BUDDHACARITA 11.7: Facing the Terror of Ageing & Dying

⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−   Upajāti (Mālā)

ahaṁ jarā-mtyu-bhayaṁ viditvā mumukṣayā dharmam-imaṁ prapannaḥ |

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bandhūn-priyān-aśru-mukhān vihāya prāg-eva kāmān-aśubhasya hetūn || 11.7

11.7

Having become aware of the terror of ageing and dying,

I with desire for release have taken to this dharma,

Leaving behind beloved tear-faced relatives –

Still more have I left behind desires, the causes of mischief!

COMMENT:

In the 2^nd pāda of today's verse dharmam-imam means the dharma of a wandering mendicant who has gone forth seeking freedom. In this context, then, the masculine noun dharma seems to express a way or path of practice. EBC translates “this path of religion”; EHJ and PO “this dharma.”

Also in the 2^nd pāda mumukṣayā is the instrumental form of the noun from the desiderative of  √muc, to let go or release. So mumukṣayā means “with desire for release.”

Then by translating mumukṣayā as “with desire for release” and kāmān-aśubhasya hetūn as “desires, the causes of mischief,” I have either created the impression of an inconsistency of logic which Aśvaghoṣa did not intend to imply, or else I have highlighted an irony of which Aśvaghoṣa was well aware.

EBC translated mumukṣayā as “in my desire for liberation”; EHJ as “out of longing for salvation” and PO as “seeking release”; but all three professors avoided translating kāmān in the 4^th pāda as “desires” (EBC: those pleasures which are the causes of evil; EHJ: the passions, the causes of evil; PO: pleasures that cause evil).

I think Aśvaghoṣa was very well aware of the kind of irony that was inherent when the bodhisattva, in his desire for freedom, condemned desires. 

It is the kind of irony that has confronted blokes through the ages on their wedding nights, when, in the context of wishing to consummate their sexual desire, they have been impeded in the consummation of their desire by the very desire to consummate their desire. 

A similar irony is observed in Alexander work, over and over again, whereby a person's desire to perform any task well gets in the way of that task being allowed to perform itself.

In this situation, there is basically nothing that anybody can do for the better. But there is a lot that to be observed, wih the kind of reflective awareness that the Buddha called sati (in Pali) or smṛti (in Sanskrit) and which is now very much in vogue as the practice of "mindfulness." 

On the subject of observing what is to be observed, with regard to desire, a leading protege of FM Alexander named Walter Carrington said:

"Non-doing is, above all, an attitude of mind. It's a wish [or a desire]. It's a decision to leave everything alone and see what goes on, see what happens. Your breathing and your circulation and your postural mechanisms are all working and taking over. The organism is functioning in its automatic way, and you are doing nothing.... If you're going to succeed in doing nothing, you must exercise control over your thinking processes. You must really wish [desire] to do nothing. If you're thinking anxious, worried thoughts, if you're thinking exciting thoughts that are irrelevant to the situation at hand, you stir up responses in your body that are not consistent with doing nothing. It's not a matter of just not moving--that can lead to fixing or freezing--it's a matter of really leaving yourself alone and letting everything just happen and take over.... This is what we're aiming at [desiring] in an Alexander lesson, and if we're wise, and we understand, it's also what we aim at [desire] in our own practice of non-doing. It is something that requires practice. Like most other things in life, it isn't something that you can achieve by simply wishing [desiring] to do so, by just thinking, 'Well, I will now leave myself alone and not do anything.' Unfortunately, it doesn't work out like that. The whole process requires a lot of practice, and a lot of observation. Out of this process a tremendous lot of experience is to be gained..."

Apropos of understanding that non-doing is a wish -- or maybe stronger than a wish --  I once said to another veteran Alexander teacher named Nelly Ben-Or, "It is a wish, isn't it?" Her memorable reply was that yes, it is a wish, but it is a wish that won't take No for an answer! 

A final reflection is that the terror of ageing and dying (jarā-mṛtyu-bhayam) would seem at first glance to relate to the 12^th in the 12 links that the Buddha investigated, in forward and backward directions, under the bodhi tree. But when I examined myself sitting in lotus this morning, it seemed to me that the 1^st in the 12 links, ignorance (avidyā), is intimately and profoundly related with what FM Alexander called “faulty sensory appreciation.” And faulty sensory appreciation is profoundly and intimately related with what Alexander called “unduly excited fear reflexes and emotions” – or, in a word, terror.

That may sound absurd. Just sitting in the quiet of a rainy morning, what is there to be terrified of? 

Even when there is nothing outwardly to be afraid of, deep below the surface what may be operating in some of us, almost all the time, is fear of fear itself. In which case, Complete Springing Up, by going back (pratītya-samutpāda), has to be much  more than an intellectual exercise. It has to be a function of development. Its rightful basis might be what the Buddha, Aśvaghoṣa and Nāgārjuna called bhāvana.

VOCABULARY

aham (nom. sg. m.): I

jarā-mṛtyu-bhayam (acc. sg.): the terror of aging and death

viditvā = abs. vid: to know , understand , perceive , learn , become or be acquainted with , be conscious of , have a correct notion of (with acc.)

mumukṣayā (inst. sg.): f. the desire for release

dharmam (acc. sg.): m. dharma ; that which is established or firm , steadfast decree , statute , ordinance , law; usage , practice , customary observance or prescribed conduct , duty ; the law or doctrine of Buddhism (as distinguished from the saṅgha or monastic order)

imam (acc. sg. m.): this

prapannaḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. arrived at , come to (śaraṇam , for protection) , got into (any condition)

pra- √ pad: to fall or drop down from (abl.) , throw one's self down (at a person's feet) ; to go forwards set out for , resort to , arrive at , attain , enter (with acc. ); to fly to for succour , take refuge with (acc.) ; to come to a partic. state or condition , incur , undergo (acc.)

bandhūn (acc. pl.): m. connection, relation ; a kinsman (esp. on the mother's side) , relative , kindred

priyān (acc. pl. m.): mfn. fond, beloved

aśru-mukhān (acc. pl. m.): tear-faced

vihāya = abs. vihā: to leave behind

prāk: ind. before the eyes; at first , formerly , previously , already ; still more

eva (emphatic)

kāmān (acc. pl. m.): desires, sensual pleasures

aśubhasya (gen. sg.): n. a shameful deed , sin ; m. misfortune , harm , mischief.

hetūn (acc. pl. m.): causes

畏生老病死 欲求眞解脱
捨親離恩愛 豈還習五欲

BUDDHACARITA 11.6: Intending to Express Nothing But the Truth

⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−   Upajāti (Mālā)

suhttayā cāryatayā ca rājan khalv-eṣa yo mām-prati niścayas-te |

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atrānuneṣyāmi suhttayaiva brūyām-ahaṁ nottaram-anyad-atra || 11.6

11.6

With nothing but friendship and nobility, O king!

Comes this resolution of yours towards me.

Conciliation, in this situation,

I too shall express with friendship plain and simple.

No other response, in this situation, could I express.

COMMENT:

If I look for a four-phased progression in today's verse, I see it in the expression of

1. true motivation,

2. clear intention,

3. appropriate action, and

4. negation of anything other than the straight expression of the truth.

In the wider context, I think Aśvaghoṣa is making it clear that in the verses that follow the bodhisattva is going to tell it just as he sees it. So if we want to know what the thoughts of a bodhisattva were, such that the Buddha-to-be was led to be the Buddha, it is fortunate for us that King Bimbisāra addressed the bodhisattva as frankly as he did, thus causing the bodhisattva to come straight out with what was on his own mind.

But it might also be possible to read the 4^th pāda of today's verse as suggesting non-verbal expression of the truth.

In MMK2.1, Nāgārjuna writes of the Buddha teaching

pratītya-samutpādaṁ prapañcopaśamaṁ śivam

Springing Up by going back, as the wholesome cessation of spin.

The second half of today's verse, as I read it, is pointing towards what Nāgārjuna called prapañcopaśamaṁ śivam, the wholesome cessation of spin. Prapañca (spin) is given in the dictionary as amplification, prolixity, diffuseness, copiousness; and also as deceit, trick, fraud.

Somebody as economical with words as Aśvaghoṣa was (so that my English invariably occupies more of the page than the romanized transcription of his Sanskrit), can hardly be accused of prolixity. But his words are, by his own admission, with all their layers of hidden meaning, full of deceit and trickery – perhaps because that it is in the very nature of words.

So I think that what Nāgārjuna wanted to suggest by pratītya-samutpāda was not only the verbal statement of twelvefold linkage. 

I read Springing Up by going back as a suggestion of the ultimate cessation of spin, which is manifested when a person sits in the full lotus posture, without saying any words, and totally drops off body and mind.

It may be that, in the final analysis, no other sort of response will do.

Speaking of pratītya-samutpāda, I spent yesterday afternoon studying the penultimate chapter of MMK, which ends with the following two verses:

avidyāyāṁ niruddhāyāṁ saṁskārāṇām asaṁbhavaḥ |

avidyāyā nirodhas tu jñānenāsyaiva bhāvanāt ||11||

26.11

With the cessation of ignorance

There is the the non-occurrence of [neural] formations.

But this very cessation of ignorance,

By an act of knowing, follows from Working at Development.

tasya tasya nirodhena tat-tan nābhipravartate |

duḥkha-skandhaḥ kevalo 'yam evaṁ samyaṅ nirudhyate ||12||

26.12

By the ceasing of this one and of that one,

This one no longer advances and that one no longer advances.

This whole mass of suffering

In this way is well and truly destroyed.

Nāgārjuna's teaching around the twelve links is thus not pointing his reader to any kind of fathoming of “dependent origination” by intellectual thought. Nāgārjuna's teaching, as might have been expected from a Zen patriarch, is ultimately pointing us back to a round black cushion, seat of what the Indian patriarchs called bhāvana, which means something like Bringing into Being, or Meditation, or Meditation Work, or Mental Development, or Training, or Work on the Self, or Developmental Work. 

I have provisionally translated bhāvana above as “Working at Development,” which is still not totally satisfactory. Bhāvana is an -na neuter action noun, and so an -ing ending in English might be approrpiate. At the same time I would like to find a translation that somehow conveys the sense of Work on the Self, as well as the sense of Development.

Of course I am prejudiced by the fact that my investigations to date have caused me to be interested in

(a)  the teaching of FM Alexander, which he called “the Work,” and in which “work on the self” is often referred to; and 

(b) a field sometimes called “neuro-developmental therapy” in which is recognized the role of immature vestibular reflexes in impeding human development, in the classroom, in the playground, and beyond.

In my defence, however, the reason I came back to England and trained as an Alexander teacher and as a neuro-developmental therapist was because it became obvious to me while I was in Japan that the problem I feel I was put on this earth to solve my Zen teacher had not in fact solved. He sometimes seemed to think he had solved it, but he demonstrated to me by his ignorance in the matter of “right posture” that he had not in fact solved it.

After all these years of not being totally satisfied with any living teacher, in recent weeks and months I have had a growing sense of being pointed by dead teachers like the Buddha, via the Pali suttas, and by Aśvaghoṣa and by Nāgārjuna via their own writings in Sanskrit, in particular towards the teaching of pratītya-samutpāda, or Springing Up by going back.

My own Zen teacher understood well that the essence of the Buddha's teaching was contained, plainly and simply, not in words but in that act which is both an act of sitting and an act of wordless knowing. My own Zen teacher also understood and taught that this act of sitting/knowing was in essence a backward step – back in the direction of what he called “balance of the autonomic nervous system.”

But samutpāda, lit. “Springing Up Together,” suggests to me something spontaneous along the lines practised and experienced in Alexander work, and not something forced along the lines taught by recent generations of Zen masters of Japan, with the pulling in of this and the pushing out of that. In the past I  have joined others in worshipping at the shrine of Master Kodo Sawaki, who was a famously frank man, by no means a purveyor of spin. But I dare say that in the matter of right posture Master Kodo also was not entirely free of ignorance... and certainly not in his early teaching years. 

What I am doing here is showing you my workings. I haven't solved the problem yet to my own satisfaction.

At primary school I was precocious when it came to solving problems. I somehow got it into my head at an early age that I was here on this earth to solve a big problem for everybody's benefit. But if the problem is total destruction of this whole mass of human suffering, I most certainly have not solved the problem yet – not even by continuing to practise sitting-meditation four times a day in light of Alexander's discoveries, and in light of developing understanding of the importance of primitive vestibular reflexes.

My strong hunch, however, is that Gautama the Buddha, and the 12^th patriarch in his lineage Aśvaghoṣa, along with the 14^th patriarch in his lineage Nāgārjuna, were three human beings who did solve the problem totally. And even though Aśvaghoṣa's own description of the twelve links in BC Canto 14 has been lost, it is evident that those three teachers all regarded the teaching of pratītya-samutpāda, Springing Up by going back, as very vital.

The thing for which I have thirsted most in my fifty-odd years is my teacher's affirmation that, yes, I solved the big problem. I suppose that is what both of us were hoping for, and maybe even expecting – that I would succeed in solving the big problem and he would be able to recognize it. But sadly he lost his marbles and died already, and I still haven't totally solved the problem yet. 

One thing I do see, however, is that thirsting is one of the twelve links, and that the cessation of thirsting does not mean the elimination of desire. No. The cessation of thirsting is rather represented by the teaching of alpecchu, wanting little, small desire. 

So if I could only solve the problem of destruction of the whole mass of human suffering, even without being able to receive the affirmation that I craved from my teacher, I think in the end I might settle for that. 

VOCABULARY

suhṛttayā (inst. sg.): f. friendship, friendliness, affection

ca: and

āryatayā (inst. sg.): f. honourable behaviour

ca: and

rājan (voc. sg.): m. O king!

khalu: ind. (as a particle of asseveration) indeed , verily , certainly , truly

eṣaḥ (nom. sg. m.): this

yaḥ (nom. sg. m.): which

mām (acc. sg. m.): me

prati: ind. towards

niścayaḥ (nom. sg.): m. inquiry , ascertainment , fixed opinion , conviction , certainty ; resolution , resolve, fixed intention , design , purpose , aim

te (gen. sg.): your

atra: ind. in this matter , in this respect ; in this place , here at this time , there , then

anuneṣyāmi = 1^st pers. sg. anu- √ nī: to bring near , lead to ; to induce , win over , conciliate , pacify , supplicate.

anunaya: m. conciliation , salutation , courtesy , civility , showing respect or adoration to a guest or a deity ; humble entreaty or supplication , reverential deportment

suhṛttayā (inst. sg.): f. friendship, friendliness

eva: (emphatic)

brūyām = 1^st pers. sg. optative brū: to speak, say ; to answer

aham (nom. sg. m.): I

na: not

uttaram (acc. sg.): n. answer , reply

anyat (acc. sg. n.): other, different

atra: ind. in this matter , in this respect ; in this place , here at this time , there , then

既知汝厚懷 不爲違逆論
且今以所見 率心而相告

BUDDHACARITA 11.5: Aśvaghoṣa Speaks of Buddhas' Commitment to Friends and to Dharma (Not to a Buddhist Samgha)

−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−   Upajāti (Sālā)

evaṁ ca ye dravyam-avāpya loke mitreṣu dharme ca niyojayanti |

⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−

avāpta-sārāṇi dhanāni teṣāṁ bhraṣṭāni nānte janayanti tāpam || 11.5

11.5

And, having obtained riches in the world,

Those who in this way commit their riches to friends and to dharma,

Have made the most of their resources –

Whose dissipation, in the end, generates no grief.

COMMENT:

When I was young and even more impressionable than I am now, I read in a book on Zazen that a good way of understanding a religion is by its objects of worship, and so Buddhism has three objects of worship – Buddha, Dharma, and Samgha.

Ten or so years later the person who wrote the book, by that time my teacher, would tell me that he had changed his mind; Buddhism was not a religion but a philosophy. Since at the time I was busting a gut to translate Shobogenzo for him, this distinction didn't strike me as such a big deal. But my teacher seemed at the time to think it was a big deal.

Later still, my teacher started calling some people “Venerable So and So” and others “Mr. So and So” according to a criterion that was not entirely objective – causing me acutely to reflect that, truly, whether Buddhism is a religion or not, I fucking love science.

Perhaps my own experiences have left me with a prejudice against Zen Buddhism in particular and against religion in general that is not entirely rational.

But from where I sit now the Buddha's teaching is no more a religion or a philosophy than the teaching of FM Alexander is a religion or a philosophy. Still less should the Buddha's teaching be called any kind of -ism.

The Buddha's teaching is a teaching, the Buddha's teaching. What the Buddha taught has been called, from the Buddha's time down to today, the Dharma, the Buddha-Dharma.

So naturally enough, in the writing of Aśvaghoṣa, who was writing only 12 generations after the Buddha, we find many occurences of  the Sanskrit word buddha and very many occurrences – almost countless occurrences – of the Sanskrit word dharma.

As I have commented before, however, nowhere does Aśvaghoṣa use the word saṁgha in the conventional sense of “a Buddhist community” or “a religious community.”

There must be a reason for this. It could not have been merely an oversight on Aśvaghoṣa's part.

I think the reason relates to the recognition or realization that my teacher had, in his own period of most robust prosperity, that the Buddha's teaching is not a religion. 

Which is to say that since the Buddha's teaching is not a religion, it might generally not be helpful to think in terms of there being a Buddhist religious community that deserves to be worshipped.

So in a verse like today's verse, as I read it, Aśvaghoṣa is rather discussing buddha, dharma, and samgha without mentioning either buddha or samgha by those names.

Aśvaghoṣa's style of expression thus causes – or at least stimulates and encourages – his reader's mind to move from the religious mode of believing in and worshipping “Buddha,” to the more investigative and reflective mode of seeing and understanding that buddhas are ye dravyam-avāpya loke, “those [manuṣyāḥ, human beings] who have obtained [real] riches in the world.”

And when buddhas evam... mitreṣu dharme ca niyojayanti, “commit [their riches] to friends and to dharma in this way,” evam (in this way) means as described in the previous verse – primarily by allowing others to be around them, while they are going well, as human beings, in times of robust prosperity.

Aśvaghoṣa does not call those who are thus allowed to be around a buddha “a Buddhist samgha”: he rather calls them the good-hearted (suhṛḍaḥ) and calls them friends (mitrāni).

What is happening below the surface of today's verse, then, as I read it, is that Aśvaghoṣa is using the bodhisattva's discussion of friendship as a pretext to make the very point that the Dalai Lama has been making in recent years – namely, that people are accustomed to thinking of the Buddha's teaching as a religion called “Buddhism,” but this assumption is not necessarily true. It might be totally false. 

Finally, the meaning of bhraṣṭāni (dissipated) in the 4^th pāda, calls for further comment.

From a religious viewpoint, we can believe that the spiritual riches that buddhas obtain are for keeps. Enlightenment, they say, is immutable, imperishable, irremovable. Hence the metaphor of the deathless nectar. But from an irreligious standpoint, buddhas are human beings, human beings are energetic systems, and the true dharma (aka 2^nd law) of thermodynamics describes the tendency that all energy in the material world has to dissipate.

Thus the Mahāparinibbānasuttaṁ says:

Parinibbute Bhagavati ye tattha bhikkhū avītarāgā
When the Gracious One attained Final Emancipation those monks there who were not free from passion,

appekacce bāhā paggayha kandanti, chinnapātaṁ papatanti āvaṭṭanti vivaṭṭanti:
throwing up their arms, falling down (as though) cut down, rolling backwards and forwards as though with their feet cut off, were crying:

‘Atikhippaṁ Bhagavā parinibbuto,
‘Too quickly the Gracious One has attained Final Emancipation,

atikhippaṁ Sugato parinibbuto,
too quickly the Fortunate One has attained Final Emancipation,

atikhippaṁ Cakkhumā loke antarahito!’ ti
too quickly the Visionary in the world has disappeared!’

Ye pana te bhikkhū vītarāgā te satā sampajānā adhivāsenti:
But those monks who were free from passion, mindfully, with full awareness, endured, (thinking):

“Aniccā saṅkhārā taṁ kutettha labbhā?” ti
“Impermanent are (all) processes, how can it be otherwise?”

Atha kho āyasmā Anuruddho bhikkhū āmantesi:
Then venerable Anuruddha said this to the monks:

“Alaṁ āvuso mā socittha mā paridevittha,
“Enough, friends, do not grieve, do not lament,

na nu etaṁ āvuso Bhagavatā paṭikacceva akkhātaṁ:
were you not warned by the Gracious One when he declared:

‘Sabbeheva piyehi manāpehi nānābhāvo vinābhāvo aññathābhāvo.’
‘There is alteration in, separation from, and changeability in all that is dear and appealing.’

Taṁ kutettha āvuso labbhā yaṁ taṁ,
How can it be otherwise, friends, for that which is obtained,

jātaṁ bhūtaṁ saṅkhataṁ palokadhammaṁ?
born, become, in process, subject to dissolution?

‘Taṁ vata mā palujjī’ ti netaṁ ṭhānaṁ vijjati.
It is not possible (to say) this: ‘It should not dissolve’.

The point I take from this very ancient record, then, is that the ultimate dissipation of the energy of the Buddha's psychophysical existence did not in itself generate any grief. Some monks suffered intense grief, but that grief was generated out of their own ignorance.

VOCABULARY

evam: ind. thus

ca: and

ye (nom. pl. m.): [those] who

dravyam (acc. sg.): n. a substance , thing , object ; object of possession , wealth , goods , money ; gold

avāpya = abs. ava-√āp: to reach , attain , obtain , gain , get

loke (loc. sg.): m. the world

mitreṣu (loc. pl.): friends ; friendships

dharme (loc. sg.): m. dharma

ca: and

niyojayanti = 3^rd pers. pl. causative ni- √ yuj: to harness (horses &c ) , put or tie to (loc.); commit or intrust anything (acc.) to (loc.); to confer or bestow upon (loc.); to use, employ

avāpta-sārāṇi (acc. pl. n.): obtained riches

avāpta: mfn. attained, obtained, got

sāra: mn. the core or pith or solid interior of anything ; the substance or essence or marrow or cream or heart or essential part of anything , best part

dhanāni (acc. pl.): n. any valued object , (esp.) wealth , riches , (movable) property , money , treasure , gift

teṣām (gen. pl.): of them

bhraṣṭāni (acc. pl. n.): mfn. fallen ; broken down , decayed , ruined , disappeared , lost , gone

bhraś: to fall , drop , fall down or out or in pieces ; to fall (fig.) , decline , decay , fail , disappear , vanish , be ruined or lost

na: not

ante (loc.): in the end

janayanti = 3^rd pers. pl. jan: to generate , beget , produce , create , cause

tāpam (acc. sg.): m. pain (mental or physical) , sorrow , affliction

善友財通濟 是名牢固藏
守惜封己利 是必速亡失

國財非常寶 惠施爲福業
兼施善知識 雖散後無悔

BUDDHACARITA 11.4: True vs Fair-Weather Friendship

−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−   Upajāti (Vāṇī)

ye cārtha-kcchreṣu bhavanti loke samāna-kāryāḥ suhdāṁ manuṣyāḥ |

−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−

mitrāṇi tānīti paraimi buddhyā sva-sthasya vddhiṣv-iha ko hi na syāt || 11.4

11.4

Those in the world who, for the good-hearted in hard times

Are there as human beings, helping with work to be done –

Those friends I esteem, advisedly, as friends indeed.

For who would not be present around one going well

in times of robust prosperity?

COMMENT:

The ostensible point of today's verse is that the bodhisattva is recognizing that King Bimbisāra's speech was spoken out of friendship, and that his own reply to King Bimbisāra will similarly be spoken out of friendship.

So ostensibly the bodhisattva is using the opportunity to make a general point about true friends, as opposed to fair-weather friends and hangers-on. The ostensible point of today's verse, then, is something along the lines sang by Bob Dylan...

You've got a lot of nerve, to say you are my friend.

When I was down, you just stood there grinning.

You've got a lot of nerve, to say you've got a helping hand to lend.

You just want to be on the side that's winning.

If this was as far as today's verse went, it would be easier to translate. In the 2^nd pāda, for example, suhṛdām could simply be translated as “for friends” rather than the more unwieldy “for the good-hearted.”

Sadly, however, hidden meanings always make translating Aśvaghoṣa a losing game.

Thus below the surface I think today's verse is saying something more particular, not only about how friends help each other, but how buddhas make themselves available and accessible to people who have the will to the truth, and about how people with the will to the truth are attracted to being around buddhas. 

In that case, samāna-kāryāḥ, which literally means “having the same work to be done” and ostensibly means something like “rolling up one's sleeves in a crisis and joining in to help friends with work that needs doing,” really describes buddhas' efforts to teach, encourage and inspire people with the will to the truth to do that same work which the buddhas have done (on themselves) already.

A clue to this hidden meaning, linking today's verse to the hidden meaning of yesterday's verse is the locative plural vṛddhiṣu which ostensibly means something like “in good times” or “in times of plenty” or “during a period of strong economic growth” (EBC: in the enjoyment of prosperity; EHJ: in his times of abundance). But what the bodhisattva described in yesterday's verse was not so much growth in the economy as the blossoming of benevolence in the heart. That being so, one who is svastha (at ease, well in himself, going well) in [psychophysical] circumstances of vigorous growth might be nobody but a buddha. And times of robust growth, or a period of vigorous prosperity, might mean, for example, the nearly half a century that the Buddha spent teaching others following his awakening at the age of 35.

The verse in Saundarananda, in that case, which throws light on today's verse comes towards the end of SN Canto 18 when the Buddha says to Nanda:

vihāya tasmād-iha kāryam-ātmanaḥ kuru sthirātman para-kāryam-apy-atho /

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.

bhramatsu sattveṣu tamo-vṛtātmasu śruta-pradīpo niśi dhāryatām-ayam//18.57

Among beings who are wandering in the night,

their minds shrouded in darkness,

let the lamp of this transmission be carried.

VOCABULARY

ye (nom. pl. m.): [those] who

ca: and

artha-kṛcchreṣu (loc. pl.): n. a difficult matter

kṛcchra: mfn. 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 (often ifc. e.g. vana-vāsak° , the difficulties of living in a forest ; mūtra-k° q.v. ; artha-kṛcchreṣu , in difficulties , in a miserable situation)

bhavanti = 3^rd pers. pl. bhū: to be

loke (loc. sg.): m. the world (loke either " in ordinary life " , " in worldly matters " ; or , " in common language , in popular speech ")

samāna-kāryāḥ (nom. pl. m.): sharing the same task, having the same work to be done

samāna: mfn. same

kāryā: n. work or business to be done , duty , affair

suhṛdām (gen. pl.): m. 'good-hearted', friend

manuṣyāḥ (nom. pl.): m. a man , human being

mitrāṇi (acc. pl.): n. friendship ; n. a friend , companion

tāni (acc. pl. n.): those

iti: thus

paraimi = 1^st pers. sg. parā- √i: to go or run away , go along , go towards (acc.) ; to depart , die ; to reach , attain , partake of (acc.)

buddhyā (inst. sg.): f. the power of forming and retaining conceptions and general notions , intelligence , reason , intellect , mind , discernment , judgement ; perception thought about or meditation on (loc. or comp.) , intention , purpose , design ib. (buddhyā , with the intention of. designedly , deliberately)

sva-sthasya (gen. 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 ; relying upon one's self , confident , resolute , composed

vṛddhiṣu (loc. pl.): f. growth , increase , augmentation , rise , advancement , extension , welfare , prosperity , success , fortune , happiness

iha: ind. here, in this world

kaḥ (nom. sg. m.): who?

hi: for

na: not

syāt = 3^rd pers. sg. as: to be

能於苦難中 周濟不相棄
是則爲世間 眞善知識相

BUDDHACARITA 11.3: Friendship, Impermanence, Karma, Growth

⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−   Upajāti (Mālā)

a-satsu maitrī sva-kulānurūpā na tiṣṭhati śrīr-iva viklaveṣu |

−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−

pūrvaiḥ ktāṁ prīti-paraṁparābhis-tām-eva santas-tu vivardhayanti || 11.3

11.3

Among the untrue,

friendship formed by each in keeping with his tribe

Does not last – like sovereign power among the faint-hearted.

But friendship forged by repeated past favours,

Is just that benevolence which the true cause to grow.

COMMENT:

The famous words which begin Shobogenzo chap. 3, Genjo-koan, six years ago I translated like this:

1. When everything becomes Buddha-Dharma, then there is delusion and enlightenment, there is training, there is life and there is death, there are buddhas and ordinary beings.

2. When each of the ten thousand things is not about me, then there is no delusion and no realization, there are no buddhas and no ordinary beings, nothing is born and nothing lost.

3. The Buddha's Way of awakening, inherently, has sprung out beyond bounty and thrift, and so there is life and death, there is delusion and enlightenment, there are beings and buddhas.

4. And though it is like this, it is only that flowers, while loved, fall; and weeds, while hated, flourish. 

When we read today's verse in light of these four phases, its relation with the first phase is in the distinction between the untrue/bad, between whom friendship does not last for long, and the true/good.

But in the second phase the universal law of objective reality, beyond bad and good, is impermanence – so that anything that requires energy, even human friendship, does not last.

In the third phase, however, impermanence is not a recipe for indolence. On the contrary, it is because of impermanence that there is such a thing as a right direction. Because of impermanence we can, by our own efforts, win friends and influence people. 

So in the fourth phase, because of good actions, there are sometimes in this world spectacularly good results, like a teaching that opens up like a great big cauliflower, or like the benevolence (maitrī) which, having been nurtured by aeons of bodhisattva-practice, caused the Buddha to manifest universal compassion, as described in Aśvaghoṣa's portait of the Tathāgata in SN Canto 3:

avagamya taṁ ca kṛta-kāryam amṛta-manaso divaukasaḥ /

Sensing the completion of his task,

the denizens of heaven whose heart's desire is the deathless nectar

harṣam-atulam-agaman muditā vimukhī tu māra-pariṣat pracukṣubhe //SN3.8 

Buzzed with unbridled joy. But Māra's crew was downcast and trembled.

sa-nagā ca bhūḥ pravicacāla huta-vaha-sakhaḥ śivo vavau /

The earth with its mountains shook, that which feeds the fire blew benignly,

nedur-api ca sura-dundubhayaḥ pravavarṣa cāmbu-dhara-varjitaṁ nabhaḥ //3.9 

The drums of the gods resounded, and from the cloudless sky rain fell.

avabudhya caiva paramārtham-ajaram-anukampayā vibhuḥ /

Awake to the one great ageless purpose, and universal in his compassion,

nityam-amṛtam-upadarśayituṁ sa varāṇasī-parikarām-ayāt purīm //3.10

He proceeded, in order to display the eternal deathless nectar,

to the city sustained by the waters of the Varaṇā and the Asī – to Vārāṇasī.

atha dharma-cakram-ṛta-nābhi dhṛti-mati-samādhi-nemimat /

And so the wheel of dharma –whose hub is uprightness, 

whose rim is constancy, determination, and balanced stillness,

tatra vinaya-niyamāram-ṛṣir-jagato hitāya pariṣady-avartayat //3.11

And whose spokes are the rules of discipline – 

there the Seer turned, in that assembly, for the welfare of the world.

iti duḥkham-etad-iyam-asya samudaya-latā pravartikā /

"This is suffering; this is the tangled mass of causes producing it;

śāntir-iyam-ayam-upāya iti pravibhāgaśaḥ param-idaṁ catuṣṭayam //3.12 

This is cessation; and here is a means." 
Thus, one by one, this supreme set of four,

abhidhāya ca tri-parivartam-atulam-anivartyam-uttamaṁ /

The seer set out, with its three divisions 

of the unequalled, the incontrovertible, the ultimate;

dvādaśa-niyata-vikalpam ṛśir-vinināya kauṇḍina-sagotram-āditaḥ //3.13

And with its twelve connecting statements;

after which he instructed, as the first follower, him of the Kauṇḍinya clan.

sa hi doṣa-sāgaram-agādham-upadhi-jalam-ādhi-jantukaṁ /

For the fathomless sea of faults, whose water is falsity, where fish are cares,

krodha-mada-bhaya-taraṅga-calaṁ pratatāra lokam-api ca vyatārayat //3.14

And which is disturbed by waves of anger, lust, and fear;

he had crossed, and he took the world across too.

sa vinīya kāśiṣu gayeṣu bahu-janam-atho giri-vraje /

Having instructed many people at Kāśi and at Gaya as also at Giri-vraja,

pitryam-api parama-kāruṇiko nagaraṁ yayāv-anujighṛkṣayā tadā //SN3.15

He made his way then to the city of his fathers, 

in his deeply compassionate desire to include it.

Benevolence, impermanence, good karma, true growth.

To understand today's verse like that, in four phases, might be, for me at least, to go some way to meeting the Dalai Lama's definition of how to serve one's guru – by keeping his or her teaching in tact.

Of course, if Buddhism is a spiritual religion, then a better way than philosophical analysis might be the holding of memorial services and the offering of prayers.

But if the Buddha's teaching is a means of combating ignorance, then there might be more merit in seeing how, in a verse like today's verse, the four noble truths form the underlying framework.

It is on that basis – on the basis of how I was taught by my teacher to think – that I have been endeavouring to understand the phrase pratītya-samutpāda not only as a teaching of causality at the second phase but also as a suggestion of sitting in the fourth phase. Hence, “a Complete Springing Up, grounded in going back.”

Suffering, accumulation, cessation, path.

Idealism (something subjective), materialism (something objective), action, reality.

Benevolence, impermanence, good karma, true growth.

Doing, not doing, non-doing, body and mind dropping off.

Feeling, thinking, sitting, springing completely up.

If the Buddha-dharma is just to sit, and just to sit is the Buddha-dharma, then, ironically, there might be nothing more valuable to support us in our sitting practice than to understand the poetry of a Zen patriarch philosophically, according to the underlying framework of the four noble truths.

Many people understand that Zen is ultimately the overturning of theory, and total devotion to practice, and at the fourth phase it sort of is. At the fourth phase Zen is nothing but sarva-dṛṣṭi-samucchedaḥ, the utter destruction of all views.

But flowers in the sky have to be investigated before they are ready to fall down. And Zen Master Dogen talked, in connection with the Samādhi which is King of Samādhis, of theory and practice being in mutual accord.

In conclusion, then, today's verse does not seem at first glance to have anything to do with the practice of just sitting. But on closer investigation, the four pādas of today's verse follow four phases. And the four-phased teaching of the Buddha, as primarily manifested in the teaching of the four noble truths, is always pointing ultimately to that way of cessation of suffering which is just to sit. 

VOCABULARY

a-satsu (loc. pl.): m. (pl.) bad or contemptible men

maitrī (nom. sg.): f. friendship , friendliness , benevolence , good will (one of the 4 perfect states with Buddhists)

sva-kulānurupā (nom. sg. f.): suitable to one's own family / house

sva-kulānuvṛttā (nom. sg. f.): following from one's own family, following from kinship

anurūpa: mfn. following the form , conformable , corresponding , like , fit , suitable ; adapted to , according to

anuvṛtta: mfn. following , obeying , complying

anu- √ vṛt: to go after; to follow from a previous rule ; to obey , respect , imitate ; to resemble

na: not

tiṣṭhati = 3^rd pers. sg. sthā: to abide, remain, continue

śrīḥ (nom. sg.): f. light , lustre , radiance , splendour , glory ; prosperity , welfare , good fortune , success , auspiciousness , wealth , treasure , riches , high rank , power , might , majesty , royal dignity

iva: like

viklaveṣu (loc. pl. m.): mfn. overcome with fear or agitation , confused , perplexed , bewildered , alarmed , distressed ; timid, shy ; faltering (as speech)

pūrvaiḥ (inst. pl.): m. an ancestor , forefather (pl. the ancients , ancestors) ; mfn. former , prior , preceding , previous ; being before ; ancient , old , customary , traditional ;

kṛtām (acc. sg. f.): mfn. made, done, established

prīti-paraṁparābhiḥ (inst. pl. m.): by repeated favours

prīti: f. pleasure, joy ; friendly disposition , kindness , favour , grace , amity

mfn. one following the other , proceeding from one to another (as from father to son) , parampara: successive , repeated

tām (acc. sg. f.): that [friendship]

eva: (emphatic)

santaḥ (nom. pl.): m. good or honest or wise or respectable people

tu: but

vivardhayanti = 3^rd pers. pl. causative vi- √ vṛdh: to cause to grow or increase or prosper , nourish , rear , enlarge , augment , advance , further , promote ; to gratify , exhilarate , gladden

世間説凡品 不能處仁義
薄徳遇近情 豈達名勝事

承習先勝宗 崇禮修敬讓