kShem"-aajito nandaka-nanda-maataav
upaali-vaagisha-yasho-yashodaaH
mahaahvayo valkali-raaShTrapaalau
sudarshana-svaagata-meghikaash ca
16.89
Kshema, Ajita, the mothers of Nandaka and Nanda,
Upali, Vagisha, Yashas, Yashoda,
Mahahvaya, Valkalin, Rashtra-pala,
Sudarshana, Svagata and Meghika,
COMMENT:
These 14 individuals are the 28th through 41st names on the list of 60-odd true individuals who made into their own possession those four noble truths that begin with suffering.
Better known names on this list include Ajita and Upali, one of the ten major disciples of the Buddha.
Apropos the present themes of true individuality and unshakeable confidence, here are two quotes about teaching the FM Alexander Technique, taken from Forward and Away, the recently published memoirs of Alexander teacher Elisabeth Walker.
First a piece of advice to Alexander teachers:
"Collect the truth into yourselves. Don't try and be like anyone else, or like F.M. Be yourself as a teacher."
Second an affirmation of true life after death, which has got nothing at all to do with optimism. It is a wonderful and exceptionally strong life-affirming last word from a 93-year old widow who early in life suffered the devastating loss of her first child, due to a tonsillectomy that went wrong:
"Teaching has been a most extraordinarily rewarding experience. Communication by touch is probably the most basic form of communication. And what is one communicating? The answer very simply is 'life.' This sounds a rather grand claim, but every teacher will bear me out. The pupil becomes 'alive' no matter whether he is stuck in a state of collapse or stuck in a condition of over-tension. But whether the pupil is aware of this greater aliveness or not, the teacher is, and this is what is most rewarding. Because one knows with absolute certainty that what one is communicating is good."
EH Johnston:
Ksema, Ajita, the mothers of Nandaka and Nanda, Upali, Vagisa, Yasas and Yasoda, Mahahvaya, Valkalin and Rastrapala, Sudarsana, Svagata and Meghika,
Linda Covill:
Kshema, Ajita, the mothers of Nandaka and Nanda, Upali, Vagisha, Yashas and Yashoda, Mahahvaya, Valkalin and Rashtra-pala, Sudarshana, Svagata and Meghika,
Showing posts with label individual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label individual. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 16.88: Bhaddali to Kotikarna
bhaddali-bhadraayaNa-sarpadaasa
subhuuti-godatta-sujaata-vatsaaH
saMgraamajid bhadrajid ashvajic ca
shroNash ca shoNash ca sa-koTikarNaH
16.88
Bhaddali, Bhadrayana, Sarpa-dasa,
Subhuti, Go-datta, Sujata, Vatsa,
Sangramajit, Bhadrajit, and Ashvajit,
Shrona and Shona Kotikarna,
COMMENT:
These twelve are the 16th to the 27th names in the list, including Subhuti, one of the ten major disciples.
A search in the Buddhist Dictionary of Pali Proper Names yields the following entry on Bhaddali:
When the Buddha, at Jetavana, laid down the rule that monks should eat one meal a day and that in the morning, Bhaddáli protested and refused to keep this rule because he said that, in so eating, he would be a prey to scruples and misgivings. For three months he avoided the Buddha, until, just before the Buddha was starting on a journey, Bhaddáli, acting on the advice of his fellow monks, confessed his fault to the Buddha and begged for forgiveness (M.i.437ff). The Buddha praised this action and preached to him the Bhaddáli Sutta (q.v.).
There is also an entry for Godatta.
This verse is simply a list of twelve autonomous individuals linked by the four noble truths that each had made his own, not primarily through philosophical understanding or group activity, but through finding for himself what the Buddha had found for himself: the truth of sitting in solitude without fixing or slumping, enuncumbered by greed, ill-will, ignorance or any lesser fault.
EH Johnston:
Bhaddali, Bhadrayana, Sarpadasa, Subhuti, Godatta, Sujata, Vatsa, Samgramajit, Bhadrajit, and Asvajit, Srona, Sona Kotikarna,
Linda Covill:
Bhaddali, Bhadrayana, Sarpa-dasa, Subhuti, Go-datta, Sujata, Vatsa, Sangramajit, Bhadrajit, and Ashvajit, Shrona, Shona Kotikarna,
subhuuti-godatta-sujaata-vatsaaH
saMgraamajid bhadrajid ashvajic ca
shroNash ca shoNash ca sa-koTikarNaH
16.88
Bhaddali, Bhadrayana, Sarpa-dasa,
Subhuti, Go-datta, Sujata, Vatsa,
Sangramajit, Bhadrajit, and Ashvajit,
Shrona and Shona Kotikarna,
COMMENT:
These twelve are the 16th to the 27th names in the list, including Subhuti, one of the ten major disciples.
A search in the Buddhist Dictionary of Pali Proper Names yields the following entry on Bhaddali:
When the Buddha, at Jetavana, laid down the rule that monks should eat one meal a day and that in the morning, Bhaddáli protested and refused to keep this rule because he said that, in so eating, he would be a prey to scruples and misgivings. For three months he avoided the Buddha, until, just before the Buddha was starting on a journey, Bhaddáli, acting on the advice of his fellow monks, confessed his fault to the Buddha and begged for forgiveness (M.i.437ff). The Buddha praised this action and preached to him the Bhaddáli Sutta (q.v.).
There is also an entry for Godatta.
This verse is simply a list of twelve autonomous individuals linked by the four noble truths that each had made his own, not primarily through philosophical understanding or group activity, but through finding for himself what the Buddha had found for himself: the truth of sitting in solitude without fixing or slumping, enuncumbered by greed, ill-will, ignorance or any lesser fault.
EH Johnston:
Bhaddali, Bhadrayana, Sarpadasa, Subhuti, Godatta, Sujata, Vatsa, Samgramajit, Bhadrajit, and Asvajit, Srona, Sona Kotikarna,
Linda Covill:
Bhaddali, Bhadrayana, Sarpa-dasa, Subhuti, Go-datta, Sujata, Vatsa, Sangramajit, Bhadrajit, and Ashvajit, Shrona, Shona Kotikarna,
Sunday, May 10, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 16.87: Kaundinya to Pilinda-vatsa
kaunNDinya-nanda-kRmil-aaniruddhaas
tiShy-opasenau vimalo 'tha raadhaH
vaaShp-ottarau dhautaki-moharaajau
kaatyaayana-dravya-pilindavatsaaH
16.87
Kaundinya, Nanda, Krimila, Aniruddha,
Tishya, Upasena, Vimala and Radha,
Vashpa, Uttara, Dhautaki, Moha-raja,
Katyayana, Dravya, Pilinda-vatsa
COMMENT:
Here are the first fifteen names in a list of sixty-two individuals, including both men and women, beginning with Kaundinya -- he of the Kaundina clan mentioned in verse 3.13.
What is the significance of these individual names being listed one by one?
Following on from the preceding verses, I think the Buddha is saying to Nanda: Don't take my word for it. Make the noble truths your own. Cut a path for yourself, as did Kaundinya, Nanda, Krimila, Aniruddha, Tishya, Upasena, Vimala and Radha, Vashpa, Uttara, Dhautaki, Moha-raja, Katyayana, Dravya, and Pilinda-vatsa.
The Nanda in this list is not the hero of Saundarananda to whom the Buddha is speaking but another Nanda, who was (according to the Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary) a cowherd before becoming a disciple of the Buddha.
Kaundinya, Aniruddha, and Katyayana are conventionally included in a list of ten great disciples.
Of the fifteeen individuals listed in this verse, then, history regarded three as particularly eminent. The Buddha did not nominate any of these fifteen as his successor, his Number One, and twelve of the fifteeen didn't even make it into the Top Ten.
Still, the Buddha cited these individuals as examples in encouraging his younger half-brother Nanda to be a true man of action, one in whose sitting a certain unshakability is expressed.
A deep sense in sitting of not being susceptible to being shaken by anything, is what I most treasure. I don't always have it, but those moments when I do have it, helped along by quiet circumstances and Mother Nature, I would not swap for anything. And without having experienced those moments, I certainly wouldn't dare to try to clarify Ashvaghosha's words like this.
To quote again from the passage I quoted yesterday in which Marjory Barlow described her uncle FM Alexander:
I'm not trying to make him out to be a Saint, because he was like all of us, but there was a certain integrity (and that is the exact word) and he was absolutely true to what he had discovered. Nothing could shake him on that. He knew. That was F.M.
What did FM know, with such unshakeable confidence? What unshakeable confidence is the Buddha exhorting Nanda to discover for himself? I think the essence of what the Buddha discovered for himself, and what FM discovered for himself, was that if a person is truly able just to sit, not doing the wrong thing, then the right thing has a strong tendency to do itself. This, I submit, is not "Alexander theory" any more than it is "true Buddhism." It is a discovery of a noble truth that is available for every individual to make for himself or for herself, in his or her own way.
Marjory Barlow records as follows how her uncle encouraged her to find her own truth, just as the Buddha encouraged Nanda more than 2,400 years before:
He used to say, "You've got to find your own way. Nobody can help you. You've got to find your own truth and follow it."
One of the most shaking things he ever said to me, early on, and which I've never forgotten, was, "You know there's nothing that you believe that is your own. There's nothing that you think that is your own. Everything you say and do is because of other people, the way you've been brought up. What you've got to do," he said, "is find out what is really yours in the way of what you think and what you believe."
What a task. I had no clue how to set about it, as I was very young of course, but I've never forgotten that. He was so inspiring, he really was. And he was wonderful to me because he never refused to answer my very immature questions. He knew I was so passionate to find out and we used to talk shop all the time when I was with him. But he would never tell me what to do. If I asked him his advice about something, that was different, but he would never say you shouldn't do this or that. Never. Because he really believed in the individual. He knew it was the only hope for real change -- the individual person.
EH Johnston:
Kaundinya, Nanda, Krimila and Aniruddha, Tisya and Upasena, Vimala and Radha, Vaspa, Uttara, Dhautaki and Moharaja, Katyayana, Dravya and Pilindavatsa
Linda Covill:
Kaundinya, Nanda, Krimila and Aniruddha, Tishya and Upasena, Vimala and Radha, Vashpa, Uttara, Dhautaki and Moha-raja, Katyayana, Dravya and Pilinda-vatsa
tiShy-opasenau vimalo 'tha raadhaH
vaaShp-ottarau dhautaki-moharaajau
kaatyaayana-dravya-pilindavatsaaH
16.87
Kaundinya, Nanda, Krimila, Aniruddha,
Tishya, Upasena, Vimala and Radha,
Vashpa, Uttara, Dhautaki, Moha-raja,
Katyayana, Dravya, Pilinda-vatsa
COMMENT:
Here are the first fifteen names in a list of sixty-two individuals, including both men and women, beginning with Kaundinya -- he of the Kaundina clan mentioned in verse 3.13.
What is the significance of these individual names being listed one by one?
Following on from the preceding verses, I think the Buddha is saying to Nanda: Don't take my word for it. Make the noble truths your own. Cut a path for yourself, as did Kaundinya, Nanda, Krimila, Aniruddha, Tishya, Upasena, Vimala and Radha, Vashpa, Uttara, Dhautaki, Moha-raja, Katyayana, Dravya, and Pilinda-vatsa.
The Nanda in this list is not the hero of Saundarananda to whom the Buddha is speaking but another Nanda, who was (according to the Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary) a cowherd before becoming a disciple of the Buddha.
Kaundinya, Aniruddha, and Katyayana are conventionally included in a list of ten great disciples.
Of the fifteeen individuals listed in this verse, then, history regarded three as particularly eminent. The Buddha did not nominate any of these fifteen as his successor, his Number One, and twelve of the fifteeen didn't even make it into the Top Ten.
Still, the Buddha cited these individuals as examples in encouraging his younger half-brother Nanda to be a true man of action, one in whose sitting a certain unshakability is expressed.
A deep sense in sitting of not being susceptible to being shaken by anything, is what I most treasure. I don't always have it, but those moments when I do have it, helped along by quiet circumstances and Mother Nature, I would not swap for anything. And without having experienced those moments, I certainly wouldn't dare to try to clarify Ashvaghosha's words like this.
To quote again from the passage I quoted yesterday in which Marjory Barlow described her uncle FM Alexander:
I'm not trying to make him out to be a Saint, because he was like all of us, but there was a certain integrity (and that is the exact word) and he was absolutely true to what he had discovered. Nothing could shake him on that. He knew. That was F.M.
What did FM know, with such unshakeable confidence? What unshakeable confidence is the Buddha exhorting Nanda to discover for himself? I think the essence of what the Buddha discovered for himself, and what FM discovered for himself, was that if a person is truly able just to sit, not doing the wrong thing, then the right thing has a strong tendency to do itself. This, I submit, is not "Alexander theory" any more than it is "true Buddhism." It is a discovery of a noble truth that is available for every individual to make for himself or for herself, in his or her own way.
Marjory Barlow records as follows how her uncle encouraged her to find her own truth, just as the Buddha encouraged Nanda more than 2,400 years before:
He used to say, "You've got to find your own way. Nobody can help you. You've got to find your own truth and follow it."
One of the most shaking things he ever said to me, early on, and which I've never forgotten, was, "You know there's nothing that you believe that is your own. There's nothing that you think that is your own. Everything you say and do is because of other people, the way you've been brought up. What you've got to do," he said, "is find out what is really yours in the way of what you think and what you believe."
What a task. I had no clue how to set about it, as I was very young of course, but I've never forgotten that. He was so inspiring, he really was. And he was wonderful to me because he never refused to answer my very immature questions. He knew I was so passionate to find out and we used to talk shop all the time when I was with him. But he would never tell me what to do. If I asked him his advice about something, that was different, but he would never say you shouldn't do this or that. Never. Because he really believed in the individual. He knew it was the only hope for real change -- the individual person.
EH Johnston:
Kaundinya, Nanda, Krimila and Aniruddha, Tisya and Upasena, Vimala and Radha, Vaspa, Uttara, Dhautaki and Moharaja, Katyayana, Dravya and Pilindavatsa
Linda Covill:
Kaundinya, Nanda, Krimila and Aniruddha, Tishya and Upasena, Vimala and Radha, Vashpa, Uttara, Dhautaki and Moha-raja, Katyayana, Dravya and Pilinda-vatsa
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 16.69: Constructive Prescription for the Individual
yathaa bhiShak pitta-kaph'aanilaanaaM
ya eva kopaM samupaiti doShaH
shamaaya tasy' aiva vidhiM vidhatte
vyadhatta doSheShu tath" aiva buddha
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:
COMMENT:
“I drive a gold Rolls-Royce, ‘cuz it’s good for my voice,” sang Marc Bolan circa 1970. I like that lyric. Everybody should do WHATEVER it is that causes his or her original features to appear.
I have a friend who is a homeopath and who tends to observe the individual peculiarities of others in an interested but non-judgemental way, through the eyes of a homeopath. People who are familiar with the principles of homeopathy will know what I mean. If you are a drill-and-fill dentist who believes in amalgam fillings for all, then you will wonder what the hell I am talking about.
When FM Alexander was searching for a title for his second book, he came up with: Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual. Somebody complained that it was a bit of a mouthful, and so how about dropping the last three words? “Oh no!” FM protested, “Don’t you see? That is the most important part!”
This and the previous verse are not in the form of a quotation of the Buddha’s instruction. These two verses are Ashvaghosha himself speaking.
In this verse Ashvaghosha seems to me to drive home the point made in the 3rd and 4th line of the previous verse, that the Buddha knew Nanda, as an individual person, inside and out. The Buddha knew Nanda’s peculiarities and his personal history, and the Buddha instructed Nanda on that individual basis.
The thrust of Ashvaghosha’s message, it seems to me, is totally antithetical to what Master Kodo Sawaki called gurupo boke, “group delusion.”
Master Kodo, by all accounts, was himself a very unique individual. The fact that I know, not only on the basis of the Sanskrit dictionary but also with my skin, flesh, bones and marrow, that nimitta does not mean either “subject of meditation” or “meditational technique,” is mainly thanks to Master Kodo -- a man who was truly not interested in meditation and who, I think, was never afraid to be seen by Buddhist scholars, Buddhist monks and Buddhist students as a non-Buddhist. When he felt like a swim, into his swimming costume the old man changed and into the sea he went -- and I have seen the photo to prove it. If driving a gold Rolls-Royce had been good for his voice, I have a feeling Master Kodo might have driven one.
Master Kodo was a truly remarkable individual, and all the more so considering that he was born into Japanese society -- that most conformist of all societies. In a previous post, I expressed criticism of Master Kodo, because I think a lot of bad, doing habits (viz. pulling in the chin to stretch the back of the neck) are traceable back to his wrong instructions. I don’t retract those criticisms. But at the same time, I think Master Kodo was a true individual.
In this verse, “disorder of the humours” and “faults” are the same word: dosha. The faults referred to in the 4th line seem to refer back to the lust, ill-will and delusion that the Buddha has just discussed -- i.e. the three gross faults -- and at the same time to refer forward to the subtler patterns of negative mental chatter that the Buddha is about to discuss.
EH Johnston:
As the physician prescribes the treatment for the cure of disease according to which one of the three humours it is that has become deranged, so the Buddha prescribed the treatment for the faults :-
Linda Covill:
Just as a doctor prescribes a treatment to alleviate whichever among the humors of bile, phlegm, and wind has become irritated, so too has the Buddha prescribed concerning the faults.
VOCABULARY:
yathaa: just as
bhiShak = nom. sg. bhiShaj: m. a healer, physician
pitta: bile, the bilious humour
kapha: phlegm
aanilaanaam = genitive, plural of anila: wind as one of the humors or rasas of the body; rheumatism , paralysis , or any affection referred to disorder of the wind
yah (nominative, singular): [that] which
eva: (emphatic)
kopam (acc. sg.): m. morbid irritation or disorder of the humors of the body
samupaiti = 3rd person singular, sam-upa- √i: to approach, go to (acc.); to occur , happen , appear
doShaH = nominative, singular doSha: m. fault , vice , deficiency , want , inconvenience ; alteration , affection , morbid element , disease (esp. of the 3 humours of the body, applied also to the humours themselves)
shamaaya (dative of shama): for the appeasing, curing
tasya (genitive of sa): of it, of that [disorder]
eva: (emphatic) the same, that very
vidhim = accusative of vidhi: any prescribed act, instruction, formula, method, course
vidhatte = from vidh (weak form of √vyadh): to rule, prescribe
vyadhatta: prescribed
doSheShu = locative, plural of doSha: fault, imbalance, disorder
tath"aiva: so too
buddha (voc. sg. m.): O Buddha! O Awakened One!
ya eva kopaM samupaiti doShaH
shamaaya tasy' aiva vidhiM vidhatte
vyadhatta doSheShu tath" aiva buddha
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:
COMMENT:
“I drive a gold Rolls-Royce, ‘cuz it’s good for my voice,” sang Marc Bolan circa 1970. I like that lyric. Everybody should do WHATEVER it is that causes his or her original features to appear.
I have a friend who is a homeopath and who tends to observe the individual peculiarities of others in an interested but non-judgemental way, through the eyes of a homeopath. People who are familiar with the principles of homeopathy will know what I mean. If you are a drill-and-fill dentist who believes in amalgam fillings for all, then you will wonder what the hell I am talking about.
When FM Alexander was searching for a title for his second book, he came up with: Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual. Somebody complained that it was a bit of a mouthful, and so how about dropping the last three words? “Oh no!” FM protested, “Don’t you see? That is the most important part!”
This and the previous verse are not in the form of a quotation of the Buddha’s instruction. These two verses are Ashvaghosha himself speaking.
In this verse Ashvaghosha seems to me to drive home the point made in the 3rd and 4th line of the previous verse, that the Buddha knew Nanda, as an individual person, inside and out. The Buddha knew Nanda’s peculiarities and his personal history, and the Buddha instructed Nanda on that individual basis.
The thrust of Ashvaghosha’s message, it seems to me, is totally antithetical to what Master Kodo Sawaki called gurupo boke, “group delusion.”
Master Kodo, by all accounts, was himself a very unique individual. The fact that I know, not only on the basis of the Sanskrit dictionary but also with my skin, flesh, bones and marrow, that nimitta does not mean either “subject of meditation” or “meditational technique,” is mainly thanks to Master Kodo -- a man who was truly not interested in meditation and who, I think, was never afraid to be seen by Buddhist scholars, Buddhist monks and Buddhist students as a non-Buddhist. When he felt like a swim, into his swimming costume the old man changed and into the sea he went -- and I have seen the photo to prove it. If driving a gold Rolls-Royce had been good for his voice, I have a feeling Master Kodo might have driven one.
Master Kodo was a truly remarkable individual, and all the more so considering that he was born into Japanese society -- that most conformist of all societies. In a previous post, I expressed criticism of Master Kodo, because I think a lot of bad, doing habits (viz. pulling in the chin to stretch the back of the neck) are traceable back to his wrong instructions. I don’t retract those criticisms. But at the same time, I think Master Kodo was a true individual.
In this verse, “disorder of the humours” and “faults” are the same word: dosha. The faults referred to in the 4th line seem to refer back to the lust, ill-will and delusion that the Buddha has just discussed -- i.e. the three gross faults -- and at the same time to refer forward to the subtler patterns of negative mental chatter that the Buddha is about to discuss.
EH Johnston:
As the physician prescribes the treatment for the cure of disease according to which one of the three humours it is that has become deranged, so the Buddha prescribed the treatment for the faults :-
Linda Covill:
Just as a doctor prescribes a treatment to alleviate whichever among the humors of bile, phlegm, and wind has become irritated, so too has the Buddha prescribed concerning the faults.
VOCABULARY:
yathaa: just as
bhiShak = nom. sg. bhiShaj: m. a healer, physician
pitta: bile, the bilious humour
kapha: phlegm
aanilaanaam = genitive, plural of anila: wind as one of the humors or rasas of the body; rheumatism , paralysis , or any affection referred to disorder of the wind
yah (nominative, singular): [that] which
eva: (emphatic)
kopam (acc. sg.): m. morbid irritation or disorder of the humors of the body
samupaiti = 3rd person singular, sam-upa- √i: to approach, go to (acc.); to occur , happen , appear
doShaH = nominative, singular doSha: m. fault , vice , deficiency , want , inconvenience ; alteration , affection , morbid element , disease (esp. of the 3 humours of the body, applied also to the humours themselves)
shamaaya (dative of shama): for the appeasing, curing
tasya (genitive of sa): of it, of that [disorder]
eva: (emphatic) the same, that very
vidhim = accusative of vidhi: any prescribed act, instruction, formula, method, course
vidhatte = from vidh (weak form of √vyadh): to rule, prescribe
vyadhatta: prescribed
doSheShu = locative, plural of doSha: fault, imbalance, disorder
tath"aiva: so too
buddha (voc. sg. m.): O Buddha! O Awakened One!
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