , calmness , rest , equanimity, peace
parebhyaH (dat. pl.): to others
api: also, even (emphatic)
upadeShTum = infinitive upa- √ dish: to point out to ; to indicate , specify , explain , inform , instruct , teach ; to advise, to mention , exhibit , speak of
icchati = 3rd pers. sg. iSh: to endeavour to obtain , strive , seek for ; to desire , wish , long for , request ; to wish or be about to do anything , intend to assent , be favourable , concede

SAUNDARANANDA 18.55: Songs of the Middle Way

2011-11-20T02:05:00.000-08:00

ihārtham-evārabhate naro 'dhamo
vimadhyamas-tūbhaya-laukikīṃ kriyām /
kriyām-amutraiva phalāya madhyamo
viśiṣṭa-dharmā punar-apravṛttaye // 18.55 //

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Vaṁśastha

18.55
The lowest sort of man only ever sets to work
for an object in this world.

But a man in the middle does work
both for this world and for the world to come.

A man in the middle works for a result,
I repeat, in the future.

The superior type, however,
tends towards abstention from goal-oriented action.

COMMENT:
On first reading, the Buddha appears to be contrasting the bloke in the middle discussed in today's verse with the best of the best, the highest of the high (uttamebhyaḥ uttamaḥ) discussed in tomorrow's verse.

But if we understood the two verses like that, I think the Buddha's joke might be on us.

A great batsman, it seems to me, when he talks of the importance of keeping one's eye on the ball, is singing a song of the middle way. Keeping his eye on the ball is at the forefront of his mind. But in the back of his mind there is always the intention of thwacking a thwackable ball to the boundary.

When a great footballer talks of the importance of keeping one's eye on the ball, what is his ulterior purpose? It might be, in the final analysis, to see the ball nestling in the back of the opponent's net.

When a great golfer talks about keeping his eye on the ball, his purpose, it is understood, is not to appreciate the shape and colour of a golf ball, as if it were a Monet painting or something. His ulterior motive is, taking as few shots as possible, to get the ball in the hole.

I heard that a bloke in the middle named FM Alexander, who wrote of "the great broad midway path" residing in between the extremes of unconscious behaviour, told an old lady at the end of her last lesson with him: "Now, my dear, see to it that you don't stiffen your neck. And make sure that you always have something to look forward to." That, as I hear it, is a fundamental song of the middle way.

When I hear a bloke in the lineage of Taisen Deshimaru boasting about sitting Zazen for 14 hours in a day, and assuring me that there are still today a few true Japanese Zen masters teaching, if only I would make the effort to seek them out, it somehow doesn't quite sound to my ears like a song of the middle way. It sounds more like somebody striving to be a superior type and wanting to associate himself with other superior types -- not that I haven't been there myself.

If you take the "Don't think. Just do it!" philosophy to its logical conclusion, that is what you get -- a lot of repetition which is sometimes only mechanical repetition and not necessarily meaningful repetition. Sitting for 14 hours a day, or 15 or 16 or 17 hours, and so on -- until it is difficult to discern any difference between the pleasant practice of a buddha and the bone-headed striving of an ascetic striver who is trying to be right.

Back in the days when there really were true Zen masters in China and Japan, a phrase that was used was "Let him kill himself for a while with Zazen."

EH Johnston:
The lowest class of man undertakes action for this world only, the next class both for this world and the world above, the middle man for results in the hereafter only, and the man of superior character for freedom from rebirth.

Linda Covill:
An inferior man works towards goals here in the world, the next man for both this world and the other world; the average man acts for reward in the hereafter, but the man of superior character works for the cessation of active life.

VOCABULARY:
iha: ind. here, now, here & now
artham: ind. for, for the sake of; (acc. sg.) n. thing, object; concern (Ved. often acc. ártham with √ i , or gam , to go to one's business , take up one's work RV. &c )
eva: (emphatic) just
aarabhate = 3rd pers. sg. √ rabh: to lay or take hold of ; commence, undertake
naraH (nom. sg.): m. a man
adhamaH (nom. sg. m. ): lowest , vilest , worst , very low or vile or bad (often ifc. , as in naraadhama , the vilest or worst of men)

vimadhyamaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. middling, indifferent
vi-: ind. apart, asunder (prefix sometimes used to intensify, sometimes with no meaning)
madhyama: mfn. (superl. of mádhya) middle middle, being or placed in the middle , middlemost , intermediate
tu: but
ubhaya-laukikiim (acc. sg. f.): [work] belonging to both worlds
ubhaya: both , of both kinds , in both ways
laukika: worldly, terrestrial; (ifc.) belonging to the world of
kriyaam (acc. sg.): f. action, work

kriyaam (acc. sg.): f. action, work
amutra: ind. there ; there above i.e. in the other world , in the life to come
eva: (emphatic) "I repeat"
phalaaya (dat. sg.): n. fruit, result
madhyamaH (nom. sg.): m. one in the middle

vishiShTa-dharmaa (nom. sg. m.): a man of pre-eminent nature
vishiShTa: mfn. distinguished , distinct , particular , peculiar ; pre-eminent , excellent , excelling in or distinguished by
dharman: m. bearer , supporter ; n. (esp. ifc.) nature , quality
punar: ind. again, moreover, however
a-pravRttaye (dat. sg.): f. not proceeding ; no further effect or applicability of a precept ; abstaining from action , inertion , non-excitement ; (in med.) suppression of the natural evacuations , constipation
pravRtta: n. (with karman n. action) causing a continuation of mundane existence

SAUNDARANANDA 18.54: Enlightened Compassion

2011-11-19T01:22:00.000-08:00

avāpta-kāryo 'si parāṃ gatiṃ gato
na te 'sti kiṁ-cit karaṇīyam-aṇv-api /
ataḥ-paraṃ saumya carānukampayā
vimokṣayan kṛcchra-gatān parān-api // 18.54 //

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Vaṁśastha

18.54
Walking the transcendent walk,
you have done the work that needed to be done:

In you, there is not the slightest thing left to work on.

From now on, my friend, go with compassion,

Loosening up others
who are pulled down into their troubles.

COMMENT:
Today's verse, as I read it, is rooted, as is the whole of Saundara-nanda, in primacy of individual work on the self. This was ultimately the only means-whereby Nanda, even with the Buddha's help and guidance, could get himself free.

The kind of thing that the Buddha means by the fourth line has been demonstrated to us already, by the manner in which the Buddha helped Nanda.

My first attempt at translating the fourth line, before I sat on it and slept on it and sat on it again, was "Setting free others who are in trouble."

But did the Buddha set Nanda free? Did the Buddha deliver Nanda? Did the Buddha liberate Nanda?

It was natural for Nanda in his gratitude to say so, but the truth as I see it is not necessarily so. The truth is that in the end it was up to Nanda to go into the forest by himself and liberate himself, by working the teaching out for himself, by working on himself, and that is precisely what Nanda did.

Despite an excellent karmic inheritance, Nanda formed a very deep attachment to the lovely Sundarī, as a result of which he was bound, sooner or later, to find himself in deep doo-dah. Due to the Buddha's intervention, Nanda found himself in that trouble sooner rather than later, and the prejudiced teaching of the well-intentioned striver was of no use at all in helping Nanda out of the mess. Whatever compassion the striver had, it was not a buddha's compassion. The striver's compassion was not compassion of the kind that the Buddha advocates in today's verse; it was not compassion of the kind that the Buddha demonstrated to Nanda, when he encouraged Nanda to fantasize about sex with nymphs whose gorgeousness surpassed even Sundarī's.

The point I am endeavouring to make is that it is easy to think in the abstract that an enlightened Buddha such as Nanda is now can roam about setting others free, as if by simply radiating out his enlightenment to all and sundry. But the evidence for such an assumption is not contained in the story of Handsome Nanda. Handsome Nanda is rather the story of how the Buddha intervened to loosen the ties which bound Nanda, skilfully using a particular and somewhat unconventional means, and thereafter guided Nanda, by working to a principle, to liberate himself.

EH Johnston:
By following the highest Path you have reached the goal and there is not the slightest thing further for you to do ; henceforward, my friend, practise compassion, bringing liberation to those in difficulties even when they are your enemies.

Linda Covill:
Your task is complete, you have traveled the high path, and there is nothing, not even the smallest thing, left for you to do. From now on wander with compassion, delivering others who are also in trouble.

VOCABULARY:
avaapta-kaaryaH (nom. sg. m.): one who has achieved a task, one who has attained a goal
avaapta: mfn. one who has attained or reached ; obtained , got
ava -√āp: to reach , attain , obtain , gain , get
kaarya: n. work or business to be done , duty , affair ; n. an effect , result; n. motive , object , aim , purpose
asi: you are
paraam (acc. sg. f.): mfn. far , distant , remote (in space) , opposite , ulterior , farther than , beyond , on the other or farther side of , extreme; best, highest, supreme ; other than , different from (abl.)
gatim (acc. sg.): f. going , moving ; path , way , course
gataH (nom. sg. m.): having walked (a path acc.)

na: not
te (gen. sg.): in/of/for you
asti: there is
kiM cit: anything
karaNiiyam (nom. sg. n. ): mfn. to be done or made or effected &c ; n. an affair, business, matter
aNu: mfn. fine , minute , atomic; ind. minutely
api: even

ataH param: after this, henceforward, from now on
saumya (voc. sg. m.): friend!
cara = 2nd pers. imperative car: to move one's self , go , walk , roam about, wander
anukampayaa (inst. sg.): f. sympathy, compassion

vimokShayan = nom. sg. m. pres. participle vi-√mokSh: to set free , let loose , liberate
kRcchra-gataan (acc. pl. m.): being in difficulty
kRcchra: mfn. (perhaps fr. √kṛś , and connected with kaṣṭa) , causing trouble or pain , painful , attended with pain or labour, being in a difficult or painful situation ; mn. difficulty , trouble , labour , hardship , calamity , pain , danger
gata: mfn. come to, being in, situated in
paraan = acc. pl. para: m. another (different from one's self) , a foreigner , enemy , foe , adversary
api: even, also (emphatic)

SAUNDARANANDA 18.53: All Because of Abiding by Dharma

2011-11-18T01:10:00.000-08:00

sa-dharma dharmānvayato yataś-ca te
mayi prasādo 'dhigame ca kauśalam /
ato 'sti bhūyas-tvayi me vivakṣitaṃ
nato hi bhaktaś-ca niyogam-arhasi // 18.53 //

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Vaṁsastha

18.53
O possessor of dharma!
Since, because of abiding by dharma,

You have skill in making it your own
and quiet confidence in me,

I have something else to say to you.

For you are surrendered and devoted,
and up to the task.

COMMENT:
Hearing that Nanda's success has been "because of abiding by dharma" (dharmānvayataḥ), and therefore wishing likewise to abide by dharma, might be fraught with unseen danger, tied up with trying to be right.

The most difficult thing, it seems to me, for a person who aspires to abide by dharma, is not to try to be right but rather to know for damn sure that one is faulty, wrong, and on that basis to intuit what next to do or not to do.

EH Johnston:
You possess the Law and since in accordance with the Law you have obtained faith in Me and skill in attainment, I have more to say to you ; for, being humble and devoted, you are worthy of receiving a command.

Linda Covill:
Dharma-endowed man, from following dharma, confidence in me and skill in achievement are yours. I would like to ask more of you, for you are modest and devoted, and worthy of a calling.

VOCABULARY:
sa-dharma (voc. sg. m.): O possessor of dharma!; . mfn. virtuous , honest
sa: an inseparable prefix expressing "junction" , "conjunction" , "possession" (and when compounded with nouns to form adjectives and adverbs it may be translated by " with " , " together or along with " , " accompanied by " , " added to " , " having " , " possessing " , " containing ")
anvayataH = abl./gen. sg. pres. part. anv- √ i: to go after or alongside , to follow ; to seek ; to be guided by
dharm'-aanvaya: m. obedience to law
yataH: since, because of
ca: and
te (gen. sg.): in/of you

mayi (loc. sg.): in me
prasaadaH (nom. sg.): m. clearness; calmness , tranquillity , absence of excitement ; serenity of disposition , good humour [6.17 "clearly settled"; 17.30 "quiet certainty"; 18.4 "tranquillity"]
pra- √ sad: to become satisfied or pleased or glad , be gracious or kind
adhigame (loc. sg.): m. the act of attaining , acquisition ; acquirement , mastery , study , knowledge
ca: and
kaushalam (nom. sg.): n. well-being , welfare , good fortune , prosperity ; skilfulness , cleverness , experience (with loc. or ifc.)

ataH: hence
asti: there is
bhuuyaH: ind. more
tvayi (loc. sg.): to you
me (gen. sg.): of/in me
vivakShitam (nom. sg.): n. (fr. Desid. of √ vac) what is wished or intended to be spoken; n. any desired object or aim
√ vac : to speak , say , tell , utter , announce , declare , mention , proclaim , recite , describe (

nataH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. bent , bowed , curved , inclined , inclining ; bowing to , saluting ; deep, hanging down
√ nam: to bend or bow (either trans. or oftener intr. ) to bow to , subject or submit , one's self ; to yield or give way , keep quiet or be silent
hi: for
bhaktaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. distributed , assigned; served; dressed, cooked ; engaged in , occupied with , attached or devoted to , loyal , faithful , honouring , worshipping , serving (loc. gen. acc. or comp.); m. a worshipper
ca: and
niyogam (acc. sg.): m. tying or fastening to ; m. employment , use , application ; injunction , order , command, commission , charge , appointed task or duty , business (esp. the appointing a brother or any near kinsman to raise up issue to a deceased husband by marrying his widow)
arhasi = 2nd pers. sg. arh: to deserve , merit , be worthy of, to have a claim to , be entitled to (acc.) , to be allowed to do anything (Inf.) ; to be obliged or required to do anything (acc.) ; to be worth , counterbalance , to be able

SAUNDARANANDA 18.52: None But a Work-Knower, Together With a Work-Knower

2011-11-17T01:33:00.000-08:00

rajas-tamobhyāṃ parimukta-cetasas-
tavaiva ceyaṃ sadṛśī kṛtajñatā /
rajaḥ-prakarṣeṇa jagaty-avasthite
kṛtajña-bhāvo hi kṛtajña durlabhaḥ // 18.52 //

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Vaṁsastha

18.52
This gratitude is fitting, again, in none but you

Whose mind has been liberated
from the dust of the passions and from darkness.

For while dust prevails in the world,

O man of gratitude! real gratitude is a rare state of being.

COMMENT:
If the three root faults to be eliminated are greed, hatred, and ignorance, then rajas (dust) may be taken as standing for the passions of greed and hatred, and tamas (darkness) as standing for ignorance.

The compound translated three times in today's verse as "gratitude" is kṛta-jña, whose literal meaning can be understood as "appreciating work done." This work might include work done for others but, before that, it might include work done on oneself, for oneself, all by oneself -- for the sake of self and others.

So there is the kind of gratitude that we all naturally feel when somebody in the line of duty or going beyond the line of duty gives us good service, or does a good job for us -- on, for example, car, teeth, or house -- without overcharging us or ripping us off.

But a rarer and deeper gratitude might be knowing what somebody has done for us primarily by working on him or her self. For such gratitude really to exist, the grateful person has to know in his own experience what the work in question really is. And that might be why the Buddha calls such a state of being durlabhaḥ, hard to find, or rare.

Understood like this, today's verse might be rooted, again, in the central truth of the Lotus Sutra, namely that

唯仏与仏乃能究尽諸法実相
YUI-BUTSU-YO-BUTSU-NAI-NO-GUJIN-SHOHO-JISSO
“None but a buddha, together with a buddha, is able perfectly to realize, here and now, that all things are reality.”

So on the surface the Buddha seems to be saying in today's verse that it is only natural, or fitting, for one whose mind has been liberated from the three poisons to be grateful. But more than that, he might be saying that it is only possible for such a person, and for such a person alone, together with another such person, to be truly appreciative of the Work -- that is to say, the work that has been done, the work that is being done, and the work that all being well will continue to be done.

EH Johnston:
And this gratitude is fitting in you, whose mind is freed from passion and ignorance ; for, O grateful one, gratitude is hard to find in this world conditioned by excess of passion.

Linda Covill:
O grateful man, this awareness of what has been done for you is worthy of you, whose heart is freed from passion and darkness; for gratitude is hard to find while the world abides in its excess of passion.

VOCABULARY:
rajas-tamobhyaaM (abl. dual): from dust and darkness
rajas: n. " coloured or dim space " , the sphere of vapour or mist ; vapour , mist , clouds , gloom , dimness , darkness ; impurity , dirt , dust ; the " darkening " quality , passion , emotion , affection
tamas: n. darkness , gloom
parimukta-cetasaH (gen. sg. m.): whose mind is liberated
parimukta: mfn. released , liberated from
cetas: mind

tava (gen. sg.): you
eva (emphatic): [you] alone; nobody but [you]
ca: and
iyam (nom. sg. f.): this
sadRshii (nom. sg. f.): conformable , suitable , fit , proper , right , worthy
kRta-jNa-taa: f. gratitude
kRta-jNa: mfn. knowing what is right , correct in conduct ; acknowledging past services or benefits , mindful of former aid or favours , grateful
-taa: (noun suffix)

rajaH-prakarSheNa (inst. sg.): a great deal of dust
rajas: gloom, passion etc.
prakarSha: m. pre-eminence , excellence , superiority , excess , intensity , high degree ; (often ifc. e.g. adhva-pr° , a great distance ; kāla-pr° , a long time ; guṇa-pr° , extraordinary qualities ; phala--pra-karṣa° mfn. consisting chiefly in fruit ; śakti-pr° , possessing extraordinary power )
pra-√kRSh: to draw or stretch forth , drag along or away
jagati = loc. sg. jagat: the world
avashtite = loc. sg. avashita: mfn. standing near , placed , having its place or abode
ava- √ sthā: to abide in a state or condition (instr.)

kRta-jNa-bhaavaH (nom. sg. m.): being grateful
bhaava: being, state ; manner of being , nature , temperament ; manner of acting , conduct , behaviour
hi: for
kRta-jNa (voc. sg. m.): O grateful one!
dur-labhaH: mfn. difficult to be obtained or found , hard , scarce , rare

SAUNDARANANDA 18.51: None But an Arhat, Together With an Arhat

2011-11-16T01:57:00.000-08:00

avaiti buddhaṃ nara-damya-sārathiṃ
kṛtī yathārhann-upaśānta-mānasaḥ /
na dṛṣṭa-satyo 'pi tathāvabudhyate
pṛthag-janaḥ kiṃ-bata buddhimān-api // 18.51 //

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Vaṁsastha

18.51
An arhat, a man of action whose mind has come to quiet,

Knows the Buddha as a charioteer
of human steeds who needed taming:

Not even a seer of truth
appreciates the Buddha in this manner:

How much less does the common man,
however intelligent he may be?

COMMENT:
arhan in line 2 of today's verse was interpreted by EHJ as in the nominative case and by LC as in the vocative ("O worthy man").

I have followed EHJ's understanding of the grammar. So in that sense, once again, I am standing on EHJ's shoulders. But insofar as he translates kṛtī arhan as "the saintly Arhat," I would like once again to tread on EHJ's scholar's crown.

An arhat is so-called not because he or she is a saint; he or she is so-called as a man of action whose mind has come to quiet, as a result of getting to the bottom of the four noble truths, which process might require the whole idea of sainthood to be given up, as a religious idea all tied up with noise in people's systems.

In today's verse as I read it, an arhat knows buddha as a condition of directed human energy because an arhat is buddha as a condition of directed human energy.

So once more it is a case of
唯仏与仏乃能究尽諸法実相
YUI-BUTSU-YO-BUTSU-NAI-NO-GUJIN-SHOHO-JISSO
“None but a buddha, together with a buddha, is able perfectly to realize, here and now, that all things are reality.”

Implicit in today's verse is a hierarchy with buddhas and arhats knowing each other at the top. Lower down the food chain than these lions and tigers are truth-seers. An example of a truth-seer (dṛṣṭa-satyaḥ) might be a market researcher, or a police detective, or a laboratory scientist, or an investigative journalist, or a yoga teacher, or a newly qualified Alexander teacher, or a Buddhist scholar, or a professor of Sanskrit, who does his or her job well. Such partial seers of fragmentary truths are a cut above the common man, however intelligent he might be in his blind pursuit of objects, but from the Buddha's standpoint something truly worthy or valuable is inevitably lacking in them.

That worthy something (or valuable bit of nothing), so the Zen tradition has it, is centred upon the practice of sitting in lotus and enjoying the samādhi of accepting and using the whole self. So the word damya (needing to be tamed), as I read it, means being in need of guidance in the direction of enjoying this samādhi of accepting and using the whole self.

Just after I qualified as a teacher of the FM Alexander Technique in the summer of 1998, I went back to Japan to see my old Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima. I did my best to report the relevance, as I understood it, of FM Alexander's discoveries around right posture in sitting -- i.e. that there is no such thing as right posture in sitting, though it might be possible to enjoy a condition of relative freedom from unduly excited fear reflexes and emotions. In the process of this discussion of reflexes I mentioned the support given to FM Alexander by the neuro-physiologist Charles Sherrington, and discussed postural or "anti-gravity" reflexes.

Gudo was not much interested in Alexander's discoveries. Gudo's line of reasoning was that if what Alexander discovered was the Buddha's teaching, then there was no need for him to study it. Whereas if what Alexander discovered was different from the Buddha's teaching, then why should he be interested in studying it? So implicit in this reasoning was the premise or the confidence or the arrogance that "I know what the Buddha taught."

When it came to the discoveries of Sir Charles Sherrington, however, who was clearly not some kind of quacky alternative therapist but a bona-fide scientist, Gudo was all ears. He was especially interested in the existence of postural or "anti-gravity" reflexes. "I would like to prostrate myself to Sir Charles Sherrington!" Gudo enthused. That was Gudo for you. He was always interested in and open to the kind of truths uncovered by physiologists like Charles Sherrington and psychologists like Karl Menninger. Thus, he was by a long way a cut above the common man. Stupid as I am, if Gudo had not been a cut above the common man, I would not have served him as I did for all those years.

EH Johnston:
Not even a man who has seen the truth would understand the Buddha, the Charioteer Whose steeds are men, in the same way as the saintly Arhat does whose mind is tranquillised; how much less then will a man outside the pale of the Law do so, intelligent though he be?

Linda Covill:
O worthy man, since even a man who has seen the truth, whose mind is at peace and whose goal is accomplished, does not understand the Buddha, the charioteer of men who need to be tamed, still less so does the man in the street, clever though he may be.

VOCABULARY:
avaiti = 3rd pers. sg. ave (ava √i): to go down to, to go to; to look upon, consider; to perceive , conceive , understand , learn , know
buddham (acc. sg. m.): the Buddha, the awakened one
nara-damya-saarathim (acc. sg. m.): the charioteer of men that were to be tamed
nara: m. a man , a male , a person (pl. men , people); husband; hero
damya: mfn. tamable ; m. a young bullock that has to be tamed
saarathi: m. a charioteer

kRtii = nom. sg. m kirtin: mfn. one who acts , active ; expert , clever , skilful , knowing , learned; good, virtuous, pure
yathaa: just as
arhan = nom./voc. sg. m. arhat: mfn. deserving , worthy , venerable , respectable ; m. a buddha who is still a candidate for nirvāṇa ; m. the highest rank in the Buddhist hierarchy
upashaanta-maanasaH (nom. sg. m.): whose mind has come to quiet
upashaanta: mfn. calmed , appeased , pacified ; n. tranquillity, peace
upa- √ śam: to become calm or quiet
maanasa: n. the mental powers , mind , spirit , heart , soul

na: not
dRShTa-satyaH (nom. sg. m.): a man who has seen/experienced the truth/reality
dRShTa: mfn. seen , looked at , beheld , perceived , noticed ; experienced , learnt , known , understood
satya: n. truth, reality ; n. demonstrated conclusion , dogma; n. the quality of goodness or purity or knowledge
api: even
tathaa: ind. in that manner, so
avabudhyate = 3rd pers. sg. passive ava-√budh: to become sensible or aware of , perceive , know

pRthag-janaH (nom. sg. m.): m. a man of lower caste or character or profession; an ordinary professing Buddhist ; a fool , blockhead ; pl. common people , the multitude (also sg.)
pRthag in comp. for pRthak: ind. widely apart , separately , differently , singly , severally ; (as a prep. with gen. or instr.) apart or separately or differently from
jana: m. person, people ; a common person , one of the people
kiM bata: how much less? how much more?
buddhimaan = nom. sg. m. buddhimat: mfn. endowed with understanding , intelligent , learned , wise
api: even

SAUNDARANANDA 18.50: Affirmation, By None But a Bloke Who Got the Job Done

2011-11-15T01:52:00.000-08:00

idaṃ kṛtārthaḥ paramārthavit kṛtī
tvam-eva dhīmann-abhidhātum-arhasi /
atītya kāntāram-avāpta-sādhanaḥ
sudaiśikasyeva kṛtaṃ mahā-vaṇik // 18.50 //

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Vaṁsastha

18.50
"As a man of action
who got the job done and knows the primary task,

None but you, O Crafty Man!,
should express this affirmation --

Like a great trader,
having crossed a wasteland and got the goods,

Who affirms the work of a good guide.

COMMENT:
The tone of today's verse, as I read it, together with the many verses throughout Saundarananda linked by the caravan metaphor, is pointedly not religious but is strongly practical.

I dare say that EH Johnston, for all his great ground-breaking, foundation-laying work as a Sanskrit translator and Buddhist scholar, got the register of today's verse totally arse-over-tit. It might serve as an example of how, despite years of diligent study, a Buddhist scholar is ever liable totally to miss the basic point of the Buddha's words. That said, without the groundwork of EH Johnston, where would this translation effort be?

Should I see myself, then, I wonder, as standing on the shoulders of a giant? Or as treading on the head of a gormless religious sap who never really knew the score?

The opening word of the verse, idaṃ, refers to Nanda's affirmation of Gautama, and so I have translated it as "this affirmation." Though neither the word "affirmation" or "affirms" appears in the original Sanskrit, the sense of affirmation -- in both directions -- I think is understood.

"Affirmation" remains a candidate for the canto title, which in Sanskrit is ājñā-vyākaraṇa. vyākaraṇa is the Sanskrit name of one of nine divisions of the scriptures, the name being translated into Chinese as 授記 JUKI, which in turn was chosen by Dogen as the title of Shobogenzo chap. 32, 授記 JUKI, Affirmation.

Today's verse as I read it makes it clear that this affirmation, and especially Gautama's affirmation of Nanda, has a distinctly practical emphasis. Hence the three words in today's verse from the root √kṛ, to do or to make, and the double appearance in the first line of artha, whose many meanings include job and task -- as in kṛtārthaḥ, one who has got the job done, and paramārthavit, one who knows the primary task, one who knows the score.

So today's verse as I read it is all about practical, non-religious vyākaraṇa, that is, 授記 (JUKI), that is, affirmation. At the same time, today's verse, again, relates to the central teaching of the Lotus Sutra:

唯仏与仏乃能究尽諸法実相
YUI-BUTSU-YO-BUTSU-NAI-NO-GUJIN-SHOHO-JISSO
“None but a buddha, together with a buddha, is able perfectly to realize that all things are reality.”

That all things are not religious but are just reality was absolutely the thrust of the teaching of my own teacher, Gudo Nishijima, who pissed me off intensely by asking me to strive to keep my spine straight vertically, and then criticizing me as not being sufficiently realistic. I haven't finished yet criticizing him right back.

Standing on the shoulders of a giant? I don't think so. Treading on the head of a blind fucking dwarf, more like.

That is all the affirmation that my purported guide through the wasteland is getting from me.

EH Johnston:
'It is right for you, O wise one, to say this, seeing that you have attained your goal, know the highest truth and are a saint, just as a great merchant who has crossed the desert and made great gains may praise the deeds of his excellent guide.

Linda Covill:
"You have achieved your goal, you know the ultimate truth, you are successful. Wise man, it is proper for you to say this, just as it is proper for a great merchant who has passed through the wilderness and acquired a fortune to declare what his good guide has done for him.

VOCABULARY:
idam (acc. sg. n.): this, these words
kRt'-arthaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. one who has attained an end or object or has accomplished a purpose or desire , successful
param'-aartha-vit (nom. sg. m): knowing ultimate value/purpose; knowing what is primary
param'-aartha: m. the highest or whole truth , spiritual knowledge ; any excellent or important object
parama: chief , highest , primary
artha: aim, purpose, object, meaning, value
vid: mfn. knowing , understanding , a knower (mostly ifc)
kRtii = nom. sg. kRtin: m. mfn. one who acts , active ; expert , clever , skilful , knowing , learned (with loc. or ifc.) ; good , virtuous

tvam (nom. sg.): you
eva: (emphatic)
dhiiman = voc. sg. m. dhiimat: mfn. intelligent , wise , learned , sensible
dhii: f. thought , (esp.) religious thought , reflection , meditation , devotion , prayer ; understanding , intelligence , wisdom (personified as the wife of rudra-manyu BhP. ) , knowledge , science , art
abhidhaatum = abhi-√dhaa: inf. (in classical Sanskrit generally) to set forth , explain , tell , say
arhasi: you should

atiitya = abs. atii: to pass over, overcome
kaantaaram (acc. sg.): mn. a large wood , forest , wilderness , waste
avaapta-saadhanaH
avaapta: obtained , got
saadhana: n. any means of effecting or accomplishing ; n. means of enjoyment , goods , commodities &c ; n. fruit , result

su-daishikasya (gen. sg.): of a good guide
su-: (laudatory particle) well, goo
daishika: knowing a place , a guide
iva: like
kRtam (acc. sg.): n. deed , work , action ; n. service done , kind action , benefit
mahaa-vaNik (nom. sg. m.): a great merchant
mahaa: great
vaNij: m. a merchant , trader

SAUNDARANANDA 18.49: Nothing Superfluous in Nanda

2011-11-14T01:16:00.000-08:00

tato munis-tasya niśamya hetumat
prahīṇa-sarvāsrava-sūcakaṃ vacaḥ /
idaṃ babhāṣe vadatām-anuttamo
yad-arhati śrīghana eva bhāṣituṃ // 18.49 //

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Vaṁsastha

18.49
Then the Sage, hearing his well-founded words

Which signified the end of everything superfluous,

Voiced, as the Very Best of Speakers,

These lines that none but a buddha,
being 'Sheer Radiance,' should voice:

COMMENT:
The first half of today’s verse, as I read it, relates to the main point of Alexander work, which is that "The wrong inner patterns are the doing which has to be stopped."

If stopping of the wrong inner patterns feeds through, indirectly, to a use of the self in sitting that bystanders judge to look like “good posture,” then all well and good, but that is no reason to put the cart before the horse. (If you are reading this Mats Senshin, then yes, I am thinking about you!)

The Lotus Sutra, as quoted in Shobogenzo, opens by describing the Buddha accompanied on Vulture Peak by twelve thousands great bhikṣus, all of whom were arhats, having ended all outflows (諸漏既尽).

The Chinese characters 諸漏, SHO-RO ("all leaks/outflows/superfluities"), it is safe to assume, represent the Sanskrit words appearing in line 2 of today's verse, sarvāsrava.

Given the great emphasis that the Buddha places, for example at the end of Canto 16, on vigorous direction of vital energy, on one level we might understand that the Buddha now recognizes from Nanda's voice and words that Nanda has stopped his vital energy from leaking out inefficiently, i.e. he has become able to prevent energy from being directed unconsciously, so that it flows only via the paths along which he wishes consciously to direct his energy.

Possibly more profound, however, is understanding which seeks to stop the superfluous not at the level of energy flow but at the deeper level of wrong inner patterns, or wrong tendencies.

One definition of āsrava in the Monier-Williams dictionary is the influence or action of body and mind and speech in impelling the soul to generate Karma. Hence LC's translation of sarvāsrava as "all rebirth-producing tendencies" -- which strikes me, on reflection, as not such a bad translation, so long as the word "rebirth" is not taken too literally. “All those wrong inner patterns that tend to produce noise in the system,” might be closer to the mark, as an explanation if not as a translation.

The second half of today’s verse, as I read it, relates to the principle introduced in 18.43 and followed up in 18.50 and 18.51; that is, namely, the central teaching of the Lotus Sutra that

唯仏与仏乃能究尽諸法実相
YUI-BUTSU-YO-BUTSU-NAI-NO-GUJIN-SHOHO-JISSO
“None but a buddha, together with a buddha, is able to perfectly realize that all things are reality.”

śrīghana “Sheer Radiance” or “Nothing But Radiance,” is a rare epithet for a buddha. I think Aśvaghoṣa’s intention in using this rare epithet in today’s verse was to emphasize that only one who is fully enlightened (= being nothing but sheer radiance, a human being who is just himself with nothing added and nothing taken away) should speak to another one who is fully enlightened as the Buddha is about to speak to Nanda now.

From where I sit, what do I know about it?

I know, or at least I observe, that realism is not it. In fields like business, politics, and family life, realists tend to thrive and prosper (probably lucky for me that I married one!). But what is much more fundamental than realism, in my book, is how a person accepts and uses himself. In that respect, I think I was fortunate that my use of myself was somewhat grounded in rugby training and in traditional karate-do, before I met Gudo Nishijima at the age of 22, and started striving in earnest to keep my spine straight vertically. I used to find playing rugby very liberating, a release from the daily grind of academic study. In playing rugby, at least, I wasn't trying to be right. And trying to be right might be, in stopping the superfluous, the first tendency to abandon.

I don’t know what is the perfect realization of which the Buddha in the Lotus Sutra speaks. But it seems to me that if the fundamental basis of it is the samādhi of accepting and using the self, then it can’t be a matter of a spine being kept straight vertically, or an autonomic nervous system remaining in balance, or a realistic viewpoint. If the fundamental basis of a fully-enlightened buddha’s full awakening is the samādhi of accepting and using the self, then it must be a matter of accepting the whole self and using the whole self. Nothing more. And nothing less.

EH Johnston:
Then the Sage, the Best of Speakers, hearing his well-reasoned speech which showed that he had extirpated all the infections, spoke these words which were such as a Buddha Shrighana should speak : --

Linda Covill:
Then the sage, peerless among speakers, listened to his reasoned speech that indicated his lack of all rebirth-producing tendencies, and said what a Buddha Shri-ghana ought to say:

VOCABULARY:
tataH: ind. from that, then
muniH (nom. sg.): m. the sage
tasya (gen. sg.): of him, his
nishamya = abs. ni-√śam : to observe , perceive , hear , learn
hetumat (acc. sg. n.): mfn. having a reason or cause , proceeding from a cause ; accompanied with arguments , provided with reasons or proofs , well-founded, reasonable
hetu: m. " impulse " , motive , cause , cause of , reason for

prahiiNa-sarv'-aasrava-suucakam (acc. sg. n.): indicating the stopping of all outflows
prahiiNa: m. removal , loss , waste , destruction
pra. √hā: to leave ; to desert , quit , abandon , give up , renounce , violate (a duty) , break (a promise) ; to send off , throw , hurl ; to cease , disappear
sarva: all
aasrava: m. a door opening into water and allowing the stream to descend through it ; m. (with Buddh. ) impurity, defilement, sin ; the influence or action of body and mind and speech in impelling the soul to generate Karma
ā- √ sru: to flow near or towards ; to flow , stream , flow from ; to spring a leak ; to flow off , go off , deteriorate
suucaka: mfn. pointing out , indicating , showing
suc: , to point out , indicate , show , manifest , reveal , betray (in dram. = " to indicate by gesture , communicate by signs , represent ") MaitrUp. MBh. Ka1v. &c ;
vacaH (acc. sg.): n. speech , voice , word

idam: ind. with these words
babhaaShe = 3rd pers. sg. perfect bhaaSh: to speak , talk , say , tell
vadataam (gen. pl. pres. participle vad): of speakers
an-uttamaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. unsurpassed , incomparably the best or chief , excellent

yad: (relative pronoun) that which, what
arhati: he should
shriighanaH (nom. sg. m.): n. coagulated milk , sour curds; m. a buddha
shrii: f. light , lustre , radiance , splendour , glory , beauty , grace , loveliness ; prosperity , welfare , good fortune , success , auspiciousness , wealth , treasure , riches , high rank , power , might , majesty , royal dignity ; symbol or insignia of royalty
ghana: full of (in comp.) , densely filled with (in comp.) ; m. ifc. mere , nothing but (e.g. vijNaana-ghana , " nothing but intuition " )
eva: (emphatic)
bhaaShituM = inf. bhaaSh: to speak

SAUNDARANANDA 18.48: The Buddha's Desire

2011-11-13T01:31:00.000-08:00

mayā nu śakyaṃ pratikartum-adya kiṃ
gurau hitaiṣiṇy-anukampake tvayi /
samuddhṛto yena bhavārṇavād-ahaṃ
mahārṇavāc-cūrṇita-naur-ivormibhiḥ // 18.48 //

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Vaṁsastha

18.48
How today could I possibly repay you,

My compassionate Guru whose desire is others' welfare,

By whom I was taken totally up and out
of the foaming sea of becoming,

Like a man out of a great ocean
when his boat is being battered by waves?"

COMMENT:
In today's verse, as I read it, Nanda's gratitude is like that of a sailor who wishes somehow to repay a lifeboatman who saved his life by lifting him up and out of a stormy sea.

That kind of gratitude, directed towards somebody who helped one out in a jam, like a lifeboatman or like a teacher of the FM Alexander Technique, is only natural, from the standpoint of the rescued. At the same time, from the standpoint of the rescuer, desiring the welfare of the other (hitaiṣin) might be nothing out of the ordinary, but just an integral part of a job he loves doing.

Both aforementioned jobs may involve taking a person up.

Not having any experience of rescuing others at sea or being rescued at sea, but having some experience in Alexander work both as rescuer and person in need of rescue (when all at sea from end-gaining and faulty sensory appreciation), I am taken by Nanda's description of himself as samuddhṛtaḥ.

sam-: completely; ut-: up; hṛta: taken.

samuddhṛtaḥ: completely taken up -- so that the whole body allows the head out, and the head leads the whole body up.

EH Johnston:
What can I do in return now to-day for Thee, my compassionate Guru, Who has been so kindly disposed to me and by Whom I have been rescued from the ocean of being, like a man, whose ship has been broken by the waves, from the great ocean?'

Linda Covill:
You have entirely pulled me out of the sea of existence, like a man rescued from the great ocean when his boat has been battered by waves. What could I possibly do now in return for you, my well-wishing, compassionate guru?

VOCABULARY:
mayaa (inst. sg.): by me
nu: ind. now (emphatic)
shakyam (nom. sg. n.): able , possible , practicable , capable of being (with inf. in pass. sense)
pratikartum = inf. pratikR; to do or make an opposition ; to return , repay ; to pay back (a debt)
adya: today
kim (nom. sg. n.): what?

gurau (loc. sg.): m. to the guru
hit'-aiShiNi (loc. sg. m.): mfn. well-wishing , desiring another's welfare
hita: n. benefit , advantage , profit , service , good , welfare
eShin: mfn. (generally ifc.) going after , seeking , striving for , desiring
anukampake (loc. sg. m.): compassionate
tvayi (loc. sg.): to you

samuddhRtaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. well raised or drawn up or uplifted
sam: prefix expressing " conjunction " , " union " , " thoroughness " , " intensity " , " completeness "
ud- √hṛ: to take out; to raise , lift up ; to rescue (from danger &c ) , deliver , free , save
yena (inst. sg.): by whom
bhav'-aarNavaad
bhava: m. being, existence; (with Buddhists) continuity of becoming (a link in the twelvefold chain of causation)
arNava: mfn. foaming; m. the foaming sea
aham (nom. sg. m.): I

mah"-aarNavaat (abl. sg.): m. " mighty sea " , the ocean
mahaa: great
arNava: mfn. foaming; m. the foaming sea
cuurNita-nauH (nom. sg.): a smashed ship
cuurNita: mfn. pulverised , smashed
nau: f. a ship , boat , vessel
iva: like
urmibhiH (inst. pl.): by the waves

SAUNDARANANDA 18.47: How the Tathāgata Exhausted Himself for Others (Doing Just What He Wanted)

2011-11-12T01:44:00.000-08:00

aho hi sattveṣv-atimaitra-cetasas-
tathāgatasyānujighṛkṣutā parā /
apāsya yad-dhyāna-sukhaṃ mune paraṃ
parasya duḥkhoparamāya khidyase // 18.47 //

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Vaṁsastha

18.47
Oh! high indeed, then, is the order of that desire
to favour living beings

Which the Tathāgata,
overflowing with benevolence, has:

Since, O Sage, you throw away
the highest-order happiness of meditation

And are consumed by your effort
to stop others suffering.

COMMENT:
Implicit in today's verse as I read it is the fact that in Aśvaghoṣa's mind the highest happiness of full awakening (saṁbodhi-sukham uttamam) is totally identified with the highest-order happiness of sitting-meditation (dhyāna-sukhaṃ param).

Also implicit in today's verse might be the principle that only a fully-enlightened buddha such as Nanda now is can appreciate the benevolence of a fully-enlightened buddha -- because only one who has perfectly realized for himself the happiness of full awakening (saṁbodhi-sukham) can fully appreciate a buddha's throwing away of the supreme happiness of sitting-zen (dhyāna-sukhaṃ param).

For those of us who have not yet perfectly realized the happiness of full awakening, arrival at this principle might be a bit of a conversation stopper....

All I would venture to add is that if Dogen is called a Zen patriarch, then Aśvaghoṣa too should be called a Zen patriarch. And if Aśvaghoṣa was never a Zen patriarch, then Bodhidharma and Dogen also were never Zen patriarchs. But they might have been blokes whose sitting-meditation perfectly realized happiness of the highest order -- on the basis of which they did what they liked.

For anybody who thinks that the realized Tathāgata was a man without desire it might be instructive to count the number of instances in Saundara-nanda in which the Buddha is described using a desiderative form such as anujighṛkṣutā (desiring to treat with kindness) is in today's verse.

What the happiness of full awakening (saṁbodhi-sukham) is, I do not know. If I know anything, I know that the kind of altruism in which the head leads and the heart does not follow, cannot be it. A striver's altruism, altruism in which the striving altruist makes himself unhappy being where he doesn't want to be and doing what he doesn't want to do, is no good to man nor beast.

So what Nanda is praising in today's verse, as I read it, must be something on a higher level than altru- or any other kind of -ism.

EH Johnston:
For wonderful indeed is the favour shown to all beings by the Tathagata in the exceeding benevolence of His mind that, throwing aside the supreme bliss of trance, the Sage should labour to put an end to the sufferings of others.

Linda Covill:
How wonderfully kind is the favor shown to living beings by the realized one, in the extraordinary benevolence of his mind! O sage, you lay aside supreme meditational rapture, and work for the cessation of the suffering of others.

VOCABULARY:
aho: ind. a particle (implying joyful or painful surprise) etc.
hi: for; indeed, often merely an expletive
sattveShu (loc. pl.): to living beings
ati-maitra-cetasaH (gen. sg. m.): exceedingly benevolent
ati: (prefixed to nouns and adjectives in the sense excessive , extraordinary) too, exceedingly
maitra: friendly , amicable , benevolent , affectionate , kind
cetas: mind

tathaagatasya = gen. sg. tathaagata: m. the realised one, the Tathagata
anujighRkShutaa (nom. sg.): f. (from desiderative anu√grah) the desiring to treat with kindness; the favour
anu-√grah: to follow in taking or plundering , to support ; to uphold ; to receive , welcome ; to treat with kindness , favour , oblige ; to foster.
anujighRkShu: mfn. wishing to favour
- taa: f. abstract noun suffix
paraa (nom. sg. f.): mfn. on the other side, superior, highest, supreme

apaasya = abs. apaas: to fling away , throw away or off, leave behind
yad: (relative pronoun) that
dhyaana-sukham (acc. sg.): the pleasure of meditation
dhyaana: n. [sitting-]meditation , thought , reflection;
sukha: n. ease, comfort, happiness, pleasure
mune (voc. sg. m.): O sage!
param (acc. sg. n.): mfn. on the other side, superior, highest, supreme

parasya (gen. sg.): of the other
duHkh'-oparamaaya (dat. sg.): for the stopping of suffering
uparama: m. cessation , stopping , expiration ; leaving off , desisting , giving up
khidyase (2nd pers. sg. passive khid): you are distressed, wearied , exhausted

SAUNDARANANDA 18.46: A Fool & Full Awakening

2011-11-11T01:13:00.000-08:00

yathā hi ratnākaram-etya durmatir-
vihāya ratnāny-asato maṇīn haret /
apāsya saṃbodhi-sukhaṃ tathottamaṃ
śramaṃ vrajet kāma-sukhopalabdhaye // 18.46 //

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Vaṁsastha

18.46
For just as a fool, having made it to a jewel mine,

Might leave the jewels and carry off inferior crystals,

So would one reject the highest happiness
of full awakening

And struggle to gain sensual gratification.

COMMENT:
This is the verse in which the dangerous concept of saṃbodhi, full awakening or Enlightenment, makes its one and only appearance. Here then is the twirling flower. How should we respond to it?

If I have learned anything over the past 30 years, it is how NOT to respond to it -- by an unconscious reaction rooted in faulty sensory appreciation.

On the swing of saṁsāra there is a whole spectrum of unenlightened reactions to the stimulus of the word Enlightenment, but at the two extremes there is grasping effort to get one's dirty paws on Enlightenment, and there is disappointed denial of the existence of Enlightenment.

A handy tool for a fool who is hoisted in this swing of saṁsāra might be a ladder. And a wise first step for the fool with newly acquired ladder who is hoisted in the swing of saṁsāra might not be a step up in the direction of highest-order happiness. A wise first step, if the fool were somehow minded to take it, might be back down to earth.

In today's verse, as I read it, Nanda is reporting indirectly, almost in passing, that having been brought right back down to earth by the Buddha (taṃ punar-agaman-mahītalam; 10.64), and having then gone up step by step, he himself has now arrived at happiness of the highest order, the deepest happiness of full awakening.

So implictly the message of this verse is that there is such a thing as full awakening or Enlightenment, and that Nanda has experienced it for himself as the highest happiness. I can respond to this message as I like, for example by cursing and throwing my toys out of the pram, but this undeniably is the implicit message.

And the explicit message of the verse is that the happiness of full awakening is supremely valuable, much more valuable than the lower-order happiness that we experience through the gratification of sensual desires.

So a bloke who pursues lower order happiness and eschews highest-order happiness is like a fool who chooses inferior crystals over real jewels.

But an even bigger fool might be a bloke who eschews every kind of happiness in his striving to mine jewels without tools like a pick, a spade, and a ladder. And in this I speak from experience.

When I was helping him get what he wanted about 25 years ago Gudo Nishijima said to me, "Your suffering has meaning for all people in the world." I think now that that teaching was bullshit, though it factored in my decision to stay in Japan and work on the Shobogenzo translation, which was an incredibly altruistic/stupid thing to do.

In marked contrast, after an Alexander lesson about ten years ago Marjory Barlow told me that the only way to spread happiness around was to be happy in oneself. This somewhat shocking teaching caused me to go to France and find a place by the forest, to go off and enjoy sitting by myself -- which various onlookers, including my brother and wife, have seen as a selfish thing to do.

A central point to take from Saundarananda, as I read it, is that Nanda is portrayed as having obtained the highest happiness of full awakening by working on himself, by himself, for himself. Nanda of course credits the Buddha, but the truth is that the Buddha after a certain point in this process was no use to Nanda. Nanda had to head off for the forest on his own and find the highest happiness of full awakening for himself.

EH Johnston:
For the man, who would reject the most excellent bliss of enlightenment and undergo toil in order to experience sensory pleasure, is like the fool, who, proceeding to a jewel-mine, should pass by the jewels and take away worthless semi-precious stones.

Linda Covill:
Just as a simpleton would come to a mine and carry off semi-precious stones of no value whilst leaving behind the jewels, so might a man labor to win sensual gratification whilst discarding the supreme bliss of perfect enlightenment.

VOCABULARY:
yathaa: just as
hi: for
ratn'-aakaram (acc. sg. m.): a jewel mine
ratna: n. jewel
aakara: m. a mine
etya = abs. e (aa-√i): to come near or towards , go near , approach
dur-matiH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. weak-minded , silly , ignorant (rarely " malicious " , " wicked ") ; m. fool , blockhead (rarely " scoundrel " , " villain ")

vihaaya = abs. vi- √ haa: to leave behind , relinquish , quit , abandon
ratnaani (acc. sg. n.): jewels
a-sataH = acc. pl. m. asat: unreal ; untrue , wrong ; bad
maNiin = acc. pl. m. maNi: a jewel , gem , pearl (also fig.) , any ornament or amulet , globule , crystal
haret = 3rd pers. sg. optative hR: to take , bear , carry in or on (with instr.) , carry , convey , fetch , bring ; to take away , carry off , seize , deprive of , steal , rob

apaasya = abs. apaas: to fling away , throw away or off , discard , to scare , drive away ; to leave behind ; to take no notice of , disregard
sambodhi-sukham (acc. sg. n.): the happiness of enlightenment
sambodhi: f. (with Buddhists) perfect knowledge or enlightenment
sam: prefix expressing " conjunction " , " union " , " thoroughness " , " intensity " , " completeness "
bodhi: mf. (with Buddhists or jainas) perfect knowledge or wisdom ; m. m. " wakener " , a cock
sukha: n. ease, comfort, happiness
tathaa: so, likewise
uttamam (acc. sg. n.): mfn. uppermost, highest

shramam (acc. sg.): m. fatigue , weariness , exhaustion ; exertion , labour , toil
vrajet = 3rd pers. sg. optative vraj: to go, undergo , go to any state or condition
kaama-sukh'-opalabdhaye (dat. sg.): for the gaining of sensual happiness, for sensual gratification
kaama: desire, pleasure, love, sensuality
sukha: n. ease, comfort, happiness
upalabdhi: f. obtainment , acquisition , gain

SAUNDARANANDA 18.45: Utmost Happiness -- In a Change of Togs & In the Togs of Change

2011-11-10T01:45:00.000-08:00

aho 'ndha-vijñāna-nimīlitaṃ jagat
paṭāntare paśyati nottamaṃ sukham /
sudhīram-adhyātma-sukhaṃ vyapāsya hi
śramaṃ tathā kāma-sukhārtham-ṛcchati // 18.45 //

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Vaṁśastha

18.45
Alas, the world has its eyes closed
by blind unconsciousness;

It does not see utmost happiness in a different robe.

For flinging away lasting inner happiness,

It exhausts itself so, in pursuit of sensual happiness.

COMMENT:
The master who Dogen met in China whom he regarded as his true teacher and invariably called 古仏KOBUTSU, "the Old Buddha," sternly cautioned against being deluded by a twirling flower.

A twirling flower may be regarded as a symbol of utmost happiness, the highest happiness, the lasting inner happiness of full awakening, which Nanda sees as coming wrapped in a robe.

So, lest we be deluded by a twirling flower, we need to be clear what kind of robe he is talking about:
Is it a symbol of having religious belief and a religious calling -- like a monk's robe?
Is it is a symbol of religious authority -- like a papal robe or like a bishop's robe?
Is it a symbol of having nothing -- like a beggar's robe?
Is it a sheet of cloth that serves as a kind of uniform to remind and encourage the wearer to practice the inhibition of habitual patterns of thinking and acting -- like a robe that is different from all the above?

My answers to those questions are no, definitely fucking not, maybe, and yes.

Religious belief, in my book, is a very unreliable base from which to go for utmost happiness. And respect and awe for religious authority might be a downright pernicious obstacle that tends to hinder an individual from finding his or her own confidence in a better way.

A better way than religion might be to work to see the root causes of unhappiness, and to cut those causes off at source. Since those causes are for the most part unconscious, this is a process associated with becoming less unconscious and more conscious.

So I think the intention behind antara (other, different) in paṭāntare (a different robe) is similar to the intention behind anya (other, odd, different ones) in 10.19 and several subsequent verses in Canto 10,and again most recently in 18.13. The point might be to remind us that the kind of endeavour we are engaged in as followers of the Buddha is nothing conventional but something revolutionary and extraordinary -- because human beings have not evolved to work in any way other than blind, unconscious end-gaining.

As one goes on investigating the fact that FM Alexander identified as faulty sensory appreciation, it becomes ever more clearly apparent that the unconscious means of blind end-gaining are no longer suited to the pursuit of human happiness. The faultier a bloke's sensory appreciation is, the less satisfactory are the results that blind end-gaining tends to produce. Quad Erat Demonstrandum.

So what seems to be needed, in the pursuit of real, lasting happiness, is not blind unconscious end-gaining but another means, a different means. And a robe that is different, paṭāntare, might be part of that means.

EH Johnston:
Alas! The world with its eyes closed by the blindness of its perceptions does not see that supreme happiness lies in a change of robe ; for casting away the lasting happiness of interior peace it undergoes toil for the sake of the pleasures of love.

Linda Covill:
Oh, the world is blinkered by the blindness of its knowledge, and does not see that in a different garment there is utter bliss! It throws away the security of inner happiness, and labours instead for sensual gratification.

VOCABULARY:
aho: ind. a particle (implying joyful or painful surprise) Ah! (of enjoyment or satisfaction) Oh! (of fatigue , discontent , compassion , sorrow , regret) Alas! Ah!
andha-vijNaana-nimiilitam (nom. sg. n.): eyes closed by blindness of its consciousness
andha: mfn. blind
vijNaana: n. the act of distinguishing or discerning , understanding , comprehending , recognizing , intelligence , knowledge ; (with Buddhists) consciousness or thought-faculty (one of the 5 constituent elements or skandhas , also considered as one of the 6 elements or dhaatus , and as one of the 12 links of the chain of causation)
nimiilita: mfn. having closed the eyes
jagat (nom. sg.): n. the world

paTa: m. woven cloth , cloth , a blanket , garment , veil , screen ; monastic habit
antare (loc. sg.): mfn. being in the interior , interior ; different from ; n. (ifc.) , different , other , another e.g. deśāntaram , another country
pashyati: it sees
na: not
uttamam (acc. sg. n.): uppermost , highest
sukham (acc. sg.): n. ease, happiness, comfort

su-dhiiram (acc. sg. n.): mfn. very firm or resolute
su-: (laudatory prefix) well, very
dhiira: mfn. steady , constant , firm , resolute , brave , energetic , courageous , self-possessed , composed , calm , grave
adhyaatma-sukham (acc. sg. n.): inner happiness
adhyaatma: mfn. own , belonging to self
sukha: n. ease, happiness, comfort
vyapaasya = abs. vy-apaas: to fling away
vi: ind. apart , asunder , in different directions ; in some cases it does not seem to modify the meaning of the simple word at all
apaas: to fling away , throw away or off , discard , to scare , drive away ; to leave behind ; to take no notice of , disregard
hi: for

shramam (acc. sg.): m. fatigue , weariness , exhaustion ; exertion , labour , toil
tathaa: ind. in that manner , so , thus
kaama-sukh'-aartham: for the sake of the pleasures of love/desire
kaama: desire, love
sukha: pleasure
artha: aim, purpose
Rcchati = 3rd pers. sg. R: to go towards , meet with

SAUNDARANANDA 18.44: Higher Order Happiness -- Like Knocking Back Heavenly Nectar

2011-11-09T02:02:00.000-08:00

idaṃ hi bhuktvā śuci śāmikaṃ sukhaṃ
na me manaḥ kāṃkṣati kāmajaṃ sukham /
mahārham-apy-annam-adaivatāhṛtaṃ
divaukaso bhuktavataḥ sudhām-iva // 18.44 //

- = - = / = - - / = - = - = // - = - = / = - - / = - = - =
- = - = / = - - / = - = - = // - = - = / = - - / = - = - =
Vaṁśastha

18.44
For now that I have tasted this pure, peaceful happiness,

My mind no longer hankers
after happiness born of desires --

Just as the costliest earthly fare cannot entice

A god who has supped the heavenly nectar.

COMMENT:
If I decide that I wish -- even if only for the space of one sitting -- not to be a slave to the aspirational desire which is ambition, then is that wish itself a kind of desire or ambition? And is any happiness that ensues from it (as for example I sit alone by the forest in France) kāmajaṃ sukham, happiness born of desire?

Even if the answer to both those questions is yes, in seeing a desire as a desire, the seeing might be different from desire. And there might be happiness in that seeing. Just in the moment of that seeing, it might be that the mind is no longer hankering.

This kind of seeing, and this kind of effort to see, as I see it, falls under the heading discussed yesterday of sitting in full lotus with the mind.

But what I have just expressed might be a view from the basement, or at least a view from the stairwell, whereas what Nanda seems to be expressing is the view from the 39th floor.

If I understood anything from translating Dogen's rules of sitting-zen for everybody, Fukan-zazengi, and from regularly reciting Fukan-zazengi in Japanese from memory, as a standard for my own sitting-practice, over many years,

I understood that Dogen understood the danger of fancying oneself to be on the 39th floor when in reality one is still in the basement.

My own teacher thought he was enlightened, but when it came to teaching others how to sit, let me tell you again, he was totally in the basement.

In this situation, Dogen wrote, one almost totally lacks the means of getting the body out/up (HOTONDO SHUSSHIN NO KATSU-RO O KIKETTSU).

The original version, shown here, is shorter: these five characters read SHUSSHIN NO RO O KAKU, "we lack a way of getting the body out."

So in his original version of Fukan-zazengi, Dogen didn't write HOTONDO, "almost." He added HOTONDO, "almost," in the revised version, which is interesting.

Why, on reflection, did Dogen add the character for "almost" (HOTONDO)?

I think because when one realizes that one is not, as one fancied, somewhere up there; when one finds oneself instead in fact still down in the basement, there might be stairs. And all is never lost, so long as there are stairs. Whereas if there were no stairs, we truly would be fucked.

Actually, I don't think the above. I know it from experience. Down here in the basement, there are stairs -- not that I always pay sufficient attention to them.

But when I teach the Alexander technique, down here in the basement, what I am mainly teaching is how NOT to walk up and down those stairs. When you and I walk up and down the stairs, there might be a better way than our habitual way.

This is why I gradually saw at some point during these last three years that I wanted to translate śreyas not as "higher good," but as "a better way." Because in my experience a very good place to gain confidence in śreyas, and to get on it, is down here in the basement. For somebody who has not yet gained mastery of a better way, it seems to me, down here in the basement might be a better place, for the unfettered investigation of a better way, than some precarious lofty perch.

Going further, still talking in terms of higher and lower order, lower down still than workers in the basement there might be miners. There might be miners digging for gold. And there might be miners digging for coal, with which to serve to goldsmiths for use in their own furnaces.

A couple of days ago I watched a comedy routine by a working-class comedian named John Bishop who joked about his own sons having become middle-class -- the kind of blokes, Bishop laughed, that he used to punch. My feeling on hearing this was that I would like to go up to Liverpool and punch the fucker right back.

The background to this emotion is that at the age of 10 I passed an entrance exam to go to what at that time was regarded as the posh school in my home town of Birmingham. This involved me skipping a year, so I suddenly I was shunted upward into a much more precarious existence than I had been used to, with boys who were all older than me and who were regarded as being posh, intellectual, arrogant -- somehow less real, less hard, less cool (altogether less like Jack Reacher) than everybody else.

The working class credentials of my own parents, who conceived me shortly after meeting at Birmingham University, were totally copper-bottomed. My mother's father ran off when she was two, so that she lived in poverty in the 2-bedroom terraced house of her grandmother, a worker in a Lancashire cotton mill. And my father's stock, if it was possible, were even lower -- the slum-dwellers of Ebbw Vale who worked in the coal mines, the immigrant Irish catholics of South Wales, the lowest of the low.

So what?

So I am all too aware of being encouraged to aspire upwards, only to be knocked down, not only figuratively but also literally by the likes of the young John Bishop. I suppose it was partly that experience of being beaten up as a lanky teenager which gave me the fuel to want to go to Japan and devote myself to karate training. (So come and have a go now, John, if you think you're hard enough.)

And as for the heavenly nectar of which Nanda speaks, thanks anyway but I think I'll stick to my mug of builder's tea and plate of marmite on toast.

EH Johnston:
For now that I enjoy this pure happiness of tranquillity, my mind no longer hankers after the happiness that arises from love, just as the mind of the dweller in heaven who has fed on nectar does not hanker after the costliest even of earthly foods that is not eaten by the gods.

Linda Covill:
For having tasted this pure, peaceful bliss, my mind does not crave lust-born pleasures, just as, after tasting divine nectar, the mind of a heaven-dweller does not crave even the finest earthly fare that is not eaten by the gods.

VOCABULARY:
idam (acc. sg. n.): this
hi: for
bhuktvaa = abs. bbuj: to enjoy , use , possess , (esp.) enjoy a meal , eat
shuci (acc. sg. n.): clear , clean , pure (lit. and fig.) , holy , unsullied
shaamikam (acc. sg. n.): peaceful
shaama: mfn. ( √sham) appeasing , curing , having curative properties
√sham: to become tired , finish , stop , come to an end , rest , be quiet or calm or satisfied or contented
sukham (acc. sg.): n. ease , easiness , comfort , prosperity , pleasure , happiness

na: not
me (gen. sg.): of me, my
manaH (nom. sg.): n. mind
kaaNkShati = 3rd pers. sg. kaaNkSh: to wish , desire , long for , hope for (with acc.) , expect , wait for , await (with acc.) , strive to obtain , look for anything (dat.)
kaama-jam (acc. sg. n.): desire-born
kaama: m. desire, pleasure; love , especially sexual love or sensuality
sukham (acc. sg.): n. ease , easiness , comfort , prosperity , pleasure , happiness

mah"-aarham (acc. sg. n.): mfn. very valuable or precious , splendid
maha: great
arha: worthy; worth (in money) , costing
api: even
annam (acc. sg.) n. food or victuals , especially boiled rice
a-daivat'-aahRtam (acc. sg. n.): not eaten by the gods, earthly
a: not
daivata: a god
aahRta: mfn. brought near , fetched , procured ; taken , seized , captivated ; taken (as food) , eaten

divaukasaH = gen. sg. divaukas: m. "sky-dweller " , a deity, a god
bhuktavataH = (1) gen. sg. m. pres. part. bhuj: to enjoy, eat, drink etc.
(2) gen. sg. m. bhuktavat: mfn. one who has eaten
sudhaam (acc. sg.) f. "good drink" , the beverage of the gods , nectar
iva: like

SAUNDARANANDA 18.43: Squaring Up (Not Worrying Now)

2011-11-08T00:20:00.000-08:00

ato hi tattvaṃ parigamya samyaṅ-
nirdhūya doṣān-adhigamya śāntim /
svaṃ nāśramaṃ samprati cintayāmi
na taṃ janaṃ nāpsaraso na devān // 18.43 //

- = - = / = - - / = - = = // = = - = / = - - / = - = =
= = - = / = - - / = - = - // - = - = / = - - / = - = =
Upajāti (Ārdrā)

18.43
And so, through squarely realising what is,

Through shaking off faults and coming to quiet,

I worry now neither about my own place,

Nor about the person there,
nor about apsarases, nor about gods.

COMMENT:
A more assertive translation of atho hi might be "For, on these grounds,..." Some doubt, however, attaches to the reading of the 2nd syllable of today's verse, so that the first word could be ato or atho, or possibly ahaṁ.

Also in doubt, in the 3rd pāda, is whether to read svaṁ nāśramaṃ ("not about my own ashram") or svaṁ nāśrayaṃ ("not about my own dwelling/resting place").

In the 4th pāda, taṁ janaṁ ("that person") even if it means Sundarī, has a more objective feeling than what is conveyed by "my wife." Is it possible that with taṁ janaṁ ("that person") Nanda is referring to himself in a de-personalized way?

Faced with these doubts, I have opted in each case to remain on the fence, and as far as possible to fudge the translation.

Some things are impossible to penetrate thoroughly -- but the impossibility itself can be realised squarely, or embraced fully (as opposed to, say, spending years and years in denial before eventually spitting the dummy and throwing the toys out of the pram).

Any way up, Nanda's main gist is that now he has gone beyond worrying.

So what has happened?

I am prone to think that if I had, for example, a million pounds, then I wouldn't worry any more about money. The truth might be that if I had a million pounds I would worry even more about money. In other words, insofar as worry is an unconscious habit, tied up with immature or unduly excited fear reflexes, then any change in circumstances short of death does not really stop a person from worrying.

One thing that stops an inveterate worrier from worrying -- at least momentarily -- is to get on with it, to just do it, 1-2-3 Go! And this might be what Dogen meant when he exhorted: Sit in full lotus with the body!

Another thing that stops an inveterate worrier from worrying -- maybe more profoundly and lastingly -- might be the kind of change that involves consciously directing oneself against the unconscious habits of a lifetime. And this might be what Dogen meant when he exhorted: Sit in full lotus with the mind!

Going further, Dogen exhorted: Sit in full lotus as body and mind dropping off!

Exactly what Dogen meant by this latter exhortation is not up for discussion. But it might be up, fair and square, for realization.

(Don't look at me though -- an "inveterate worrier" whose left knee, for the present, is still not up to sitting in full lotus.)

About two thousand years ago, Aśvaghoṣā wrote of shaking off the faults and coming to quiet. Nearly seven hundred years ago, Dogen wrote of dropping off body and mind and being caught by the still state.

Via what these two teachers wrote, as well as via a face-to-face transmission, something (or a bit of nothing) has been transmitted to the present. How much more valuable, how more valuable than any Maserati that does 185, is this present moment? So meeting this present moment, it might be a shame to waste it by worrying and complaining -- though sometimes I still do.

The Lotus Sutra says that only a buddha, together with a buddha (as Nanda is associated now with Gautama) is perfectly able fully to realize that all things are reality. In Chinese characters the teaching is this:

唯仏与仏乃能究尽諸法実相
YUI-BUTSU-YO-BUTSU-NAI-NO-GUJIN-SHOHO-JISSO

I would like to study this central teaching of the Lotus Sutra in its original Sanskrit when I get round to it.

Why only a buddha, together with a buddha? Why not, for example, an eminent psychoanalyst or neurophysiologist or Olympic athlete or Alexander teacher, in conversation with each other?

The realization under discussion is a realization realized sitting in lotus which is totally physical, but not physiological, and totally mental, but not psychological.

My teacher called it "realization of reality" and called it "balance of the autonomic nervous system." The treacherous little twat. What did he know? What use was he?

He was fuck-all use to anybody -- except perhaps that he provided a pair of shoulders (one of which was subject to being frozen) for the likes of me to stand on. That I don't feel more grateful often worries me. But insofar as a feeling also is what it is, I would like to admit that I don't feel grateful. I feel like as a student I was led astray by wrong teaching and as a partner in a joint effort I was betrayed.

EH Johnston:
For through the right understanding of reality, through shaking off the faults and through obtaining possession of tranquillity, I have now no longings with respect to my body, my wife, the Apsarases or the gods.

Linda Covill:
So I have perfectly understood reality, I have expelled my faults and I have found peace! Now I do not think of my own home, my wife, the apsarases or the gods.

VOCABULARY:
ataH: ind. from this, hence
hi: for
tattvam (acc. sg.): n. true or real state , truth , reality; the being that
parigamya = abs. pari- √ gam: to go round or about or through , circumambulate , surround , inclose : to come to any state or condition , get , attain (acc.)
samyak: ind. ind. in one or the same direction; in one line , straight (opp. to akShNayaa , " obliquely "); completely , wholly , thoroughly ; correctly , truly , properly , fitly , in the right way or manner , well , duly

nirdhuuya = abs. nir- √ dhuu: to shake , agitate , shake out or off , scatter , remove , destroy , expel , reject
doShaan (acc. pl.): m. the faults
adhigamya = abs. adhi- √ gam : to go up to , approach , overtake , to approach for sexual intercourse , to fall in with , to meet , find , discover , obtain ; to accomplish
shaantim (acc. sg.): f. tranquillity , peace , quiet

svam (acc. sg. m.): my own
na: not
aashramam (acc. sg.) mn. ( √śram, to make effort) , a hermitage , the abode of ascetics , the cell of a hermit or of retired saints or sages
aashrayam (acc. sg.): m. (√śri, to lean on, to go to for refuge) that to which anything is annexed or with which anything is closely connected or on which anything depends or rests ; seat , resting-place ; dwelling , asylum , place of refuge , shelter
samprati: now
cintayaami = 1st pers. sg. present cint: to think , have a thought or idea , reflect , consider ; to think about , reflect upon , direct the thoughts towards , care for (acc.)

na: not
tam (acc. sg. m.): that
janam (acc. sg.): m. person, people (the sg. used collectively); m. the person nearest to the speaker (also with ayam or asau , " this my lover ")
na: not
apsarasaH (acc. pl.): f. "going in the waters or between the waters of the clouds "; the apsarases; nymphs
na: not
devaan (acc. pl.): m. the gods

SAUNDARANANDA 18.42: A View from the Summit

2011-11-07T01:04:00.000-08:00

śāntasya tuṣṭasya sukho viveko
vijñāta-tattvasya parīkṣakasya /
prahīṇa-mānasya ca nirmadasya
sukhaṃ virāgatvam-asakta-buddheḥ // 18.42 //

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Upajāti (Rāmā)

18.42
Solitude is sweet for one who is calm and contented,

Who looks into and has learned what is.

Again, for one who is sober and shorn of conceits,

For one who is detached in his decision-making,
dispassion is a pleasure.

COMMENT:
In this and the next four verses, Nanda is expressing the happiness/pleasure of full awakening or perfect enlightenment (saṃbodhi-sukhaṃ; 18.46), and contrasting this happiness/pleasure with the kind of sensual pleasure (kāma-sukham) to which we look forward in the world.

In 13.2 Aśvaghoṣa refers to Gautama Buddha as saṃbuddhaḥ, a fully awakened one, and in 17.73 (the final verse of Canto 17), Nanda describes his bow to Gautama Buddha as a salute to saṃbuddhaṃ, a fully awakened one. But 18.46 is the only verse in Saundara-nanda in which we find the word saṃbodhi, full awakening or enlightenment.

There is no point at which Nanda declares saṃbuddho asmi, "I am enlightened" -- which declaration might cause the skeptical listener to question whether he is listening to a delusory thought born of wishful thinking. But in this series of five verses in which Nanda describes the happiness or pleasure of full awakening (saṃbodhi-sukhaṃ), Aśvaghoṣa's indirect intention might be to invite us to understand implicitly that Nanda and the Buddha are now both dwelling in the same condition of full awakening, so that fully enlightened Buddha is meeting fully enlightened Buddha.

How is an unenlightened bystander to respond? By finding renewed belief in enlightenment, and trying doubly hard to get his own dirty paws on it? By wishing to be there instead of here?

In short, by trying harder to be right?

Or is there a better way?

I think that whole point of Saundara-nanda might be -- whether or not one believes in enlightenment -- to gain confidence in a better way than striving after enlightenment.

Gautama was born a bodhi-sattva (a being whose essence was awakening/enlightenment), but the bodhi-citta (will to awakening/enlightenment) led even him astray.

How come? Because he was a human being who, like all human beings, had evolved to go directly for any end in view, relying on the unconscious mechanisms with which evolution has provided us. Sadly, awakening or enlightenment is inherently unsuited to being pursued by unconscious means. Darkness is not turned into light by upping the intensity of the darkness. Moreover, as civilization has advanced, and man has tended to grow apart from nature, the problem that FM Alexander identified as faulty sensory appreciation seems to have got worse, so that even a relatively simple act like rising from a chair -- let alone a giant undertaking like pursuing enlightenment, or going to the supermarket -- is liable to be fraught with unseen dangers.

So, as documented in Canto 3, even a bodhi-sattva goes wrong when he end-gains for awakening. Growth in the direction of awakening of consciousness requires a particular kind of effort which did not come naturally even to Gautama as a bodhi-sattva. How much less does it come naturally to any of us?

In listening now, then, to Nanda expressing his view from the summit, it might be wise to focus attention on the path immediately ahead. Because down here, at the bottom of the bloody mountain, boulders are everywhere liable to fall down, and deep crevasses lie concealed, plus plenty of minor potholes and puddles to trip up the unwary plodder....

EH Johnston:
For discrimination is easy to the man of investigating mind who knows reality and is tranquil and contented ; and freedom from passion is easy to the man who has abandoned pride and conceit and whose intelligence is devoid of attachment.

Linda Covill:
Solitude is delightful for a man who is calm and contented, who has an understanding of reality and who makes careful investigations; and the absence of amorous love is delightful for a man who has put pride aside, who is without lust, and whose mind does not cling.

VOCABULARY:
shaantasya (gen. sg. m.): mfn. tranquil, calm
tuShTasya (gen. sg. m.): mfn. contented
sukhaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. running swiftly or easily; pleasant, agreeable; comfortable, happy
vivekaH (nom. sg.): m. (from vi- √vic) discrimination , distinction ; [as per 14.46] separateness, solitude
vi-√vic: to sift (esp. grain by tossing or blowing) , divide asunder , separate from

vijNaata-tattvasya (gen. sg. m.): reality-knowing
vijNaata: mfn. discerned , understood , known
vijñā: to distinguish , discern , observe , investigate , recognize , ascertain , know , understand; to become wise or learned
tattva: n. true or real state , truth , reality
pariikShakasya (gen. sg. m.): mfn. trying , examining ; m. a prover , examiner , judge
pari- √iikSh: to look round , inspect carefully , try , examine , find out , observe , perceive

prahiiNa-maanasya (gen. sg. m.): shorn of conceits
prahiiNa: mfn. left , remaining ; standing alone i.e. having no relatives ; cast off , worn out (as a garment); m. removal , loss , waste , destruction; (ifc.) wanting , destitute of
maana: m. ( √ man) opinion , notion , conception , idea ; purpose , wish , design ; self-conceit , arrogance , pride
ca: and
nir-madasya (gen. sg. m.): mfn. unintoxicated , sober , quiet , humble , modest ; (elephant) not in rut
mada: m. hilarity , rapture , excitement , inspiration , intoxication; ardent passion

sukham (nom. sg. n.): mfn. running swiftly or easily; comfortable, happy ; n. ease , easiness , comfort , prosperity , pleasure , happiness
viraagatvam (nom. sg.): n. indifference; absence of colour
viraaga: mfn. passionless , without feeling , dispassionate , indifferent; m. change or loss of colour
-tvam: (abstract noun suffix)
a-sakta-buddheH (gen. sg. m.): of detached judgement
a-sakta: free from ties , independent ; detached from worldly feelings or passions , unattached or indifferent
sakta: mfn. clinging or adhering to , sticking in ; fixed or intent upon , directed towards , addicted or devoted to , fond of
buddhi: f. the power of forming and retaining conceptions and general notions , intelligence , reason , intellect , mind , discernment , judgement

SAUNDARANANDA 18.41: F Is for Freedom, and FM, and F- Off Dawkins

2011-11-06T01:22:00.000-07:00

bhrātrā tvayā śreyasi daiśikena
pitrā phala-sthena tathaiva mātrā /
hato 'bhaviṣyaṃ yadi na vyamokṣyaṃ
sārthāt paribhraṣṭa ivākṛtārthaḥ // Saund_18.41 //

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Upajāti (Sālā)

18.41
If not set free by you, a brother,
a guide along a better way,

A fruitful father, and equally a mother,

I would be done for;

Like a straggler dropped from a caravan,
I would not have made it.

COMMENT:
LC's translation brings to mind an Oscar winning actress breathlessly thanking her mother, father, dog, hairdresser, and on and on until finally -- if she is an American actress -- "God, who made it all possible for me."

I understand, with EHJ, that in today's verse Nanda is not thus expressing gratitude to his mum and dad, but is just addressing the Buddha, not only addressing him as a brother and a guide, which the Buddha literally is, but also addressing him figuratively as a father and mother.

So I agree with the gist of EHJ's translation, but I am not keen on the register of EHJ's translation, which seems rooted in a Christian conception of religious deference towards Lord Buddha rather than individual effort to understand what that old bloke called Gautama actually taught.

In his dotage, my teacher Gudo Nishijma took to calling anybody who affirmed his Buddhist view (even if he had never met them) "Venerable So and So," and anybody who didn't agree with his view (even if they had served him over many years) "Mr So and So." One could see it as a test of who was truly indifferent to implied praise or implied blame. For a while, that is how I tried to see it -- "tried" being the operative word (see my comment to 18.39). I might have carried on forever with that kind of trying, if not set free, at least partially, by the teaching of FM Alexander.

FM Alexander, though he belonged to an age when Britain is stuffier than it is now (which is still pretty stuffy, American readers may think) was happy for his student teachers to call him not "Mr Alexander" but just "FM." He found "FM" to be in a middle way between undue formality and undue informality that suited his purpose, which was to guide people on a better way, towards F for Freedom.

So in Alexander work, F is for FM and F is for Freedom and -- as I was reminded once in a conversation with an Alexander head of training who shall remain nameless -- not only that.

Having just received some cheap Vistaprint business cards with a ready-prepared ABC logo, next to which I had listed the ABC of Alexander work as Attention, Balance, and Coordination, I mentioned to my friend that one could go on with Direction of Energy and.... at which point my revered friend intervened, "and Fuck off!"

There is no word in Saundara-nanda that might reasonably translated as "Fuck off." But neither does Saundara-nanda, as I read it, have any word that might reasonably be translated as "Thou" or "hadst."

In the end I hope that not only the gist but also the register of this translation might be felt to be roughly in the middle way, so that it might be suited to the ears of that large swathe of people who are in broad agreement with Richard Dawkins' disillusionment with religion but who at the same time find Dawkins' dogmatic atheism also to be a pain in the backside.

EH Johnston:
If Thou, my Brother, my Guide to the highest good, my Father who are stationed in fruition, my Mother, hadst not delivered me, I should have been overwhelmed, failing to reach my goal, like a traveller who has lost his caravan.

Linda Covill:
I would have failed, like a man who falls behind his caravan and wins no fortune, if I had not been liberated by you, my brother and guide to Excellence, by my father who is established in the fruit, and also by my mother.

VOCABULARY:
bhraatraa (inst. sg.): m. brother
tvayaa (inst. sg.): m. by you
shreyashi (loc. sg.): along a better way
daishikena (inst. sg.): mfn. knowing a place , a guide ; showing , directing , spiritual guide or teacher

pitraa (inst. sg.): m. father
phala-sthena (inst. sg. m.): mfn. useful [NB also used in the sense of “fruitful” in 6.43]
phala: n. fruit
stha: mfn. (only ifc.) standing , staying , abiding , being situated in , existing or being in or on or among ; occupied with , engaged in , devoted to performing , practising
tatha: so, likewise
eva: (emphatic)
maatraa (inst. sg.): f. mother

hataH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. struck , beaten (also said of a drum) , smitten , killed , slain , destroyed , ended , gone , lost
abhaviShyam (1st pers. sg. conditional bhuu): I would be
yadi: if
na: not
vyamokShyam = 1st pers. sg. conditional vi- √ mokSh: to set free , let loose , liberate

saarthaat (abl. sg.): m. a travelling company of traders or pilgrims , caravan
paribhraShTaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. fallen or dropped off; deprived of (abl.)
iva: like
a-kRt'-aarthaH (nom. sg. m.) unsuccessful ; one who has not attained an end or object or has not accomplished a purpose or desire
a: not
kRta: done, made, accomplished
artha: mn. aim, purpose, meaning, object, wealth

SAUNDARANANDA 18.40: Individual Particularity, As I See It

2011-11-05T02:23:00.000-07:00

aho viśeṣeṇa viśeṣa-darśiṁs
tvayānukampā mayi darśiteyaṃ /
yat-kāma-paṅke bhagavan-nimagnas-
trāto 'smi saṃsāra-bhayād-akāmaḥ //18.40 //

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Upajāti (Mālā)

18.40
"Oh, how particular, O Seer of Particularities,

Is this compassion that you have shown to me!

Since I who was sunk, Glorious One, in the mire of love

Have been a reluctant refugee from the terror of saṁsāra.

COMMENT:
The juxtaposition of kāma (love) in the 3rd line with akāmaḥ (reluctant) in the 4th line is lost in the above translation. In an effort to preserve the original opposition, kāma-paṅke could be translated as "the mire of willful desire," and akāmaḥ as "unwilling."

Similarly, mayi darśitā could be translated as "have let me see" (instead of "have shown to me"), in order to bring out the juxtaposition of darśitā ("shown") in the 2nd line with darśin ("Seer") in the 1st line.

Poetic juxtapositions aside, what Nanda is expressing in today's verse, as I read it, is his appreciation of the consideration that the Buddha, in extricating Nanda from the mire, has given to Nanda as a particular individual.

To draw a parallel with the approach of FM Alexander, it is said that somebody suggested to Alexander that the title of his second book "Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual" was a bit of a mouthful, and how about just calling it "Constructive Conscious Control" for a saving of three words? "But don't you see?" replied Alexander, "that would be to cut the most important part!"

A very good book on AT, by Patrick Macdonald, is titled "The Alexander Technique, As I See It." As regular readers of this blog will know, I like to use that phrase: as I see it. I tend to favour that phrase as a kind of preventive measure against any tendency in me towards dogmatic assertion.

An upcoming programme on BBC Radio 4 is about the many of the brightest and best-educated young Italians who are apparently leaving behind the patronage, nepotism and corruption of Italy and coming to look for work in London -- which sounds like bad news for Italy and good news for Britain. There's something I really do not like about patriarchal societies, especially ones in which religious patriarchies have a lot of influence. Italy and Thailand might be a couple of outstanding examples in the world today, along with Islamic countries too numerous to mention. Japan and Germany seem also to be rather patriarchal societies, though the patriarchies there might be more corporate than religious -- having just sold a Toyota that has given our family very excellent service for 14 years, and given that we now have a VW, maybe it is hypocritical of me to complain.

In Canto 17 Nanda shakes the tree of afflictions by sitting in lotus and seeing for himself that all things are (1) impermanent, (2) unsatisfactory, and (3) objectively existing, oblivious of me. But it is not that impermanence, suffering, and non-self, are a three-pronged Buddhist doctrine of whose truth I am duty bound to convince others, by going around knocking on people's doors, or looking for vulnerable people to train to be suicide bombers. The Buddha's teaching, as I understand it, is not something to be believed in, but something to be verified in one's own experience, by seeing for oneself.

So today's verse, as I read it, relates to this centrality of the individual in the Buddha's teaching which, by definition, might not be a characteristic of dogmatic religions.

EH Johnston:
'Ah! Especially hast Thou, Lord, Who knowest the special characteristics, shown this compassion to me, that I who was sinking in the slough of love have been rescued from the dangers of the cycle of existence and am free of the feeling of love.

Linda Covill:
"Oh you have shown me compassion with distinction, you who see distinctions! Because of it I have, against my will, been saved from the danger of samsara, O Lord, when I had been submerged in the slime of lust.

VOCABULARY:
aho: ind. a particle (implying joyful or painful surprise) Ah! (of enjoyment or satisfaction) Oh! etc.
visheShena (inst. sg.): : m. distinction; characteristic difference , peculiar mark , special property , speciality , peculiarity; ind. exceedingly , especially , particularly
visheSha-darshin (voc. sg. m.): O seer of distinctions
visheSha: m. distinction; characteristic difference , peculiar mark , special property , speciality , peculiarity
darshin: mfn. ifc. seeing , looking at , observing , examining , finding; knowing, understanding

tvayaa (inst. sg.): by you
anukampaa (nom. sg.): f. compassion
mayi (loc. sg.): to me
darshitaa (nom. sg. f.) mfn. shown , displayed
iyam (nom. sg. f.): this

yad: (relative pronoun) that ; " that is to say " , " to wit "; yad also = " so that " , " in order that " , " wherefore " , " whence " , " as " , " in as much as " , " since " , " because "
kaama-paNke (loc. sg.): in the mire of love
kaama: m. wish , desire , longing, love
paNka: mn. mud , mire , dirt ; moral impurity, sin
bhagavan (voc. sg. m.): mfn. glorious , illustrious , divine , adorable , venerable ; holy (applied to gods , demigods , and saints as a term of address
nimagnaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. sunk , fallen into (water &c )

traataH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. (from trai) protected
trai: to protect , preserve , cherish , defend , rescue from
asmi: I am
saMsaara-bhayaad (abl. sg.): from the terror of samsara
saMsaara: m. going or wandering through ; aimless wandering
bhaya: n. fear, terror, danger
a-kaamaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. without desire or wish ; unintentional , reluctant

SAUNDARANANDA 18.39: Indifference to Praise and Blame

2011-11-04T01:27:00.000-07:00

ity-evam-ādi sthira-buddhi-cittas-
tathāgatenābhihito hitāya /
staveṣu nindāsu ca nir-vyapekṣaḥ
kṛtāñjalir-vākyam-uvāca nandaḥ // 18.39 //

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Upajāti (Buddhi)

18.39
While the Tathāgata told him this and more
for his benefit

Nanda remained firm in his judgement and thinking

And was indifferent to plaudits or criticisms.

With hands joined, he spoke these words:

COMMENT:
What kind of person is indifferent to plaudits and criticisms, praise and blame? A person with a severe neurological disorder -- maybe a person in a persistent vegetative state or perhaps some sort of psychopath -- is one answer that springs to mind. A person who disregards negative feedback to which he would benefit from listening, again, might be a very ignorant person.

Another kind of person who is indifferent to plaudits and criticisms, judging from today's verse, might be a practitioner who is fully awakened, as Nanda is now being portrayed to be -- and as the Buddha is portrayed to be in Canto 3:

Being revered gave him no thrill; disrespect caused him no grief./ He was clear in his thinking, come sword or sandalwood, And he did not change his attitude when the going got hard or easy. // 3.19 //

In both today's verse and 3.19, the absence of any emotional reaction in response to approving or disapproving stimuli is described as associated with a certain firmness and clarity of thought. This firmness and clarity is expressed in 3.19 as niścita-matiḥ (clear/decisive in mind/thinking) and in today's verse as sthira-buddhi-cittaḥ (firm in mind/judgement and mind/thinking).

I could rather fancy myself in such a heroic state of being, like a clear-thinking emotional brick, or like some kind of Jack Reacher character. Trying not to react emotionally, however, because of wishing to be hard or cool or enlightened or some sort of dream hero, might be end-gaining. Whereas the enlightened indifference that Aśvaghoṣa described in the Buddha in Canto 3, and now describes in Nanda, might be one of the countless benefits that accrue indirectly to a person beyond trying who (to borrow a phrase of Dogen's) is caught by the still state.

Trying not to react emotionally was just what Nanda conspicuously did NOT do in Canto 7, Nanda's Lament. So if one recognizes that the indifference Nanda is manifesting today is not something to be gone for directly, but is rather the indirect result of a gradual process, then one can trace the beginning of the process back to the beginning of Canto 17, where Nanda made for the forest with the intention, following the indirect route that the Buddha had mapped out for him, to come unglued in sitting-meditation. But I prefer to trace the roots of Nanda's present indifference back to the attitude he showed in Canto 7, when he did not try to pretend he wasn't bothered but rather allowed himself to emote freely.

When stiff, as Alexander teacher Ron Colyer once advized me, be stiff. When you're lonely, feeling small, be lonely and feel small. Show some emotion. Put expression in your eye. Light up, light up, if you're feeling happy, but if you're sad just let those tears roll down. And that might be the true starting point of the indirect route which leads to the indifference of Buddha.

This comment, again, is based on the only thing that I truly know, which is that I myself went wrong, aided and abetted by Zen teaching that was wrong.

My Zen teacher, Gudo Nishijima, taught me to go directly for indifference (= the state of zero = balance of the autonomic nervous system) by pulling the chin back and down to block off thoughts and by "keeping the spine straight vertically." But that approach was just end-gaining itself, just striving itself, just trying to be right.

Among Japanese Zen teachers, my teacher by his own admission was the stupidest of the stupid. Surely no other Zen teacher could be such a blind and stupid end-gainer as him? Probably not. At the same time, before you put all your eggs into the basket of the teaching of any Zen teacher, whether Japanese or of Japanese descent, it might be worth checking, just in case, that you are not making the same mistake that I made.

EH Johnston:
Nanda, when addressed in this way by the Tathagata for his good, kept his mind and thoughts fixed and was indifferent to praise and blame ; and he spoke thus with folded hands : --

Linda Covill:
When the realized one said this and more for the sake of his welfare, Nanda remained steady in mind and heart, unaffected by praise or criticism. He folded his hands in reverence and spoke:

VOCABULARY:
iti: ".... ", thus
evam: thus, such
aadiH (nom. sg. m.): and so on
sthira-buddhi-cittaH (nom. sg. m.):
sthira: mfn. firm , hard , solid , compact , strong ; fixed , immovable , motionless , still , calm; firm , not wavering or tottering , steady
buddhi: f. the power of forming and retaining conceptions and general notions , intelligence , reason , intellect , mind , discernment , judgement ; perception, comprehension ; presence of mind , ready wit
citta: n. thinking , reflecting , imagining , thought ; n. intention , aim , wish ; the heart , mind ; n. intelligence , reason

tathaagatena (inst.): by the Tathagata, the realised one
abhihitaH (nom. sg. m.): spoken to
hitaaya = dat. sg. hita: n. (sg. or pl.) anything useful or salutary or suitable or proper , benefit , advantage , profit , service , good , welfare , good advice

staveShu = loc. pl. stava: m. praise , eulogy , song of praise
nindaasu = loc. pl. nindaa: f. blame , censure , reproach , reviling , defamation
nind: to blame , censure , revile , despise , ridicule
ca: and
nir-vyapekShaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. disregarding , indifferent to (loc. or comp.)

kRt'-aaNjaliH (nom. sg. m.): with hands joined
kRta: done, made
aNjali: m. ( √añj, to receive respectfully) , the open hands placed side by side and slightly hollowed (as if by a beggar to receive food ; hence when raised to the forehead , a mark of supplication)
vaakyam (acc. sg.): n. speech, saying, words
uvaaca (3rd pers. sg. perfect vac) : he spoke
NandaH (nom. sg.): m. Nanda

SAUNDARANANDA 18.38: Realization of Happiness, In Proper Accordance with the Means-Whereby Principle

2011-11-03T02:02:00.000-07:00

duḥkhaṃ na me syāt sukhameva me syād-
iti pravṛttaḥ satataṃ hi lokaḥ /
na vetti tac-caiva tathā yathā syāt
prāptaṃ tvayādyāsulabhaṃ yathāvat // 18.38 //

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Upajāti (Māyā)

18.38
'There might be for me no hardship;
there might be for me just happiness....'

Thus is the world impelled ever forward:

And yet it does not know a means whereby
that happiness might come to be --

That rarely attained happiness
which you today have realized, properly."

COMMENT:
Thus ends a series of seventeen verses from 18.22 in which the Buddha, booming like a thundercloud, heartily affirms where Nanda today (adya) is at. And the word with which the Buddha concludes this affirmation is yathāvat, which means "properly" or "in proper accordance with the means-whereby principle."

Bad teaching, it seems to me (and I should know because I do plenty of it), is intervention in which a teacher thinks he is teaching in accordance with a means-whereby principle, when in fact he is not, because he is blind to the end-gaining inherent in his approach. There tends to be a lot of intervention like that in, for example, psycho-therapy and Pilates and various forms of sports and life coaching. Any approach that does not take account of (a) the indivisible unity of the human organism, (b) the influence of a person's habitual manner of using himself, and (c) the problem of faulty sensory appreciation, is an end-gaining approach -- that is to say, it is not effort in proper accordance with the means-whereby principle, it is not yathāvat.

As a Zen teacher, one can woffle, based on study of Dogen's words, about learning the backward step, and dropping off body and mind. And nobody has done more of such woffling than me. But if one's habitual manner of sitting in lotus is such that the head is pulled back and down onto a stiff neck, and hyper-extension of the back is causing the pelvis to be misaligned with the head, the neck, and the rib-cage, so that the breathing is more or less held... then that, in my book, is not what the Buddha meant by yathāvat.

EH Johnston:
For mankind is ever working to avoid suffering and obtain happiness, nor do they understand how the happiness, so hard to reach, of which you have come into possession to-day, may duly come about. '

Linda Covill:
'May I have no suffering, just happiness!' With this aim, people are constantly busy, but how it might come about they do not know. You have today rightly obtained what is hard to obtain."

VOCABULARY:
duHkham (nom. sg.): n. suffering, hardship
na: not
me (gen. sg.): of me
syaat (3rd pers. sg. optative as): there/it might be
sukham (nom. sg.): n. ease, comfort, happiness
eva: (emphatic)
me (gen. sg.): of me
syaat: there/it might be

iti: "....", thus
pravRttaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. 'rolled forth'; purposing or going to , bent upon (dat. loc. , or comp.) ; engaged in , occupied with , devoted to
satatam: constantly, always, ever
hi: for
lokaH (nom. sg.): m. the world, mankind, folk

na: not
vetti = 3rd pers. sg. vid: to know
tat (nom. sg. n.): that [happiness], it
ca: and
eva: (emphatic)
tathaa yathaa: in what way, how
syaat: it might be, happen, come about

praptam (nom. sg. n.): mfn. attained to , reached , arrived at , met with , found , incurred , got , acquired , gained
tvayaa (inst. sg.): by you
adya: today
a-sulabham (nom. sg. n.): mfn. difficult of attainment , rare
yathaavat: ind. duly , properly , rightly , suitably , exactly; as , like (= yathaa)
yathaa: ind. according to what is right , properly , correctly (= yathāvat)
- vat: an affix added to words to imply likeness or resemblance , and generally translatable by " as " , " like "

SAUNDARANANDA 18.37: You Cannot Do an Undoing

2011-11-02T02:45:00.000-07:00

duḥkha-pratīkāra-nimittam ārtaḥ
kṛṣyādibhiḥ khedam upaiti lokaḥ /
ajasram āgacchati tac ca bhūyo
jñānena yasyādya kṛtas-tvayāntaḥ // 18.37 //

= = - = / = - - / = - = = // = = - = / = - - / = - = =
- = - = / = - - / = - = = // = = - = / = - - / = - = =
(Upajāti Sālā)

18.37
Struck by calamity,
stung to do something to combat suffering,

The world exhausts itself with work like ploughing:

And yet it is ceaselessly re-visited by that suffering,

To which,
using what you know, you today have put an end.

COMMENT:
What does Nanda know now that he didn't know before?

I think this question has already been answered in 18.35. What Nanda knows is how to work on himself, that is to say, how to practise in the direction of a better way.

A better way might mean a better way than the thirsting after objects (viṣaya-tṛṣṇā), which is the trigger for suffering (duḥkha). In other words, a better way might mean a better way than the end-gaining which, in combination with faulty sensory appreciation, FM Alexander identified (first in himself and then in others) as the root cause of stress.

A better way, when we investigate it for ourselves in our own work on the self, mainly involves NOT thirsting after an object, or NOT end-gaining, or in other words NOT doing something to counter suffering (duḥkha-pratīkāra) -- at least not doing something directly.

The main difficulty we are faced with in this work is our evolutionary inheritance. We have evolved to do; we have not evolved NOT to do. Therefore, faced with a problem that we sense as "suffering" or as "stress," we generally try to do something about it. And if what we are trying doesn't seem to be working, then we try harder, we strive. But all this doing, and trying and striving, though it takes us to the point of exhaustion (khedam), only causes us to be re-visited again and again by the suffering or stress that we wished to do something about.

Today's verse can be understood, then, as advocacy of working on the self, in an intelligent and rational manner, but also in an intuitive manner -- working on the self in a way that one knows, from experience, actually works -- as opposed to trying to combat suffering in the world via outwardly-directed work like ploughing.

But this is not to deny the value of outwardly-directed work like ploughing or digging earth -- or ploughing through a translation and trying to dig out meaning -- as part of a means-whereby for combatting stress in the only place stress can truly be combatted, within the self.

I have translated ārtaḥ in line 1 as "struck by calamity," but an alternative translation I considered was "stressed," or "in distress" or "distressed." On an individual level, when I started this work of mining Aśvaghoṣa's gold three years ago, I hadn't exactly been struck by calamity, but I was under a certain amount of emotional stress, as manifested by stomach pain that wouldn't go away. And I knew from experience that what I needed was not only to keep on working at the backward step of turning my own light and letting it shine, but also to direct my energy into some job that I felt was really and truly worthwhile and that I could get on with by myself without having to rely too much on unreliable others. So incredibly fortunately, possibly guided from somewhere by prajñā, I found this job.

The pain in the stomach went away a few weeks into this work. But can I claim to have put an end to or done away with (kṛtaḥ antaḥ) stress or suffering?

Not blooming likely. So the thing which is difficult, or impossible, for me to understand about this verse, as also 18.35, as also many other verses in this canto, is the sense of finality.

What makes more sense to me, as a work in progress, are the words of Patrick Macdonald that I quoted back on 1st August while commenting on 11.7:

Do not forget that right and wrong change, and should change as your body and co-ordination change. What is right for you today should be wrong for you tomorrow. Do not, therefore, try and fix a picture of a specific co-ordination in your brain as the right one; it will have to be modified, perhaps many times, over a long period. You must learn to think in trends and tendencies, and not in fixed positions. Everything (so they say) is relative, not least the proper relationship of the neck to the head, the neck and head to the back and neck, and the head and back to the rest of the body. If you can learn to think in tendencies (which is the way I teach you) you may continue to teach yourself. Remember, you are slowly eliminating the wrong. Finality, for most of us, and that includes me, is not in sight.

In conclusion, I refuse to believe that the Buddha and Nanda attained some final Enlightenment that I haven't ever experienced myself or seen in another. But I recognize the possibility (as also is implicit in Pat Mac's words "for most of us") that for some excellent individuals final Enlightenment might be a reality.

Either way, whether we are believing Buddhists or non-believing non-Buddhists, the central truth to take from today's verse might be the truth that we cannot do an undoing. Whether working on the self by the backward step of turning our own light and letting it shine, or by the forward step of going into movement without a care in the world, we cannot do an undoing. The best we might hope for is somehow by hook or by crook to get out of the way, and give the right thing some chance of doing itself.

EH Johnston:
Mankind toils in wretchedness at agriculture and other work to find a remedy for suffering, and yet suffering, to which you have put an end to-day by knowledge, returns to them again without intermission.

Linda Covill:
The afflicted masses exhaust themselves in work such as plowing to counteract suffering. Suffering returns continually, but through your knowledge you have put an end to it today.

VOCABULARY:
duHkha-pratiikaara-nimittam (acc. sg. m.): occasioned by counteraction of suffering
duHkha: suffering, hardship
pratiikaara = pratikaara: mfn. acting against , counteracting(ifc.)
nimitta: n. cause ; mfn. ifc. caused or occasioned by
aartaH (nom. sg. m.): fallen into (misfortune) , struck by calamity , afflicted , pained , disturbed; oppressed

kRShy'-aadibhiH (inst. pl.): by work of ploughing and so on
kRShya: mfn. to be ploughed ; pulled to and fro
aadi: and so on
khedam (acc. sg.): m. lassitude , depression ; exhaustion , pain , affliction , distress
upaiti = 3rd pers. sg. upe: to go near, undergo, suffer
lokaH (nom. sg.): m. the world; the inhabitants of the world , mankind , folk, the masses

ajasram: ind. perpetually , for ever
aagacchati (3rd pers. sg. aa√ gam): it comes
tat (nom./acc. sg. n.): it, the suffering
ca: and
bhuuyaH (nom./acc. sg. n.): mfn. further, again

jNaanena (inst. sg.): n. knowing , becoming acquainted with , knowledge , (esp.) the higher knowledge (derived from meditation on the one Universal Spirit)
yasya (gen. sg.): of which
adya: ind. today, now
kRtaH (nom. sg. m.): done, made
tvayaa (inst. sg.): by you
antaH (nom. sg.): m. an end

SAUNDARANANDA 18.36: Prajñā-Packed Seeing Power

2011-11-01T02:18:00.000-07:00

unmīlitasyāpi janasya madhye
nimīlitasyāpi tathaiva cakṣuḥ /
prajñā-mayaṃ yasya hi nāsti cakṣuś-
cakṣur-na tasyāsti sacakṣuṣo 'pi //

= = - = / = - - / = - = = // - = - = / = - - / = - = =
= = - = / = - - / = - = = // = = - = / = - - / = - = -
Upajāti (Vāṇī)

18.36
So it is with seeing,

Among people with eyes open and with eyes closed.

For when a man lacks sight packed with intuition,

Though he has eyes, the Eye is not present in him.

COMMENT:
EHJ seems to have understood that "a man whose eyes are closed" might mean one whose eyes are closed in meditation, but I don't understand Aśvaghoṣa's intention like that.

The point, as I take it, is this: Just as being highly educated is no guarantee of having the real wisdom by which to know what to do (or not to do), so having eyes -- whether those eyes are open or closed -- is no guarantee of having prajñā, or intuitive insight into which way the wind is blowing.

I think Aśvaghoṣa had incredibly strong intuition of which way the wind was blowing, so that this poem written two thousand years ago is, even today, still way ahead of its time.

Some highly educated people take the view that Aśvaghoṣa was a seminal figure in the historical evolution of Mahāyāna Buddhism. I don't subscribe to that view. I wonder what Daikan Eno (Dajian Huineng in Chinese), a woodcutter who had never read a Buddhist book, would have made of that view.

The kind of seeing Aśvaghoṣa is talking about in this verse, as I hear him, does not depend on whether the eyes are open or closed -- in the same way that the real wisdom by which to know how to work on the self does not depend on being educated or uneducated. (Hence FM Alexander: "A child of three can understand this work, but give me a man who has been educated, and God help me!")

As I wrote already, I think Aśvaghoṣa had incredibly strong prajñā-packed seeing power. And this power was rooted primarily, I venture to suppose, not so much in Aśvaghoṣa's eyes and his visual system as in Aśvaghoṣa's ears and his vestibular system.

At the end of sitting in the morning, depending on whether I feel there was any merit in the sitting to be directed, and on whether it is late enough in the morning not to disturb the neighbours' sleep, I recite some lines to direct any merit in the practice to three parties, namely:
1. all buddhas in all directions in the three times
(JIHO-SANSHI-ISSHI-FU)
2. All venerable bodhisattvas and mahasattvas
(SHISON-BUSSA-MOKOSA)
3. mahā-prajñā-pāramitā
The great transcendental virtue which is prajñā, intuitive wisdom
(MOKO-HOJO-HOROMI).

In this traditional recitation some sense is transmitted that, even among the six transcendent virtues, prajñā is something especially transcendent.

When we stop and think about it, aren't all the worst things in life -- for example, fields of activity in which box-ticking predominates -- characterized by an absence of prajñā? And aren't all the best things in life intuitive? Sitting-dhyāna is just intuitive. Good cooking is intuitive. Translation work, after the donkey work of checking the dictionary for possible options, is just intuitive. Good teaching is intuitive. Sport is intuitive. Sport, indeed, can be the greatest of stages on which great players can be observed exercising great prajñā.

A real example of such exercise, and the lack of it, that stands out in my mind is Welsh flanker Sam Warburton's tackle in the Rugby World Cup which, the referee decided, deserved a red-card.

As I saw it, Warburton's prajñā hit the target almost perfectly, whereas the referee, instead of allowing his own prajñā a few moments to operate, reacted too quickly and reached for his red card, when he might at least have consulted a linesman.

EH Johnston:
Similarly a man's eyes may be closed and yet he alone have sight among people, though their eyes are open ; for though a man have eyes, yet he has not sight, unless he have the eye of intuitive wisdom.

Linda Covill:
Likewise among the open-eyed, it is the man with closed eyes who may have sight, for a man whose sight does not consist of insight has no sight, though he have good eyes.

VOCABULARY:
unmiilitasya = gen. sg. unmiilita: mfn. opened (as an eye or a flower)
ud-: (prefix) over , above. (As implying separation and disjunction) out , out of , from , off , away from
miilita: mfn. one who has closed his eyes , sleepy
api: also
janasya = gen. sg. jana: m. person, people
madhye: ind. (loc. madhya). in the middle , in the midst , within , between , among , in the presence of (with gen)

nimiilitasya = gen. sg. nimiilita: mfn. having closed the eyes ; closed (as eyes , flowers)
api: also, as well as
tath" aiva: exactly so, likewise
tathaa: so
eva: (emphatic)
cakShuH (nom. sg.): n. the eye; faculty of seeing, sight

prajNaa-mayam (nom. sg. n.): being made of intuitive wisdom
pra-jNaa: f. 'pre-knowing' ; intuitive wisdom, wisdom
-maya: an affix used to indicate 'made of', 'consisting or composed of', 'full of'
yasya (gen. sg.): in whose
hi: for
n' aasti: there is not
cakShuH (nom. sg.): n. the eye; faculty of seeing, sight

cakShuH (nom. sg.): n. the eye; faculty of seeing, sight
na: not
tasya (gen. sg.): of him
asti: there is
sa-cakShuShaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. having eyes , seeing
api: also, even, though

SAUNDARANANDA 18.35: Work On Yourself, By Yourself, For Yourself

2011-10-31T02:17:00.000-07:00

adya prakṛṣṭā tava buddhimattā
kṛtsnaṃ yayā te kṛtam-ātmakāryam /
śrutonnatasyāpi hi nāsti buddhir-
notpadyate śreyasi yasya buddhiḥ // 18.35 //

= = - = / = - - / = - = = // = = - = / = - - / = - = =
- = - = / = - - / = - = = //= = - = / = - - / = - = =
Upajāti (Sālā)

18.35
Developed in you today is the real wisdom

By which you have done, totally,
the work you had to do on yourself.

For even a highly educated man lacks wisdom,

If wisdom fails to show in his practice of a better way.

COMMENT:
When highly educated academics of the 19th and 20th century working in the field of "Buddhist studies," encountered and examined Aśvaghoṣa's writings, they wondered whether he was primarily a poet or a proselytizing religious person, and -- writing strictly from the outside -- they described Saundara-nanda as a poem whose theme was conversion.

Much more than it is an evangelical tract whose theme and aim is religious conversion, Saundara-nanda as I read it is a guide to individual work on the self. Being converted, in the sense of changing one's religious beliefs, is easy. To work on the self in such a way as to get totally (kṛṭṣnam) free of all religious beliefs is mightily difficult. And that is what Saundara-nanda, as I read it -- from the inside -- is primarily about: working on the self, for the self, by the self.

Aśvaghoṣa as I have noted before does not use the word saṁgha as it is customary to use the word today, to mean something like a religious congregation of Buddhists. He uses the word in the non-Buddhist sense of any collection or assemblage, as for example, in 7.24: "hosts of gods, kings and seers." But there is no mention in Saundara-nanda of anything that could be called a "Buddhist samgha."

This does not mean that Nanda is portrayed as somebody who did it all by himself, or as an anti-social island unto himself. In addition to the Buddha, who guides Nanda how to work on himself, there is Ānanda, a master in his own right in the art of working on and forgetting the self; there is the practitioner who impresses Nanda by emanating calm as he sits by a waterfall (7.20); and there is the striver, best described as a work in progress.

So the Buddha, Ānanda, Nanda, the meditator by the waterfall, and the striver: that makes a network of five individuals, at least, who each in their own way have worked, are working, or are on the way to true work, on the self.

EH Johnston:
To-day your intelligence is admirable since by it you have done all that there was for you to do ; for however eminent a man may be in learning, he has not intelligence if it is not developed in the sphere of the highest good.

Linda Covill:
Today your intelligence is superlative, for through it your task is entirely complete. For even an outstandingly learned man has no intelligence if his intelligence does not give rise to Excellence.

VOCABULARY:
adya: today
prakRShTaa (nom. sg. f.): mfn. drawn forth , protracted , long (in space and time); superior , distinguished , eminent ; violent, strong
kRSh: to draw , draw to one's self , drag , pull , drag away , tear ; to lead or conduct (as an army) ; to draw into one's power , become master of , overpower ; to obtain
tava (gen. sg.): of you, your
buddhimattaa: f. intelligence , wisdom
buddhimat: mfn. endowed with understanding , intelligent , learned , wise
-taa: (abstract noun suffix) -ness

kRtsnam: mfn. all , whole , entire
yayaa (inst. sg. f.): by which
te (gen. sg.): of you
kRtam (nom. sg. n.): mfn. done, finished
aatma-kaaryam (nom. sg.): n. one's own business , private affairs
aatma: one's own, self
kaarya: n. work or business to be done , duty , affair

shrut'-onnatasya (gen. sg.): of one who is eminent in learning
shruta: n. anything heard , that which has been heard (esp. from the beginning) , knowledge as heard by holy men and transmitted from generation to generation , oral tradition or revelation , sacred knowledge; learning, teaching
unnata: mfn. bent or turned upwards , elevated , lifted up , raised , high , tall , prominent , projecting , lofty ; (figuratively) high , eminent , sublime , great , noble
api: even
hi: for
n' aasti: there is not
buddhiH (nom. sg.): f. the power of forming and retaining conceptions and general notions , intelligence , reason , intellect , mind , discernment , judgement

na: not
utpadyate = 3rd pers. sg. passive ut- √ pad: to arise, originate , be born or produced ; to come forth , become visible , appear ; to take place ,begin
shreyasi: loc. sg. shreyas: higher good
yasya (gen. sg.): in whom
buddhiH (nom. sg.): f. intelligence

SAUNDARANANDA 18.34: The Beauty of Being Yourself

2011-10-30T01:44:00.000-07:00

bhavaty-arūpo 'pi hi darśanīyaḥ
sv-alaṃkṛtaḥ śreṣṭhatamai-guṇaiḥ svaiḥ /
doṣaiḥ parīto malinī-karais-tu
sudarśanīyo 'pi virūpa eva //18.34//

- = - = / = - - / = - = = // - = - = / = - - / = - = =
= = - = / = - - / = - = - // - = - = / = - - / = - = -
Upajāti (Premā)

18.34
For even an unlovely sort is a sight to behold

When well-adorned with his own best features.

But a man who is full of the befouling faults,

Strikingly beautiful man though he may be, is truly ugly.

COMMENT:
The 2nd line of today's verse, sv-alaṃkṛtaḥ śreṣṭhatamai-guṇaiḥ svaiḥ, as I read it, means showing one's own original features.

In his rules of sitting-meditation for everybody, Dogen exhorts that if we just sit, body and mind will spontaneously fall away and our original features will emerge.

SHIN-JIN JINNEN NI DATSU-RAKU SHI TE, HONRAI NO MENMOKU GENZEN SEN.

SHINJIN body and mind

DATSU-RAKU fall away, drop off

HONRAI original

MENMOKU face, features, face & eyes

GENZEN emerges, are manifest in front

At the centre of this practice, as I have come to understand it, is a decision to allow the spine to lengthen vertically. This decision is a totally different thing from striving to maintain good posture, or striving to keep the spine straight vertically. It is purely a decision, the most mental thing there is, having nothing to do with right posture.

If I have ever experienced anything that might be called enlightenment, it was 17 years ago when this difference -- the difference between (a) allowing the spine to lengthen and the back to widen, and (b) striving to keep the spine straight vertically -- was first impressed upon me in the context of an Alexander lesson. There was one moment in particular when I got the teacher to work on me while I was sitting in lotus. He set up two mirrors, so that I could look forward and see myself sitting from the side, freed from a totally faulty conception of what it meant to sit upright. Notwithstanding my own faulty sensory appreciation, it looked and felt good. And notwithstanding the fact that Alexander work is not about good posture (at least not directly), the teacher said something to the effect of "That is more towards your natural posture." After that, there could be no going back for me. So I suppose the realization I had that day was something final. But it was nothing religious or spiritual. More a recognition that all my efforts in life up to that point had been combining to turn me into the ugliest of ugly dumb-fucks.

NB: Dumb fuck (Urban dictionary): 1. A person who is so incredibly stupid that it is not even funny any more.

EH Johnston:
For even an ugly man is beautiful to the sight when he is well adorned with his own pre-eminent virtues, but the man who is covered by the filth of the vices, however beautiful to the eyes he be, is in reality ugly.

Linda Covill:
For even an uncomely man is pleasing to behold when he is well-adorned with his own most excellent virtues, but a man, even a handsome man, is truly ugly when he is encompassed by the befouling faults.

VOCABULARY:
bhavati (3rd pers. sg. bhuu): he is
a-ruupaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. formless , shapeless ; ugly , ill-formed
api: even, also
hi: for
darshaniiyaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. worthy of being seen , good-looking , beautiful

sv-alaMkRtaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. beautifully adorned
su: (laudatory particle) well, beautifully
alaMkrta: mfn. adorned , decorated
shreShThatamaiH = inst. pl. m. shreShThatama: mfn. the very best , most excellent
guNaiH = inst. pl. guNa: m. good quality , virtue , merit , excellence
svaiH (inst. pl. m.): his own

doShaiH (inst. pl.): m. faults
pariitaH (nom. sg. m.): surrounded , encompassed , filled , taken possession of , seized (with instr.)
malinii-karaiH (inst. pl. m.): causing taintedness
malinii = in comp. for malina: mfn. dirty , filthy , impure , soiled , tarnished (lit. and fig.);
kara: n. the act of doing; mfn. a doer , maker , causer , doing , making , causing , producing (esp. ifc. ; cf. duḥkhakara, causing pain)
tu: but

su-darshaniiyaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. easy to be seen; easy on the eye; good-looking
darshaniiya: mfn. visible ; worthy of being seen , good-looking , beautiful
api: even, also
viruupaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. deformed , misshapen , ugly , monstrous , unnatural
eva: (emphatic)

SAUNDARANANDA 18.33: Real Living of a Free Life

2011-10-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

āraṇyakaṃ bhaikṣa-caraṃ vinītaṃ
drakṣyāmi nandaṃ nibhṛtaṃ kadeti /
āsīt purastāt- tvayi me didṛkṣā
tathāsi diṣṭyā mama darśanīyaḥ // 18.33 //

= = - = / = - - / = - = = // = = - = / = - - / = - = -
= = - = / = - - / = - = = // - = - = / = - - / = - = =
Upajāti (Bālā )

18.33
Thinking 'When shall I see Nanda settled,

Given over to the living of a forest beggar's life?',

I had harboured from the start the desire to see you thus.

What a wonderful sight you are for me to behold!

COMMENT:
Yesterday I asked which of two kinds of freedom the Buddha had in mind: freedom from bad habits, or freedom from noise and fear?

Today's verse seems to answer that question by reminding us that the kind of freedom the Buddha desired to see Nanda enjoying was not freedom in the abstract but rather the real freedom which is in the actual living of a free life.

In the present series of verses going back to 18.22 - 23, when the Buddha praises Nanda for having truly gone forth, the main topic under discussion has been freedom -- freedom from taintedness, freedom from pussyfooting about, freedom from enslavement to objects, freedom from ignorance and all the other foe-like faults, freedom from feverish redness, freedom from thirsting, and so on.

Freedom, as I have discussed it in the abstract, is a bit of nothing; but in reality what might it look like?

It might look like somebody really living his own life, having found his own way. As a father, this is what one would want for one's sons. And as Nanda's guru (in the sense of teacher and of older brother) this must have been what the Buddha desired (albeit not in a big way) for Nanda.

So the conduct of a forest beggar's life, āraṇyakaṃ bhaikṣa-caraṃ, though it might sound like something restrictive and beyond our attainment, I think is better understood as one good example of real living of a free life, that each individual can aspire to live, wherever we are located. Even if we cannot live the whole of a free life all in one go, if we can find half an hour to investigate, for example, the decison to move, or not to move, a leg, that might be a start.

EH Johnston:
I had before been desirous of seeing you, thinking to Myself, "When shall I see Nanda living the forest life, subsisting on alms, following the Rule and self-controlled?" Thus you are a blessed sight to Me.

Linda Covill:
I had previously wanted to see you, wondering when I would see you settled, tamed to the forest life of the mendicant. How wonderful for me that you are now so pleasing to behold!

VOCABULARY:
aaraNyakam (acc. sg. m.): mfn. forest , of the forest
bhaikSha-caram (acc. sg.): m.
bhaikSha: n. asking alms , begging , mendicancy ( with √ car , to go about begging)
cara: ifc. going , walking , wandering , being , living , practising
viniitam (acc. sg. m.): mfn. led or taken away , removed &c ; stretched , extended ; tamed , trained , educated , well-behaved , humble , modest
vi- √ nī : to lead or take away , remove , avert ; to train , tame , guide (horses) ; to educate , instruct , direct ; to get rid of, give up , cease from (anger)

drakShyaami (1st pers. sg. future dRsh): I will see
nandam (acc. sg.): m. Nanda
nibhRtam (acc. sg. m.): mfn. ( √ bhR) borne or placed down , hidden , secret; firm , immovable ; fixed , settled , decided ; still , silent ; quiet , humble , modest , mild , gentle ; free from passions , undisturbed (= shaanta) ; lonely , solitary
kadaa: when?
iti: "....", thus

aasiit (3rd pers. sg. imperfect as, to be): there was
purastaat: ind. before , forward , in or from the front , in the first place , in the beginning
tvayi (loc. sg.): you
me (gen. sg.): in/of me
didRkShaa (nom. sg.): f. ( √ dRsh Desid.) desire of seeing

tathaa: thus, like so
asi: you are
diShTyaa (inst.): by good fortune etc.
diShTi: f. auspicious juncture , good fortune , happiness
mama (gen. sg.): for/of/to me
darshaniiyaH (nom. sg. m.): worthy of being seen , good-looking , beautiful

SAUNDARANANDA 18.32: Getting the Goods

2011-10-28T00:41:00.000-07:00

diṣṭyāsi śāntiṃ paramām-upeto
nistīrṇa-kāntāra ivāpta-sāraḥ /
sarvo hi saṃsāra-gato bhayārto
yathaiva kāntāra-gatas-tathaiva // 18.32 //

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Upajāti (Bālā)

18.32
How great it is
that you have reached the deepest tranquillity,

Like a man making it through a wasteland
and gaining possession of treasure.

For everyone in the flux of saṁsāra is afflicted by fear,

Just like a man in a wasteland.

COMMENT:
This verse also, when I reflect on it, is a stimulus to the tendency I have to worry about ends, as opposed to attending to a means; or to worry about finding a final and universal solution to everybody's problem, which most probably I shall never do, as opposed to working on myself, which on a good day -- albeit falteringly, in accordance with my own strengths and weaknesses -- I can do, or choose not to do.

Reading today's verse, one cannot help wondering: just what is the prize, the treasure, the heart of the matter, the marrow (sāra) that the Buddha seems to be praising Nanda for having finally made into his own possession?

In yesterday's verse, as I interpreted it, the prize was freedom from the backward and downward pull of habit -- transcendent freedom and lightness like the freedom of a bird perching lightly on the tree of dharma.

In today's verse the prize is deepest tranquillity, and implicit in the verse is the recognition that the deepest tranquillity is a condition of freedom from fear.

So exactly what is it that we are directing ourselves towards? Is it freedom from habit, or from fear?

This question might be like the argument between two blind men, one who puts his arms around an elephant's leg and declares the elephant to be like a tree-trunk, the other who sweeps his palms along the elephant's side and declares the elephant to be like a bloody great wall.

Speaking of freedom from fear, or lack of it, yesterday morning two blokes from the water company drove up and started digging up the pavement a few metres from where I was sitting. I thought I would keep sitting for a while, and just observe, in the spirit of "look the bugger in the eye." A few seconds of that was enough. I quickly decided to get the hell out of there and go for a walk. It seemed to me that what I was observing in myself was an unconscious response rooted in a not very well integrated auditory Moro reflex. It was a clear case of what FM Alexander called "unduly excited fear reflexes and emotions."

Later in the day I followed up an invitation to watch a Youtube clip of a Japanese Zen teacher who seemed to be talking about using Zazen as a kind of spade to dig out the ego. My reflection on it was that 'the ego' is a construct from psychology. And that is all very well, but, from working with children who, like myself, are subject to labile emotions rooted in immature primitive reflexes, I am aware of the danger of attributing psychological causes to behaviour which has physical (or neuro-physiological) roots in a dodgy vestibular system.

Anyway, the early-morning experience of the pneumatic drill was enough to remind me, if any reminder was needed, that in the quest for deepest tranquillity, finality for me is not in sight.

EH Johnston:
By good fortune you have reached the supreme tranquillity, like a man who has crossed the desert and obtained wealth ; for everyone caught in the cycle of existence is harassed by the fear of danger, like a traveller in the desert.

Linda Covill:
How wonderful that you, like a man who has come through the wilderness and found riches, have reached supreme tranquillity! For all who are in samsara are prey to danger, just like people in the wilderness.

VOCABULARY:
diShTyaa (inst.): by good fortune; how wonderful! etc. [expression of strong pleasure]
asi: you are
shaantim (acc. sg.): f. tranquillity , peace , quiet
paramaam (acc. sg. f.): highest, supreme
upetaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. one who has come near or approached , one who has betaken himself to , approached (for protection) , arrived at , abiding in; one who has obtained or entered into any state or condition

nistiirNa-kaantaaraH (nom. sg. m.): a man who has crossed the wilderness
nistiirNa: mfn. crossed , passed over , spent , gone through
kaantaara: mn. a large wood , forest , wilderness , waste ; a difficult road through a forest , forest-path
iva: like
aapta-saaraH (nom. sg. m.): one who got the marrow, one who obtained riches
aapta: mfn. received , got , gained , obtained
saara: the substance or essence or marrow or cream or heart or essential part of anything ; the real meaning , main point ; cream , curds ; wealth , property , goods , riches

sarvaH (nom. sg. m.): all
hi: for
saMsaara-gataH (nom. sg. m.): in the flux of samsara
saMsaara: m. course , passage , passing through a succession of states , circuit of mundane existence , transmigration
gata: mfn. being in
bhay'-aartaH (nom. sg. m.): fear-afflicted
bhaya: n. fear ; terror , dismay , danger , peril , distress
aarta: mfn. fallen into (misfortune) , struck by calamity , afflicted , pained ; injured, oppressed

yathaa: just as
eva: (emphatic)
kaantaara-gataH (nom. sg m.): in the wilderness
tathaa: just so
eva: (emphatic)

SAUNDARANANDA 18.31: Even Monkeys Fall from Trees

2011-10-27T00:51:00.000-07:00

adyāpadeṣṭuṃ tava yukta-rūpaṃ
śuddhodano me nṛ-patiḥ piteti /
bhraṣṭasya dharmāt pitṛbhir-nipātād
aślāghanīyo hi kulāpadeśaḥ //18.31 //

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Upajāti (Indravajrā)

18.31
Today you may fittingly proclaim

That King Śuddhodana is your father.

For it is not commendable for a backslider,
after falling from the dharma alighted on by ancestors,

To proclaim his lineage.

COMMENT:
backslide: to relapse into bad habit: to fall back into wrongdoing or a bad habit after striving to act in a better way.

"Backslide" is a word I like, a good old-fashioned word, not a trendy word. In just nine letters, "backslide" conveys a sense of how difficult it is to go against the habits of a lifetime, and of what invariably happens when I strive to act in a better way -- because striving is only emphasizing what I already know, i.e. my old bad habits.

Apropos of that, here is a Youtube clip that my brother sent me of Neil Young talking about Bob Dylan's capturing of some kind of non-habitual essence in his songwriting. It contains the observation"You can't keep that. That comes and goes through you. You can't strive to be that. There's no way you own it."

So the Buddha seems to be praising Nanda for being something other than a backslider. And how to be that something, I don't know -- any more than I know how to walk, or how to breathe. If I know anything from experience, from multiple experiences of backsliding, I know that you can't strive to be that.

Saundara-nanda describes Nanda's pursuit of a better way (śreyas), but a better way is not something that I can get my dirty paws on, not something I can strive to be. A better way, truly, might not be something, but might be a bit of nothing. A bit of freedom from what usually holds me in its grip, habit.

Because our minds find a bit of nothing difficult to conceive, we find it helps to think of it as if it were something. Hence, in phrases like "I've been a miner for a heart of gold," or "mining Aśvaghoṣa's gold," gold, which is something, is a metaphor for transcendence, liberation, release, freedom from the mundane, freedom from habit, which is a bit of nothing.

In the metaphor that is implicit in today's verse, now that I dig deeper into it, the dharma (as in 12.41) is a tree and ancestors are beings as free and light as birds.

That being so, the verse brings to mind Marjory Barlows' exhortation to remember that work which is the most important thing in the world, is not to be taken seriously. One shouldn't get too serious, or be too heavy about it -- in a religious, ancestor-worshipping kind of way, whereby ancestors are liable to become a heavy brooding judging presence.

I am tempted to finish by pounding my chest with my fists and singing, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Anyone for a banana?

EH Johnston:
To-day you may fittingly proclaim that King Shuddhodana is your father ; for it is not praiseworthy for a man, who has abandoned the golden rule observed by his ancestors, to proclaim his lineage.

Linda Covill:
Today it is right for you to point to King Shuddhodana as your father; for bringing attention to one's family is not commendable in someone who has fallen from the dharma on which his ancestors had settled.

VOCABULARY:
adya: today
apadeShTum = infinitive apa- √ dish : to point out , indicate , to betray , pretend , hold out as a pretext or disguise
tava (gen. sg.): for you
yukta-ruupam (acc. sg. n.): mfn. suitably formed , fit , proper (with loc. or gen.)

shuddhodanaH (nom. sg.): m. Shuddhodhana; " having pure rice or food" , N. of a king of kapila-vastu (of the tribe of the Shakyas and father of Gautama Buddha)
me (gen. sg.): my
nR-patiH (nom. sg.) m. " lord of men " , king
pitaa (nom. sg.): father
iti: ".....", thus

bhraShTasya = gen. sg. bhraShTa: mfn. fallen , dropped ; strayed or separated from , deprived of (abl. or comp.) ; depraved , vicious , a backslider
dharmaat (abl. sg.): dharma
pitRbhiH (inst. pl. m. pitR): the fathers , forefathers , ancestors
nipaataad = abl. nipaata: m. falling down , descending , alighting (lit. and fig.) , falling from (abl.) into or upon (comp.)
ni- √ pat: to fly down, to fall down; to fall into ruin or decay , be lost

a: - negative prefix
shlaaghaniiyaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. to be praised , praiseworthy , laudable , commendable
ślāgh: to confide in ; to talk confidently , vaunt , boast or be proud of; to praise , commend , eulogise , celebrate
hi: for
kul'-aapadeshaH (nom. sg. m.): pointing out one's family; drawing attention to the nobility of one's family
kula: n. a herd ; a race , family , community , tribe ; a noble or eminent family or race ; high station
apadesha (from apa- √ dish): m. assigning , pointing out ; pretence , feint , pretext , disguise , contrivance

SAUNDARANANDA 18.30: Not Thirsting

2011-10-26T01:02:00.000-07:00

abhyucchrito dravya-madena pūrvam
adyāsi tṛṣṇoparamāt samṛddhaḥ /
yāvat satarṣaḥ puruṣo hi loke
tāvat samṛddho 'pi sadā daridraḥ // 18.30 //

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Upajāti (Indravajrā)

18.30
You used to be noticeably crazy for possessions;

Today, because you have stopped thirsting, you are rich.

For as long as a man in the world thirsts,

However rich he may be, he is always deprived.

COMMENT:
Being a work in progress (or regress), I can't claim that thirsting has finally stopped in me, but on a good day I do in practice at least stop thirsting.

To translate only one verse of Sanskrit per day is a practice undertaken with the express intention to stop thirsting.

In sitting-dhyāna, as Aśvaghoṣa describes it in Canto 17, to stop thirsting does not belong to any of the four stages of sitting-meditation. Nanda does not stop thirsting during his practice and experience of the first, second, third or fourth dhyānas. Rather, he stops thirsting BEFORE he enters the first dhyāna, hence:

In order to go entirely beyond the sphere of desire, he overpowered those enemies that grab the heel, / So that he attained, because of practice, the fruit of not returning, and stood as if at the gateway to the citadel of nirvāṇa.//17.41// Distanced from desires and tainted things, containing ideas and containing thoughts, / Born of solitude and possessed of joy and ease, is the first stage of meditation, which he then entered. //17.42//

The kind of practice Aśvaghoṣa describes earlier in Canto 17 for readying of consciousness (17.5) -- for example, sitting with legs fully crossed (17.3) contemplating impermanence, suffering, and absence of any separate self, in order to shake the tree of the afflictions (17.17) -- tends to be eschewed in Zen, where the approach to giving up thirsting tends to be more direct, i.e.: Just sit!

Directness, it seems to me, is sometimes the truth itself. And directness, equally, is sometimes end-gaining itself, thirsting itself.

There are many levels of thirsting, and many kinds of deprivation, none of which rightly belong in the life of a devotee of sitting-dhyāna. The secret to stopping them all might be contained in the ultimate teaching of the Buddha on the night before he died, namely alpecchu-saṁtuṣṭaḥ, 少欲-知足, SHOYOKU-CHISOKU, having small desire and being quite content.

EH Johnston:
Formerly exalted by the pride of wealth, you are rich to-day by the cessation of desire ; for as long as a man in the world cherishes desire, so long is he always poor, however wealthy he be.

Linda Covill:
Previously you stood out for your pride in your possessions, but today, because your thirst has stopped, you have fabulous wealth; for even a moneyed man is poor in the world as long as he thirsts.

VOCABULARY:
abhyucchritaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. raised aloft , elevated ; prominent ; excellent through (instr.)
dravya-madena (instr. sg.): ardent passion for objects of possession
dravya: n. substance, thing ; fit object or person; object of possession , wealth , goods , money
mada: m. hilarity , rapture , excitement , inspiration , intoxication ; ardent passion for (comp.)
puurvam: ind. previously

adya: today
asi: you are
tRShN"-oparamaat
tRShNaa: f. thirst
uparama: m. cessation , stopping , expiration ; leaving off , desisting , giving up ; death
upa- √ ram: to cease from motion , stop ; to cease from action , be inactive or quiet (as a quietist); to pause , stop (speaking or doing anything) ; to leave off , desist , give up , renounce (with abl.) ; to cause to cease or stop
samRddhaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. accomplished , succeeded , fulfilled , perfect , very successful or prosperous or flourishing ; fully furnished or abundantly endowed with (instr. abl. , or comp.) ; rich , wealthy
Rddha: mfn. increased , thriving , prosperous , abundant , wealthy

yaavat: ind. (correlative of taavat): as long
sa-tarShaH (nom. sg. m.): mfn. having thirst , thirsty
puruShaH (nom. sg.): m. a man
hi: for
loke (loc. sg.): in the world

taavat: ind. so long
samRddhaH (nom. sg. m.): rich, wealthy
api: even
sadaa: ind. always , ever , every time , continually
daridraH (nom. sg. m.): poor, needy, deprived

SAUNDARANANDA 18.29: Sweet Dreams

2011-10-25T01:08:00.000-07:00

nirvāpya rāgāgnim-udīrṇam-adya
diṣṭyā sukhaṃ svapsyasi vītadāhaḥ /
duḥkhaṃ hi śete śayane 'py-udāre
kleśāgninā cetasi dahyamānaḥ //18.29 //

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Upajāti (Indravajrā)

18.29
Today, having extinguished the flaming fire of redness,

Happily, you will sleep well, free of fever.

For even on a fabulous bed he sleeps badly

Who is being burned in his mind by the fires of affliction.

COMMENT:
The antagonist in yesterday's verse, Māra, as I have described before on this blog, is for me very much tied up with redness. My own quest to extinguish a flashing and flaming fire of redness began more than 35 years ago, as I sat helplessly blushing on the top deck of the bus on the way to school, and grimly resolved to find some way out of the predicament. In retrospect, that kind of determination was not so much part of any solution as symptomatic of the problem. It was a determination to solve the problem directly, by doing something or by cracking some maths-like problem, by aggressive intervention, by striving, by end-gaining. It was lacking the wisdom that Patrick Macdonald expressed in his exhortation to face a faulty pattern of reaction squarely, not trying to deny it, not trying to paper over a crack, not trying to sweep it under the carpet. Macdonald's advice was rather to "look the bugger in the eye."

As an example of what it means to look the bugger in the eye, when sitting after sleeping badly, so that energy is low and breathing is tending to be short and shallow, looking the bugger in the eye might mean listening to oneself breathe short and shallow, not necessarily with any expectation of change for the better.

Because the Moro reflex is unconscious, the fight against Māra can be seen as a kind of war against sleep. Countering such a view, today's verse suggests that a victorious buddha tends to sleep well.

For those of who tend not to sleep well, one thing that may help is at least to recognize that insomnia (like chronic blushing) is not a problem that can be solved by direct intervention. Even an insomniac is a whole person, not a mind, not a body, not a soul or a stream of consciousness waiting to be reincarnated, but an individual unit of being, a self.

"But there is no such thing as the self!" I hear Buddhists say, who know all about the Buddhist theory of śūnyatā. And I, in my grumpy bleary-eyed state, say to them: "Fuck off." (Truly I might be saying it to a gullible and nonsensical tendency in myself, following the mirror principle.)

Because insomnia is a function of the whole person and his or her environment, it is generally not a problem that is susceptible to direct, end-gaining intervention. It is a problem calling for what FM Alexander called "re-education on a general basis" -- i.e. a new and improved balance in a person's habitual manner of accepting and using himself. Happily, then, insomniacs can be encouraged by the Buddha's testimony that, if we complete such a process of re-education and thus emerge finally victorious in the war against Māra, then we will sleep well.

In the meantime, I shan't hold my breath.

EH Johnston:
By good fortune you have extinguished to-day the raging fire of passion, and, free from its fever, you will lie down in comfort ; for the man whose mind is alight with the fire of the vices finds suffering even on the lordliest couch.

Linda Covill:
How wonderful that today you have extinguished the raging fire of passion, and will sleep unfevered and at ease! For a man who is being burned in his mind by the fire of the defilements sleeps fitfully, even in a sumptuous bed.

VOCABULARY:
nirvaapya (abs. nir- √vaa): having blown out, extinguished
raag'- aagnim (acc. sg.): the fire of redness/passion
udiirNam (acc. sg.): mfn. issued out , excited , increased , elevated ; self-conceited , proud
ud- √ iir: to go upwards
adya: ind. today

diShTyaa (inst.): by good fortune, etc.
sukham: ind. at ease, comfortably
svapsyasi = 2nd pers. sg. fut. svap: to sleep, lie down
viita-daahaH (nom. sg. m.): free of fever
daaha: m. burning, heat ; internal heat , fever

duHkham: ind. with difficulty, uncomfortably
hi: for
shete = 3rd pers. sg. shii: to lie , lie down , recline , rest , repose
shayane = loc. sg. shayana: n. the act of lying down or sleeping , rest , repose , sleep; a bed , couch , sleeping-place
api: even
udaare (loc. sg. n.): mfn. high , lofty , exalted ; great, best ; noble, illustrious

klesh'-aagninaa (inst. sg.): by the fire of affliction
cetasi (loc. sg.): in the mind
dahyamaanaH = nom. sg. m. passive pres. part. dah: to burn, consume by fire

SAUNDARANANDA 18.28: Not Being Beaten by Māra

2011-10-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

nirjitya māraṃ yudhi durnivāram
adyāsi loke raṇa-śīrṣa-śūraḥ /
śūro 'py-aśūraḥ sa hi veditavyo
doṣair amitrair-iva hanyate yaḥ // 18.28 //

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Upajāti (Indravajrā)

18.28
Having conquered Māra,
who is so hard to stop in battle,

Today, at the forefront of the fight,
you are a hero among men.

For even a hero is not recognized as a hero

Who is beaten by the foe-like faults.

COMMENT:
Māra as I picture him is the many-tentacled monster of misuse, feeding off fear, greed, and faulty sensory appreciation. Māra in other words is the personification of an aberrant Moro reflex, at the centre of all the faults.

To advance to the frontline in the battle against Māra, paradoxically, might be to learn the backward step of turning one's own light and letting it shine.

As one who can't claim to have finally conquered Māra yet, it seems to me that if I sit down with determination finally to defeat Māra, I am in danger of energizing the old bastard, feeding him with my greedy expectation.

A wiser intention, for one for whom finality is not in sight, might be just to look the bugger in the eye.

Yesterday, speaking of the backward step, I had an excellent email exchange with Ānandajoti Bhikku, who has been guiding me through preparation of the Sanskrit text of Saudara-nanda in Unicode, together with a description of the metre of every verse, preparatory to posting on his Ancient Buddhist Texts website. I said I was happy -- in pursuit of the simple life -- to be doing it on a not-for-profit basis. In reply Ānandajoti disagreed with my description of strictly a Not-For-Profit effort; he described it as strictly a For-Loss effort.

EH Johnston:
Today you are the hero who leads the van in battle, having conquered Mara, whom it is so hard to meet in combat; for even a hero is not considered to be such if he is overwhelmed by the faults as by foes.

Linda Covill:
Having conquered Mara, who is so hard to stop in battle, you are a hero in the world today, first rank in combat. For even a hero is not considered heroic if he is struck down by the foe-like faults.

VOCABULARY:
nirjitya = abs. nir- √ ji: to conquer, subdue, vanquish
maaram (acc. sg.): Mara; m. death, slaying ; m. (with Buddhists) the Destroyer , Evil One (who tempts men to indulge their passions and is the great enemy of the buddha and his religion ; four maaras are enumerated in Dharmas. 80 , viz. skandha- , kleza- , devaputra- , and mRtyu-maara ; but the later Buddhist theory of races of gods led to the figment of millions of maaras ruled over by a chief maara)
yudhi = loc. sg. yudh: f. war , fight , combat , struggle , contest
dur-nivaaram (acc. sg. m.): mfn. (from ni-√vR) difficult to be kept back
ni- √ vR: to ward off , restrain ; suppress, remove, destroy

adya: ind. today
asi: you are
loke (loc. sg.): in the world, among men
raNa-shiirSha-shuuraH (nom. sg. m.): a hero leading the fight
raNa-shiirSha: n. the front or van of a battle
raNa: m. delight; n. battle (as an object of delight) , war , combat , fight , conflict
shiirSha: n. the head, the upper part , tip , top; front
shuura: m. a strong or mighty or valiant man , warrior , champion , hero

shuuraH (nom. sg.): m. a strong or mighty or valiant man , warrior , champion , hero; mfn. strong , powerful , valiant , heroic , brave
api: even
a-shuuraH (nom. sg.): m. not a hero, a non-hero
saH (nom. sg. m.): he
hi: for
veditavyaH (nom. sg. m. gerundive from vid, to know): to be known or recognized as

doShaiH (inst. pl.): the faults
a-mitraiH = inst. pl. a-mitra: mf. an enemy , adversary , foe
iva: like
hanyate = 3rd pers. sg. passive han: to smite , slay , hit , kill , mar , destroy
yaH (nom. sg. m.): [he] who