SAUNDARANANDA 16.50: When & How to Milk a Cow

a-jaata-vatsaaM yadi gaaM duhiita
n' aaiv' aapnuyaat kShiiram a-kaala-dohii
kaale' pi vaa syaan na payo labheta
mohena shRNgaad yadi gaaM duhiita

16.50
If a cow is milked before her calf is born,

Milking at the wrong time might yield no milk.

Or even at the right time no milk might be got

If, through ignorance, a cow were milked by the horn.

COMMENT:
In this metaphor, the aim is to get milk. The end to be gained is milk. In order to gain the end, both the timing and the method of milking have to be right.

With regard to timing, Zen Master Dogen said a quiet place is good for sitting-dhyana. That is one of the first rules of sitting-dhyana. But when one endures living in a noisy place like the centre of Tokyo or the South-east of England there are times -- maybe in the early light of dawn, or maybe on a moonlit winter night after a warming trip to the bath-house -- when everything can be surprisingly quiet. Conversely, sometimes one goes to a supposedly quiet place like a forest and a stubbly Frenchman comes along with a big chainsaw. So experience confirms that finding quiet circumstances which are conducive to coming back to oneself, and conducive to forgetting oneself, is largely a question of timing.

With regard to method, the analogy of milking a cow by the horn sounds too absurd. But experience as an Alexander teacher confirms that a lot of people have a lot of conceptions about 'correct posture' and 'correct breathing' which are no less absurd than milking a cow by her horn.

The basic misconception people have is that we can intervene directly with our big neo-cortex to make our posture and breathing better. I have certainly wasted a lot of time and energy over the years trying to do just that. I still have a tendency to do that, but the tendency was especially strong before Alexander work began to give me an inkling of the difference between doing vs non-doing, or sitting with the body vs sitting with the mind.

Striving for freedom by pulling the chin back and down in order to stretch the back of the neck, in the expectation that this will cause the autonomic nervous system to become balanced... if one is able to really look into this conception in a detached manner, is too absurd for words. But because we feel right doing the absurd thing we have learned to do, we tend to like to carry on doing it regardless -- especially when like-minded people come together to encourage each other to keep carrying on like this.

This is how I was in Japan, just like a man happily milking a cow by the horn, as if to say, "I don't care whether or not I get any milk. I am happy just to follow this means, which is like polishing a tile, free of all anxiety about making a mirror."

Actually, there is a kind of happiness in carrying on like this. It is the bliss of ignorance. And because ignorance has a kind of bliss in it, even after it has begun to release its grip, it still retains a certain pull.

Walking away from ignorance, and giving up ignorance, is no bed of roses. Still, when ignorance is given up (not just by kidding oneself with one's intellect but really given up), then something releases, something is allowed to flow. "When we let go, it has already filled the hands," as Dogen wrote.

So Ashvaghosha's point here, as I understand it, is that it is necessary to give up ignorance in order to get milk. And at the same time the giving up of ignorance, if only for a moment, might be milk itself.

VOCABULARY:
a-jaata: not yet born
vatsa: calf
yadi: if, when
gaaM = accusative of go: cow
duhiita (past participle from duh): milked, being milked

na: not
eva: emphatic
aapnuyaat (3rd person singular, present optative of aap): it might reach, obtain, yield
kShiiram (acc.): milk
a-kaala: the wrong time
dohii = nominative, singular of dohin: milking

kaale (locative): at the right time
api: even
vaa: or
syaan (3rd person singular, present optative of as): it might be
na: not
payaH = acc. sg. payas: n. any fluid or juice, (especially) milk
labheta = past participle of labh: to get, gain, obtain

mohena = instrumental of moha: delusion , error , folly, ignorance
shRNgaad = ablative of shRNga: the horn of an animal
yadi: when, if
gaaM = accusative of go: cow
duhiita (past participle from duh): milked, being milked

EH Johnston:
For if a man should milk a cow which has not calved, he would not obtain milk, because he would be milking at the wrong season ; or again, given the right season, he would not obtain milk if through ignorance he were to milk a cow by the horn.

Linda Covill:
A man milking a cow at the wrong time, when her calf is not yet born, will get no milk; and even at the right time, he would get no milk if, in ignorance, he were to milk her by the horn.

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.