⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−− Upajāti
(Haṁsī)
śame
ratiś-cec-chithilaṁ ca rājyaṁ rājye
matiś-cec-chama-viplavaś-ca |
⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
śamaś-ca
taikṣṇyaṁ ca hi nopapannaṁ śītoṣṇayor-aikyam-ivodakāgnyoḥ
|| 9.49
9.49
When he delights in
peace and quiet, his kingship is lax,
When his mind turns to
kingship, the peace and quiet is spoilt.
For peacefulness and
severity are incompatible –
As a unity of the cold
and the hot is impossible, in water and fire.
COMMENT:
I think the point of
the metaphor in today's verse is that if one tried to make a unity of
fire-and-water by combining fire and water – e.g. by throwing a
bucket of cold water into a blazing fire – one element would cancel
the other one out, so that either the fire would continue burning,
having caused the water to evaporate; or else the water would remain,
seeping into wood and earth, having put out the fire.
At the same time, the
4th pāda seems to point in an oblique and abbreviated way
to a most fundamental law of the universe which is intimately related
with Alexander's axiom that there is no such thing as a right
position, but there is a right direction.
That law, of course, is
the 2nd law of thermodynamics, aka Time's Arrow, which
broadly describes the fact that all energy has a tendency over time
to spread out, and it will spread out unless prevented from doing so.
It is because of this
very tendency that cold and heat cannot co-exist as cold and heat –
rather, what was hot tends to cool, and what was cold warms up. Sooner or later, fires go out, and ice melts, with consequences that can be replete with both great suffering and great beauty.
Read in this way, then, today's verse also
is amenable to being read in four phases.
In the 1st
phase a king chooses the realm of inner peace over his material
realm.
In the 2nd
phase, conversely, a king turns his mind to his material realm, and his
inner peace goes to pot.
In the 3rd
pāda, the bodhisattva is making the same practical point that he
made yesterday, which brought to my mind the Alexander axiom that
“you cannot do an undoing.”
But the 4th
pāda can be read as transcendent even to such vital absolutes of
practice as “you cannot do an undoing.” In the end, the
suggestion might be, we are living in a universe in which, for all
the universe's manifold mystery, all energy in the universe follows the same rule -->
tending to spread out, unless prevented from doing so by what
chemists call “activation energy barriers.” Because of the 2nd
law of thermodynamics, the Universe is one expanding whole. And
because of that very same law, to make a unity of water and fire is
not possible.
Thus, from where I sit,
the teaching of Dogen and the teaching of Aśvaghoṣa is one and the
same teaching, expressed according to the same four-phased
philosophical progression. It is the same teaching transmitted, going
down or going up, in a one-to-one transmission.
When Dogen came back
from China, motivated to carry on that transmission in his own
country of Japan, he wasted no time in writing Fukan-zazengi, the
Rule/Method of Sitting-Meditation Recommended
for Everybody.
The Fu of Fukan-zazengi means universal, for everybody – kings,
beggars, Alexander teachers, students, the unemployed, the infirm, medical men and women, those
detained behind bars, city traders in London, martial artists in
Tokyo, chefs in Paris, lumberjacks in Alaska, ice-road truckers in
Canada, wheat-farmers in Ukraine, soldiers in Russia, judges in South
Africa, English teachers in China, Sanskrit pandits in India,
fishermen in harbours everywhere... in short, everybody.
And in Fukan-zazengi
Dogen expresses the essential imperative in sitting-meditation like
this:
Forgetting involvements forever,
Naturally/spontaneously
become all of one piece!
So all this seems to
tell us that, in Dogen's teaching, unity was foremost.
Again, the supreme
thing in Dogen's teaching is the sitting in full lotus that he called
“the King of Samādhis.” And samādhi originally means “putting
together” (sam = together + putting = ādhi). So again, the sense
of integration or unity is to the fore.
In today's verse, then,
is Aśvaghoṣa expressing a teaching which is subtly different from
what Dogen taught? Is Aśvaghoṣa leaning more towards the teaching
of the small vehicle, whereas Dogen leant more towards the teaching
of the large vehicle?
No, I don't think so.
In Aśvaghoṣa's
teaching, too, samādhi is at the centre of everything, and is
certainly at the centre of sitting-meditation. Aśvaghoṣa describes
as a general fact that the second stage of sitting-meditation is
samādhi-jam, “born of samādhi.” This is a general fact or a
universal truth, irrespective of whether the sitter is a male or
female beggar, a king or a queen, a humble lay man or woman, and
irrespective even of whether the sitter is a follower of the Buddha
or a non-Buddhist yoga adept, like Arāḍa. The second dhyāna is
samādhi-jam, “born of samādhi.”
But before that,
whether the sitter is a king or a commoner, an enlightened Buddha or
a beginner, the first stage of sitting-meditation is kāmair-viviktaṃ
malinaiś-ca dharmaiḥ “distanced from desires and tainted things”
and is viveka-jam “born of separateness/solitude.” (This, by the way, is implicitly recognized in the "forgetting involvements" part of Dogen's injunction.)
Thus, though the
subject of today's verse is understood to be a king, it may be
significant that Aśvaghoṣa saw fit in today's verse not to specify
any subject. Because what is true for kings bearing royal insignia,
might also be true for shaven-headed sitting-practitioners bearing a
beggar's insignia – if we let our minds dwell too heavily on
weighty matters of politics and economics, or become too emotionally entangled in anything in the outside world, that won't be conducive to
entering and enjoying the first stage of sitting-meditation.
In the first instance,
then, whoever we are, we are required in sitting-meditation to
separate ourselves from any matter that is not conducive to peace – whether it is a matter on the outside, like social turmoil, or a matter on the inside, like an idealistic conception of
unity.
VOCABULARY
śame
(loc. sg.): m. tranquillity , calmness , rest , equanimity ; peace
ratiḥ
(nom. sg.): f. pleasure , enjoyment , delight in , fondness for
(loc.)
ced:
ind. when, if
śithilam
loose , slack , lax , relaxed , untied , flaccid , not rigid or
compact ; unsteady ; languid , inert , unenergetic , weak , feeble ;
loosely retained or possessed
ca:
and
rājyam
(nom. sg.): n. kingship; kingdom
rājye
(loc. sg.): n. kingship; kingdom
matiḥ
(nom. sg.): f. mind
ced:
ind. when, if
śama-viplavaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): peace being ruined
viplava:
m. confusion , trouble , disaster , evil , calamity , misery ,
distress ; tumult , affray , revolt ; destruction, ruin
ca:
and
śamaḥ
(nom. sg.): m. peace ; tranquillization , pacification , allayment ,
alleviation , cessation , extinction
ca:
and
taikṣṇyam
(nom. sg.): n. sharpness (of a knife); fierceness , severity
ca:
and
hi:
for
na:
not
upapannam
(nom. sg. n): mfn. happened , fallen to one's share , produced ,
effected , existing , being near at hand ; fit , suited for the
occasion , adequate , conformable
upa-
√ pad: to approach ; to take place , come forth , be produced ,
appear , occur , happen; to be present , exist ; to be possible , be
fit for or adequate to (with loc.) ; to become , be suitable
śītoṣṇayoḥ
(gen. dual): cold and hot
śīta:
mfn. cold ; n. cold , coldness , cold weather ; cold water
uṣṇa:
mfn. hot ; mn. heat , warmth , the hot season (June , July) ; mn. any
hot object
aikyam
(nom. sg.): n. oneness , unity , harmony , sameness , identity
iva:
like, as if
udakāgnyoḥ
(gen. dual): water and fire
udaka:
n. water
agni:
m. fire
寂靜廢王威 王正解脱乖
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動靜猶水火 二理何得倶
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