⏑−−−¦⏑−−−¦¦−−−−¦⏑−⏑−
samādher vyutthitas
tasmād dṣṭvā doṣāṁś charīriṇām |
−⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑−⏑⏑¦⏑−⏑−
jñānam ārohati
prājñaḥ śarīra-vinivttaye || 12.59
12.59
The man of wisdom,
giving up the balancing act of that samādhi,
giving up the balancing act of that samādhi,
Having seen the faults
of people possessed of bodies,
Rises to the challenge
which is the act of knowing –
He rises up, in the
direction of bodily extinction.
COMMENT:
On first reading,
again, one has the clear impression that a gap has opened up between
Arāḍa's teaching and the Buddha's teaching.
The case for the
prosecution is that Arāḍa is describing somebody who has diverged
greatly or swerved
(vy-utthitaḥ) from the Buddha's noble
eightfold path, in which the ultimate practice is Zen practice of samādhi, and Zen
practice in samādhi. This errant person – who Arāḍa in his non-Buddhist
ignorance deems to be wise – has fallen into the religious view of
seeing the body as originally sinful. With this religious view that
sees all embodied beings as being inherently faulty, the errant and ignorant person, who
Arāḍa deems to be wise, aspires to a higher state in which the
spiritual intelligence is freed from the fetters of physical
existence.
This
conception of liberation is, in fact, much as Arāḍa will express
it in five verses' time:
Thus, like a muñja stalk from its sheath, like a bird from its cage, / The knower of the field, escaped from the body, is said to be liberated.//12.64
So
it looks like an open and shut case.
But
not so fast.
Once
again, as yesterday, we are required to ask if this case for the
prosecution is proven beyond all reasonable doubt.
The
case for the defence centres on the ambiguity of each element in
Arāda's argument.
Thus,
in the 1st
pāda, vy-ud-√sthā, from which the past participle vy-utthitaḥ
is derived, could express
(a)
something errant, like veering away from the samādhi of accepting
and using the self, which is the criterion of true Zen practice; or,
ironically,
(b)
a bit of nothing, or a bit of the buddha-nature, like going into
movement and forgetting oneself.
A person who has been taught the Alexander Technique badly, or who has been taught well but has yet to get the point, is like a person who has been taught so-called Buddhist-based "mindfulness" badly. He or she tends to look self-conscious and stilted. Or even if he or she doesn't look like that on the surface, he or she will invariably be doing this and that below the surface. To be free of such doing, even when one has become aware of the problem, is not so easy. But the 1st pāda of today's verse can be read as pointing, ironically, to the possibility of such freedom.
In Britain today there are Alexander teachers who are skilled at teaching non-doing, and Alexander teachers who are not so skilled. So sometimes the Alexander principle of non-doing is taught well and sometimes it is taught badly. But how can so-called Buddhist-based "mindfulness" be taught anything other than badly, when it is taught by people -- like professors of clinical psychology and professors of Buddhist studies -- who are experts in intellectual fields but who are not at all steeped in the principle of non-doing?
In Britain today there are Alexander teachers who are skilled at teaching non-doing, and Alexander teachers who are not so skilled. So sometimes the Alexander principle of non-doing is taught well and sometimes it is taught badly. But how can so-called Buddhist-based "mindfulness" be taught anything other than badly, when it is taught by people -- like professors of clinical psychology and professors of Buddhist studies -- who are experts in intellectual fields but who are not at all steeped in the principle of non-doing?
The
2nd
pāda could express
(a)
a religious person seeing the body as inherently faulty; or,
ironically,
(b)
a man of real wisdom seeing a fault in the attitude of those who are,
in various unenlightened ways, “body-conscious.”
One such man of
real wisdom – or more accurately, one such woman of real wisdom –
was the Alexander teacher Marjory Barlow who often expressed
disapproval of subtle forms of body-work (sometimes denigrated as
“advanced physiotherapy”) going under the guise of Alexander
work. The body-conscious, it turns out, generally tend in the
direction of doing. Thus, in the teaching of Nāgārjuna as presented
below, the body-conscious one may be taken as synonymous with the
ignorant one, the doer.
In
the 3rd
pāda jñānam ārohati prājñaḥ could describe
(a)
a religious person aspiring to the higher knowledge (derived from
meditation on the one Universal Spirit); or, ironically,
(b)
a man of real wisdom squaring up to the practical challenge which
Nāgārjuna called jñānāsyaiva bhāvana, bringing-into-being just
this act of knowing.
The
MW dictionary gives jñāna as knowledge, (esp.) the higher
knowledge (derived from meditation on the one Universal Spirit), and
both EHJ and PO translate jñānam in today's verse as “knowledge.” EBC, in similar vein, translates the 3rd pāda as
“the wise man climbs to a yet higher wisdom.” But originally
jñāna,
like dhyāna, is an -na neuter action noun, and so “the act of
knowing” is also accurate. "The act of knowing" is not only accurate but also – in sense (b) – meaningful.
In
the 4th pāda the dative compound śarīra-vinivṛttaye could
indicate
(a)
that the aim is cessation of the activity of the body
(so that śarīra is object of vinivṛtti); or, ironically,
(b)
that the right direction is to practice the third noble truth, the
truth of cessation, with the body (so that śarīra is
the agent of vinivṛtti).
If
one accepts that Aśvaghoṣa was playing with all this ambiguity,
then the difficulty is to find a translation that does not come down
too heavily on either side. If I have erred on the side of (b), I am
in conscious in so erring that each of the three professors erred in
every instance on the side of (a):
EBC: But rising
beyond this contemplation, having seen the imperfections of all
embodied souls, the wise man climbs to a yet higher wisdom in order
to abolish all body.
EHJ: On emerging
from that concentrated meditation, the wise man sees the evils that
exist for those who have a body and betakes
himself to knowledge for the cessation of the body.
PO:
Seeing the faults of embodied beings, a
wise man comes out of that trance / And sets his mind on that
knowledge that would rid him of his body.
In
conclusion, did Aśvaghoṣa wish us to expend all this energy on
digging out these ambiguities and hidden ironies?
Since he
is not here to confirm or deny it, we will never know for certain, at least not intellectually.
If we follow the translations of the three professors, however, Arāḍa is spouting Brahmanical tosh which has no value at all as a needle to our sitting-Zen. Knowledge that would rid of us of our body is of no use to us.
Whereas when we read today's verse as an ironic reminder of the Buddha's teaching of non-doing, then we are stimulated to ask afresh what it means to use the mainspring of a human body as the essential pivot for extinguishing ignorance....
saṁsāra-mūlaṁ
saṁskārān avidvān saṁskaroty ataḥ |
avidvān
kārakas tasmān na vidvāṁs tattva-darśanāt ||MMK26.10||
The
doings which are the root of saṁsāra
Thus
does the ignorant one do.
The
ignorant one therefore is the doer;
The
wise one is not, because of the act of reality making itself known.
avidyāyāṁ
niruddhāyāṁ saṁskārāṇām asaṁbhavaḥ |
avidyāyā
nirodhas tu jñānasyāsyaiva bhāvanāt ||MMK26.11||
In
the ceasing of ignorance,
There
is the non-coming-into-being of doings.
The
cessation of ignorance, however,
Is
because of the bringing-into-being of just this act of knowing.
VOCABULARY
samādheḥ
(abl. sg.): m. putting together ; union ; setting to rights ,
adjustment , settlement ; concentration of the thoughts , profound or
abstract meditation ; with Buddhists samādhi is the fourth and last
stage of dhyāna or intense abstract meditation
vy-utthitaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. greatly divergent in opinion ; strongly excited
or agitated (» comp.) ; swerving from duty (with or scil. dharmāt)
vy-ud-√sthā:
to rise in different directions (as light) ; to turn away from (abl.)
, give up , abandon ; to swerve from duty , forget one's self
ut-thita:
mfn. risen or rising (from a seat &c )
ut-tha:
(ud- √sthā) to stand up , spring up , rise , raise one's self ,
set out; to rise (from the dead) ; to rise (from any occupation) ,
leave off
tasmāt
(abl. sg. m.): that
dṛṣṭvā
= abs. dṛś: to see
doṣān
(acc. pl.): m. fault
śarīriṇām
(gen. pl.): m. an embodied being , creature , (esp.) a man
jñānam
(acc. sg.): n. knowing, becoming acquainted with , knowledge , (esp.)
the higher knowledge (derived from meditation on the one Universal
Spirit)
ārohati
= 3rd pers. sg. ā- √ ruh: to ascend , mount ,
bestride , rise up; to venture upon , undertake ; to attain , gain
prājñaḥ
(nom. sg.): m. a wise or learned man
śarīra-vinivṛttaye
(dat. sg.): towards bodily cessation
vinivṛtti:
f. cessation , coming to an end ; cessation of work, inactivity,
Bcar.
vi-ni-
√ vṛt: to turn back , return ; to turn away , desist or cease
from (abl.); to cease , end , disappear ; to be extinguished (as
fire)
於彼禪定起 見有身爲過
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