SAUNDARANANDA 12.20: Vision that Can’t Be Clouded by Faulty Sensory Input

ciram unmaarga-vihRto
lolair indriya-vaajibhiH
avatiirNo 'si panthaanaM
diShTyaa dRShTy" aa-vimuuDhayaa

12.20
Long carried off course

By the restless horses of the senses,

You have now set foot on a path,

With clarity of vision, happily, that will not dim.

COMMENT:
In this verse, as I read it, the reactive stallions and errant mares of the senses, which pull us from one side to the other, are contrasted with the kind of detached, reasoned insight that is constant and irremovable, because it is cut off from the flux of sensory experience.

The late Marjory Barlow, niece of FM Alexander, memorably impressed on me that the four verbal directions "(1) to let the neck be free, (2) to let the head go forward and up, (3) to let the back lengthen and widen, (4) sending the knees forwards and away," are constant. They express the direction of muscular release, all of the time, whatever activity one is engaged in, while breathing out and equally while breathing in.

This means that, however faulty is the functioning of one's vestibular system on a particular day, however hopeless is one's own sense of direction, one thing remains the same. Just as I did yesterday, I wish today (1) to let the neck be free, (2) to let the head go forward and up, (3) to let the back lengthen and widen, while (4) sending the knees forwards and away. Even if I don't get what I wish for, even if the result is different, the central direction of the wish is always the same: it is the direction of growth. The four directions that Marjory taught in lesson one, and that I also teach in lesson one, are the same four directions that I return to after 15 years in the Alexander work, and they are the same four directions that Marjory returned to after 70 years in the Alexander work. The directions do not change because, the human condition being as it is, the causes of the noise that the directions are designed to prevent do not change. The human faults of the time of the seven ancient buddhas are the human faults of the Buddha’s time are the human faults of Ashvaghosha’s time are the human faults of Dogen’s time are the human faults of Alexander’s time are the human faults of our time.

So the directions are always the same; they do not change in any circumstance. After Marjory had impressed this point upon me, I remember feeling very happy. I left Marjory's teaching room with a spring in my step. It was not the spring one gets from a temporary sensory buzz, thanks to an Alexander teacher's magic hands. It was the kind of spring one gets on understanding something that one is never going to forget. It was indeed the gaining of a kind of foothold in this struggle towards... what? I do not know. In this struggle not to stop growing.

Nanda, in the same way, has seen something not only through his visual sense but with his mind’s eye. Optimism leads to disenchantment, just as surely as 2 + 2 = 4. The bliss of union with a celestial nymph always proves to be impermanent, just as surely as 2 + 2 = 4. The rules of the game of love never change. Again, falling in love turns the ordinary human world into an earthly paradise, but there is something unsatisfactory about paradise, even before it turns into its opposite, with the white of shock, denial, despair, and then the red of anger and the rest. The cycle of samsara is impermanence itself. There is no permanence to be found in it -- except that impermanence itself is a law, like the 2nd law of thermodynamics, or like 2 + 2 = 4, in which there is constancy. A person can always rely on that. And once a person has seen that clearly, no amount of confused input from a faulty visual system can dim that clarity of seeing.

To sit in the full lotus posture with head shaved and body wrapped in a robe is also a matter of 2 + 2 = 4, although there are many who do not like to think so. My teacher, Gudo Nishijima, was a teacher who, very unusually for a Japanese man of his generation, had highly developed powers of independent reasoning. But when I drew his attention to the wrongness of forcibly pulling in the chin in order to straighten the neck bones, he seemed to have too much invested emotionally in teaching the wrong thing that he could not recognize his mistake -- at least not in public. In Confucianist-influenced Japan it is rather scandalous to highlight the mistake of one’s benevolent teacher. But 2 + 2 = 4 in Japan just as 2 + 2 = 4 in England. If apologists for Japanese culture would have it any other way, they can stuff their cultural arguments up their jumper. What is supreme in the Buddha’s teaching is not anybody’s culture. What is supreme in the Buddha’s teaching is the truth of truly sitting upright.

The truth of sitting upright is a matter of 2 + 2 = 4, and a matter of much more than 2 + 2 = 4. It is a matter of not being able to do an undoing. It is a matter of up being up, not being down. However faulty my vestibular system may be on a particular day... and yesterday was a particularly bad day as my sleep (along with the sleep of my disgruntled French neighbours) was cut short by the howling through the night of my neighbour’s dog, whose keen sense of smell seems to have picked up, during our recent daily walks, the scent of a bitch on heat... however faulty my sense of up and down may be on a particular day, up is not down. Even if, with my “debauched kinesthesia” as FM put it, what I sense as up is actually down, the truth remains that up is not down. Up is always up. Up, happily, is always up.

EH Johnston:
What good fortune it is that you who have been carried away for so long down the wrong road by the restless horses of the senses have now entered the true path with unconfused gaze.

Linda Covill:
For a long time the frenzied horses of the senses have carried you the wrong way. How wonderful that with clear vision you have alighted on the right path!

VOCABULARY:
ciram: for a long time
unmaarga: taking a wrong way , going wrong or astray
vi-√hR: to carry away, remove
vihRtaH (nominative, singular): one who is carried away

lolaiH = instrumental, plural of lola: moving hither and thither , shaking , rolling , tossing , dangling , swinging , agitated , unsteady , restless
indriya: senses
vaajibhiH = instrumental, plural of vaajin: swift , spirited , impetuous , heroic , warlike RV. &c &c (with ratha m. a war-chariot); m. the steed of a war-chariot; m. a horse , stallion

avatiirNaH = nominative, singular of avatiirNa: mfn. alighted , descended
asi: you are
√panth: to go, move
panthaanam = accusative of panthan: path (??)

diShTyaa (instrumental of diShTi, good fortune): ‘by good fortune,’ used to express strong pleasure
dRShTyaa = instrumental of drShti: f. seeing , viewing , beholding (also with the mental eye) ; sight , the faculty of seeing ; the mind's eye , wisdom , intelligence
a: not
vimuuDhayaa = instrumental of vimUDhaa: (f) perplexed; foolish, stupid

SAUNDARANANDA 12.9: Existential Shock Leads to Growth

babhuuva sa hi saMvegaH
shreyasas tasya vRddhaye
dhaatur edhir iv' aakhyaate
paThito 'kShara-cintakaiH

12.9
The shock happened

For the growth in him of ultimate good --

Just as the verb "grow" is listed [after "happen"]

In the lexicon recited by grammarians.

COMMENT:
Linda Covill adds, in an extremely helpful footnote (without which I would be in the same mire as EH Johnston):
in the Dhatupath, Panini's lexicon of Sanskrit verbal roots, the root edh "to increase" occurs immediately after the root bhu, "to exist."

In general Ashvaghosha's writing, and particularly his use of metaphor, seems remarkably non-cultural-specific. This verse also, though at first sight the reference to Panini strikes us as a bit highbrow, is not so much specific to Indian culture as it is specific to formal study of the Sanskrit language. And that, surely, is fair enough. Sanskrit was and is a language that is studied, rather than a language whose music people begin to learn in their mother's womb. Ashvaghosha was writing in Sanskrit for students of Sanskrit, who might be expected to be familiar with Panini's lexicon of Sanskrit verbs -- even if only at one remove. Perhaps, indeed, this verse should be received by a translator of Ashvaghosha as a stimulus to study Panini's lexicon first hand, not taking anybody else's word for it.

In any event, what is truly close to home for all of us is the second line with its three pivotal words vRddhaye (for the growth), shreyasas (of the ultimate good), and tasya (of that individual).

Being concerned with that kind of growth, a couple of years ago my wife did a course with Alexander teacher and midwife Ilana Machover on using Alexander's discoveries to help the process of pregnancy and childbirth. After the course, she reported back with some information that I found awe-inspiring: As a baby emerges from a natural birth, its immune system is shocked into action by the stimulus of the smell of its mother's shit. Hearing for the first time this explanation of an event I had twice experienced with my own eyes, made me reflect on how very little -- practically nothing -- I understand of the wonders of the growth of a human individual.

Facts like that, alongside facts like the successive emergence and inhibition of the four main vestibular reflexes, it seems to me, are not a cause for pessimism or for optimism; but they are a cause for wonder.

EH Johnston:
For that agitation enured to increasing his tendency towards the highest good, just as the root edh is said by grammarians to take vRddhi in its verbal form.

Linda Covill:
For the shock existed for furthering the increase of Excellence in him, just as, for the grammarians, the root "to increase" is listed among the verbs after "to exist."

VOCABULARY:
babhuuva = perfect of bhuu: to be, exist, become, arise, happen
sa: that, the
hi: for
saMvegaH = nominative singular of saMvega: agitation, shock/panic

shreyasas = genitive of shreyas: n. the better state , the better fortune or condition; (= dharma)
tasya (genitive of sa): of him
vRddhaye = dative of vRddhi: f. growth , increase , augmentation ; the second modification or increase of vowels (to which they are subject under certain conditions e.g. aa is the vRddhi of the vowel a ; ai of i , ii , and e ; au of u , uu , and o)

dhaatuH = nominative, singular of dhaatu: element, grammatical or verbal root or stem
edhiH = nominative, singular from edh: to prosper , increase, gain ground, swell
iva: like
aakhyaate (passive of aa-√khyaa): to be named or enumerated

paThitaH = nominal, singular of paThita: recited , read , studied , mentioned
akShara: a syllable, letter, vowel, sound, words
cintakaiH = instrumental, plural of cintaka: mfn. ifc. one who thinks or reflects upon , familiar with; m. an overseer

SAUNDARANANDA 16.98: In the End, Growth ...?

kRShTvaa gaaM paripaalya ca shrama-shatair ashnoti sasya-shriyam
yatnena pravigaahya saagara-jalaM ratna-shriyaa kriiDati
shatruuNaam avadhuuya viiryam iShubhir bhuNkte narendra-shriyaM
tad viiryaM kuru shaantaye viniyataM viirye hi sarva-rddhayaH

Saundaranande mahaa-kaavya aarya-satya-vyaakhyaano naama ShoDashaH sargaH

16.98
After ploughing and protecting the soil with great pains,
a farmer gains a bounteous crop of corn;

After striving to plumb the ocean's waters,
a diver basks in a bounty of coral and pearls;

After seeing off with arrows the endeavour of rival kings,
a king enjoys royal dominion.

So direct your energy in pursuit of peace,
for in directed energy lies all growth."


End of the 16th Canto of the epic poem Handsome Nanda, titled "Exposition of the Noble Truths."


COMMENT:
And so we come to an end, and as we do so we might question what that means.

After directing his energies in the dedicated manner that farmers around the world all still tend to do, to this day (I am thinking of my inspirationally hardworking neighbour in France), the farmer gains the end he has laboured to gain -- producing lots of food.

The pearl diver, likewise, gains an end that is not at all abstract. By his own independent efforts, he makes tbe ocean's riches into his own possession.

The king in the 3rd line enjoys royal dominion -- supreme authority, absolute ownership.

So, on first reading, the Buddha seems to be finishing this long monologue (which began back in 12.19), by pointing to the gaining of a definite end, which might be absolute ownership of the four noble truths. In coming to the translation of the final word of the Canto, Rddhi, therefore, my first thought was to translate it as success or accomplshment -- "In endeavour lies all success/accomplishment."

But if we dig deeper into the verse, one thing to notice might be a certain irony around the notion of endeavour. Hitherto the Buddha has heaped nothing but praise on the supreme and invincible virtue of viirya, manly endeavour. But the viirya in the 3rd line is the manly endeavour of rival kings which is defeated, by arrows. The point I take from this apparent irony of viirya being defeated is that endeavour as an abstract concept, or a concept connected to a puffed up, macho, sense of unreal self-confidence, is always liable to be trumped by the real direction of real energy, as manifested, for example, in flying arrows.

So when the Buddha speaks again in the 4th line of viirya, along with shaanti, peace, and Rddhi, success, the irony contained in the 3rd line might be a kind of clue not to react too quickly to those words, not to trust the intellect as it rapidly latches on and tries to convince that it knows. As FM Alexander used to say: "Be careful of the printed matter: you may not read it as it is written down."

Yes, the final word of the Canto, Rddhi, in the context of the previous three lines, seems to point to the gaining of a definite end, i.e. making the four noble truths into one's own possession, gaining full dominion over them. But the first meaning of Rddhi is growth. It is from the verb, Rdh, to grow. So, yes, Rddhi means success or accomplishment, the gaining of an end, but it can also be understood as pointing to growth as an ongoing process. Whether the ambiguity was deliberate, I do not know. But I suspect it was, and I have translated Rddhi accordingly as growth.

Because, in the end, what end have we got to look forward to? The long term outlook for us all, unless we meet a sudden and premature end, is sickness or old age, followed by death -- at which point corn, pearls, or royal power are absolutely no bloody good to us whatsoever. We know, if we open our eyes and look, that those who try to hold on to their corn or their pearls or their little kingdom, in that very effort to hold on, stop growing. That is the usual case. When people grow old, they stop growing. In contrast to that I have been priviliged to have worked with some elderly Alexander teachers who were without question still growing in the truth and toward the truth. Above all, I was privileged to visit my Alexander head of training Ray Evans shortly before he died. Even at death's door, Ray was evidently still working on himself as he had endeavored to teach me to work on myself, by directing my head to go forward and up out of a lengthening and widening back -- and not being too serious about it. As Ray drifted out of the here and now of directed consciousness, and back again, he reported, "I come and go. But that's OK."

From the privilege of meeting Ray in this state, I learned something that has informed my understanding of Alexander work and also, I hope, of this verse.

FM Alexander said, "The experience you want is in the process of getting it. If you have something, give it up."

Again, FM said, "Don't you see that if you get perfection today, you will be further away from perfection than you have ever been."

So in the end, to what end is the fourth line directing our attention? Success, or growth? In the end, I think what the fourth line is mainly directing our attention to is neither success nor growth. What the fourth line is directing our attention to, primarily, is the direction of our attention.

EH Johnston:
By ploughing the soil and by guarding (his field) with infinite pains man obtains a splendid crop ; by diving strenuously into the ocean he rejoices in splendid jewels; by overwhelming the might of his enemies with arrows he enjoys the splendour of sovereignty. Therefore show energy for the sake of tranquillity ; for of a certainty all prosperity lies in energy.

Linda Covill:
When a man has plowed the soil and protected it with infinite pains he earns a bounteous crop of corn; after labouring to plumb the ocean's waters he glories in his wealth of jewels; and when his arrows have driven off an enemy force, he enjoys royal sovereignty. So strive for peace, for all progress surely lies in endeavor."

VOCABULARY:
kRShTvaa = absolutive of kRSh: to draw or make furrows , plough
gaaM (accusative): earth, soil, ground
paripaalya = absolutive of paripaal: to , guard , protect , defend
ca: and
shrama: exertion, pains
shataiH = instrumental plural of shata: a hundred ; any very large number
ashnoti = 3rd person singular of ash: to reach , come to , reach , come to , arrive at , get , gain , obtain
sasya: corn , grain , fruit , a crop of corn
shriyam = acc. sg. shrii: f. light , lustre , radiance , splendour , glory , beauty , grace , loveliness; prosperity , welfare , good fortune , success , auspiciousness , wealth , treasure , riches ; bounty

yatnena = instrumental of yatna: effort , exertion , energy , zeal , trouble , pains
pravigaahya = abs. pra-vi-√gaah: to dive into , enter (acc.)
saagara: the ocean
jalam (acc.): water
ratna: a jewel , gem , treasure , precious stone (the nine jewels are pearl , ruby , topaz , diamond , emerald , lapis lazuli , coral , sapphire , gomeda)
shriyaa = instrumental of shrii: f. splendour; wealth , treasure , riches ; bounty
kriiDati = 3rd person singular of kriiD: to play , sport , amuse one's self , frolic , gambol , dally (used of men , animals , the wind and waves , &c); to jest , joke with (instr.)

shatruuNaam = gen. pl. shatru: m. " overthrower " , an enemy , foe , rival , a hostile king (esp. a neighbouring king as a natural enemy)
avadhuuya = abs. ava-√dhuu: to shake off or out or down; to shake off (as enemies or evil spirits or anything disagreeable) , frighten away
viiryam (acc. sg.): n. manly vigour, valour, strength, power,
iShubhiH = inst. pl. iShu: an arrow
bhuNkte = 3rd person singular of bhuj: to enjoy
narendra: m. " man-lord " , king , prince
shriyaM (acc. sg.): f. splendour; wealth , treasure , riches ; high rank , power , might , majesty , royal dignity

tad: so
viiryam (acc. sg.): n. manly endeavour, energy
kuru = imperative of kR: to do, make
shaantaye = dative of shaanti: f. tranquillity , peace , quiet , peace or calmness of mind , absence of passion
viniyata: mfn. restrained , checked , regulated
viniyatam: ind. certainly, surely
viirye = locative of viirya: energy, endeavour
hi: for
sarva: all
RddhayaH = nominative, plural of Rddhi: f. increase , growth , prosperity, success , good fortune , wealth , abundance ; accomplishment