SAUNDARANANDA 12.23: Illusory & Delusory Happiness

duHkhaM na syaat sukhaM me syaad
iti prayatate janaH
atyanta-duHkh'-oparamaM
sukhaM tac ca na budhyate

= = = = - = = =
- = - - - = - =
= = - = = - - =
= = = - - = - =

12.23
'I would not suffer; I would be happy:'

People labour under this illusion;

And respite from incessant suffering

They sense not as such, but as happiness.

COMMENT:
This verse, as I read it, addresses firstly illusory thoughts about, and secondly delusory feelings about, happiness.

What happiness is I do not understand. Illusions and delusions, on the other hand, I do know a bit about.

“If only ....., I would be happy.” Fill in your own missing words. In the last fifty years I have filled in plenty of mine.

But what actually happens when those kind of wishes are fulfilled? What happens when we finally get to embrace the celestial nymph of our dreams, or when we pass the test and get our own wheels, or when we finally get to go home, or when we finally get to the end of some energy-sapping job?

For a starker example, what happens when an irresponsible layabout suddenly wins the lottery? The greed and other faults that made the irresponsible layabout an irresponsible layabout will continue to make him an irresponsible layabout even after he has won the lottery. Fundamentally, the fulfilment of his wish to hit the jackpot will not change anything for the better.

For hard labourer or layabout, as long as the faults that cause suffering are constantly generating noise in the system, any thought of real, lasting happiness is but an illusion.


And yet in the world of ordinary people, among labourers and layabouts, one does see sporadic outbreaks of apparent happiness, from the satisfaction of a job well done to the air-punching elation of a number that came up. How can we account for this?

When a faulty person feels happy, it is not that the faults have been eradicated, even for a moment: it is just that the underlying noise arising from faults has been temporarily drowned out. We see this happening under the influence of drink or drugs, for example. Subjectively the drunk feels like a million dollars and feels confident in his driving ability, but the feeling is unreliable: objectively the drunk looks in bad shape and is a menace on the roads.

The way that FM Alexander saw it was that if a person’s manner of using himself is bad, he might feel happy, due to “faulty sensory appreciation“ or “debauched kinesthesia,” but the feeling is unreliable.

Because my kinesthesia is still, more than 30 years after first stepping into a dojo and bowing, more or less debauched, whatever I do is liable to produce harmful side effects, i.e. suffering. If I just sit with the body, that is just doing, and it is liable to produce suffering. Because just sitting with the body is doing, we oppose it by the mental work (sometimes called ‘mindfulness’) of not reacting to that stimulus but rather allowing a response to this stimulus. And as a result of both those kinds of effort, sitting with the body and sitting with the mind, sitting can be the dropping off of body and mind. This is not only my experience and not only Alexander’s wisdom: it is the wisdom which Buddha/Ashvaghosha are expressing here. It is the wisdom expressed in the previous verse by the word nivRtti, non-doing.

Each of us brings to the reading of this ancient Sanskrit text our own illusory thoughts and delusory feelings, and yet we somehow know, in spite of ourselves, that the text itself is gold of a very pure form. It is a purity of gold that may not have seen the light of day for many hundreds of years. That may be why Linda Covill, with her keen eye and ear for the appropriate metaphor, wrote of her happiness that this text is being given “a thorough airing.”

EH Johnston:
Men labour that they may avoid suffering and feel pleasure, and they do not understand that that pleasure of theirs is but surcease from excessive suffering.

Linda Covill:
People are stimulated to effortful activity by the thought that there might be no suffering and that they could be happy, unaware that their happiness is just the absence of major suffering.

VOCABULARY:
duHkham (accusative): suffering, hardship
na syaat (optative): there might not be
sukham (accusative): happiness, ease

me = genitive of aham: of me, for me
syaat (optative): there might be
iti: thus
prayatate = 3rd person singular of pra-√yat: strive, endeavour
janaH (nominative): person, people

atyanta: mfn. beyond the proper end or limit ; excessive , very great , very strong ; endless , unbroken , perpetual
duHkha: suffering
uparamam (accusative): m. cessation , stopping , expiration ; leaving off , desisting , giving up

sukham (accusative): happiness, ease
tat: that
ca: and
na: not
budhyate = 3rd person singular of budh: to wake , wake up , be awake ; perceive, realise

SAUNDARANANDA 16.32: Getting Rid of Illusions

satyeShu duHkh'-aadiShu dRShTir aaryaa
samyag vitarkash ca paraakramash ca
idaM triyaM jNaana-vidhau pravRttam
prajN"-aasrayam klesha-parikShayaaya.

16.32
Nobility of insight into the truths,
beginning with the truth of suffering,

Along with thinking straight, and initiative:

These three, forming the protocol on knowing,

Are for dissolution, based on wisdom, of afflictions.

COMMENT:
An affliction, klesha, in the context of this verse seems to mean what obstructs us from truly seeing what is. In this sense the word is very profoundly related, as I understand it, with what FM Alexander called faulty sensory appreciation.

Because I know that Alexander work is real and true -- it works -- in endeavoring to understand the real meaning of the recorded words of ancestors like Dogen, Ashvaghosha, and Gautama, I am mindful of the reailty and truth of Alexander work.

A real instance of an affliction might be malice. In that case, what is the real meaning of (1) insight, (2) thinking straight, and (3)initiative? How do those three actually work to dissolve the affliction of malice?

Insight might be to see malice as malice.

Thinking straight might be to come back to clarity in regard to what one really wants, which is not to be poisoned by malice, but to be, along with all living beings, free from suffering. In Alexander work that wish is sometimes expressed by the words, "I wish to let the neck be free to let the head go forward and up."

Initiative seems to become a very great stumbling block. With too much of it, the practitioner ends up trying to make the head go forward and up, which only creates more tension. With too little initiative, the practitioner only thinks the word "let" but fails actually to allow anything, fails actually to direct the flow of his energy, fails either to piss or get off the pot. This, I think, is what Marjorie Barstow is discussing on this video clip.
Another kind of initiative which may be taken as an antidote to malice, as indicated by Ashvaghosha in verse 16.62, is consciously to introduce into the situation some goodwill that one genuinely feels for, say, a friend, teacher, or relative.
Again, my old teacher Marjory Barlow's oft-repeated exhortation that being ready to be wrong is "the golden key," is pointing the way to a kind of initiative. A positive will to see one's own faults, a genuine appetite for finding out where things tend to go wrong, is all part of initiative as I see it. (Religious and political groups, needless to say, tend in precisely the opposite direction of denial, cover-up, suppressing history, spin-doctoring, et cetera.)

One affliction in particular that I am acutely mindful of is a misconception about sitting posture that has invaded the world of Japanese Zen, arising from a certain rigidity of outlook, a certain formalism, a certain lack of capacity for originality and initiative, that has characterized Japanese culture since even before the time of Master Dogen.

That Japanese misconception about "correct sitting posture," I am afraid, is both a symptom and a cause of trouble. I was at fault ever to get involved in it in the first place, and I was stupid to expect people of scant initiative to be grateful to me for pointing out their cherished misconception.

A misconception is something that has no substance and yet it can really cause a lot of trouble. Even though it has no substance, it is not easy to get rid of.

As one truly wise person observed a long time ago:
"The most difficult things to get rid of are the ones that don't exist."

VOCABULARY:
satyeShu = locative, plural of satya: truth
duHkha: suffering
aadiShu = locative, plural of aadi: beginning with
dRShTiH = nominative, singular of dRShTi: (f.) seeing , viewing , beholding (also with the mental eye); sight , the faculty of seeing; the mind's eye , wisdom , intelligence; (with Buddhists) a wrong view
aaryaa (feminine, agreeing with drShti): noble; (with Buddhists, a man who has thought on the four chief truths of Buddhism and lives accordingly); behaving like an Aryan , worthy of one , honourable , respectable , noble;

samyak: true, full, straight
vitarkaH = nominative, singular of vitarka: thought, reasoning
ca: and
paraakramaH = nominative, singular of paraakrama: bold advance , attack , heroism , courage , power , strength , energy , exertion , enterprise
ca: and

idam (nom. sg. n.): this
triyam (nom. sg.): n. three, triad, threesome
jNana: knowing
vidhau (loc.): protocol
pravRttam(nom. sg. n.) : rolled out, produced, formed

prajNaa: wisdom; intuitive wisdom
aasrayam (nom. sg. n.): forming a basis
klesha: affliction ; worldly occupation , care , trouble
parikShayaaya = dative of parikShaya: disappearing, ceasing, dissolution, decay, destruction


EH Johnston:
The noble doctrine with respect to the Truths regarding suffering etc, right thought and exertion, these three, resting on intuitive wisdom should be practised in the department of knowledge for the abolition of the vices.

Linda Covill:
The noble doctrine concerning the Truths of suffering etc., as well as right thought and right effort -- these three occur in the ordinance on knowledge, and are a basis for wisdom in order that one's defilements may be annihilated.