yadi praapya divaM yatnaan
niyamena damena ca
a-vitRptaaH patanty ante
svargaaya tyaagine namaH
12.15
If, after struggling to get to heaven,
Through self-restriction and self-restraint,
Men fall at last, unsatisfied,
Then homage to the heaven-bound
who give up on the way.
COMMENT:
At the centre of the teaching of FM Alexander, as FM’s niece Marjory Barlow communicated it to me, is the practice of giving up. Alexander work is a kind of exact, in-depth, scientific study of giving up, and the only laboratory you need to practice this science is yourself.
The first thing to give up is the idea of being right, because the idea of being right is the first thing that puts a person wrong.
This recognition is also implicit in Zen Master Dogen’s rules of sitting-dhyana, where he says: ZEN-AKU OMWAZU, ZE-HI O KANSURU KOTO NAKARE, “Don’t think good, bad; Don’t care right, wrong.”
The difficult thing is to completely give up the idea of being right, without giving up the effort to keep going in the right direction.
In order to go in the right direction, paradoxically, step one is to give up any idea of rightness as a destination.
A further step, another difficulty to be met, is to completely give up the idea of doing something -- a bow, for example -- in order to find the freedom in which actually to do, or not to do, a bow.
In the fourth line of this verse, as I read it, Nanda is paying homage to nobody if not FM Alexander. FM’s secret, as Marjory taught it to me, not as a theory but as a principle subject to exact verification in practice, is to give up an idea without giving up one’s direction.
Losers have stopped trying,
Winners never quit.
FM taught the two in one,
In true pursuit of It.
The Alexander teachers I have met who seem to have really deep understanding of and devotion to Alexander’s teaching, all without exception have reverence also, to the extent that they know it, for the Buddha’s teaching. Buddhist teachers I have met who do not revere Alexander’s teaching, are as they are, as I see it, because they have never seen the true essence of the Buddha’s teaching, even in a dream. The true essence of the Buddha’s teaching and the true essence of Alexander’s teaching is the same true essence. It has to do primarily with stopping wrong doing, and that stopping begins with giving up an idea. How can preachers of Buddhism, realism and the like understand this point, even in a dream?
If this comment confirms me as a non-Buddhist, so be it. I do not give a damn about true Buddhism. Ashvaghosha’s gold has got nothing to do with true Buddhism. Ashvaghosha’s gold is the truth.
EH Johnston:
If, after obtaining heaven through toil, abstinence and self-restraint, men fall again at the end with desires unappeased, what is the use of so fleeting a Paradise?
Linda Covill:
If men must eventually fall unfulfilled from a heaven so effortfully obtained through observance of the rules and through training, then homage to the man relinquishing heaven!
VOCABULARY:
yadi: if, when
praapya = absolultive of pra-√aap: to attain to ; reach , arrive at , meet with , find ; obtain
divam (accusative): heaven
yatnaat = ablative of yatna: effort , exertion , energy , zeal , trouble , pains
niyamena = instrumental of niyama: m. restraining , checking , holding back , preventing , controlling
damena = instrumental of dama: m. self-command , self-restraint , self-control
ca: and
avitRptaaH = nominative, plural of avitRpta: unsatisfied
patanti = 3rd person plural of pat: to fall down or off , alight , descend
ante (locative of anta): in the end, at last
svargaaya (dative of svarga): for heaven, [being bound] for heaven,
NB. The Clay Sanskrit Library version has svargasya (genitive of svarga)
tyaagine = locative of tyaagin: one who has given up
namas: n. bow , obeisance , reverential salutation , adoration
Showing posts with label stopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stopping. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 12.6: How Life Suddenly Asserts Itself
svarga-tarShaan nivRttash ca
sadyaH svastha iv' aabhavat
mRShTaad a-pathyaad virato
jijiiviShur iv' aaturaH
12.6
When he had retreated from his thirst for heaven,
He seemed suddenly to become well.
Desisting from a delight
that aggravated his condition,
He was like a sick man finding the will to live.
COMMENT:
This verse touches on mental thirsting, physical well-being, the truth of stopping, and Life itself.
The main point, as I see it, is that when we stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing starts to do itself -- at once.
The usual way of thinking is that change begins when a sick man finds, for example, that he has got cancer or diabetes of some other terrible illness, whereupon, in fear of death, he finds the will to live, and is finally motivated to stop doing the wrong thing -- smoking, drinking, eating too much of the kind of food that is not good for them, et cetera. But this verse seems to describe it the other way around, so that to give up an unhealthy desire is primary, whereupon Life / the wish to live suddenly asserts itself.
The backward step of turning one's light and shining is not a retreat from Life. Quite the opposite might be true. But it remains for each person to ask himself or herself what is primary: The will to realize that step? Or the will to something else?
It is implicit in the construction of this verse, as I read it, that what is primary for Ashvaghosha is nirodha-satya, the Buddha's noble truth of stopping. First stop doing the wrong thing, as FM Alexander also said, and then the right thing does itself.
EH Johnston:
When his longings were diverted from Paradise, he seemed suddenly to become well, like a sick man desiring to live, who gives up agreeable but unwholesome food.
Linda Covill:
When he had turned away from his thirst for heaven, he suddenly seemed to become well, like a sick man who gives up tasty but unhealthy food in his determination to live.
VOCABULARY:
svarga: heaven
tarShaan = ablative of tarSha: thirst , wish , desire for (in comp.)
nivRttaH (nominative, singular): one who has turned back
ca: and (or used as expletive)
sadyas: on the same day , in the very moment
svastha: being in one's natural state , being one's self uninjured , unmolested , contented , doing well , sound, well , healthy
iva: like, as if
abhavat: became
mRShTaad = ablative from mRShTa: sweet , pleasant , agreeable
NB The Clay Sanskrit Library version has a typo (mRShaad) in the transcription here. Johnston's original shows mrShTaad.
apathyaad = ablative of apathya: unfit, (in med.) unwholesome as food or drink in particular complaints
virataH (nominative, singular): one who has desisted from (abl. , loc. , or comp.)
jijiiviShur: wishing to live
iva: like
aaturaH (nominative, singular): a sick man
sadyaH svastha iv' aabhavat
mRShTaad a-pathyaad virato
jijiiviShur iv' aaturaH
12.6
When he had retreated from his thirst for heaven,
He seemed suddenly to become well.
Desisting from a delight
that aggravated his condition,
He was like a sick man finding the will to live.
COMMENT:
This verse touches on mental thirsting, physical well-being, the truth of stopping, and Life itself.
The main point, as I see it, is that when we stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing starts to do itself -- at once.
The usual way of thinking is that change begins when a sick man finds, for example, that he has got cancer or diabetes of some other terrible illness, whereupon, in fear of death, he finds the will to live, and is finally motivated to stop doing the wrong thing -- smoking, drinking, eating too much of the kind of food that is not good for them, et cetera. But this verse seems to describe it the other way around, so that to give up an unhealthy desire is primary, whereupon Life / the wish to live suddenly asserts itself.
The backward step of turning one's light and shining is not a retreat from Life. Quite the opposite might be true. But it remains for each person to ask himself or herself what is primary: The will to realize that step? Or the will to something else?
It is implicit in the construction of this verse, as I read it, that what is primary for Ashvaghosha is nirodha-satya, the Buddha's noble truth of stopping. First stop doing the wrong thing, as FM Alexander also said, and then the right thing does itself.
EH Johnston:
When his longings were diverted from Paradise, he seemed suddenly to become well, like a sick man desiring to live, who gives up agreeable but unwholesome food.
Linda Covill:
When he had turned away from his thirst for heaven, he suddenly seemed to become well, like a sick man who gives up tasty but unhealthy food in his determination to live.
VOCABULARY:
svarga: heaven
tarShaan = ablative of tarSha: thirst , wish , desire for (in comp.)
nivRttaH (nominative, singular): one who has turned back
ca: and (or used as expletive)
sadyas: on the same day , in the very moment
svastha: being in one's natural state , being one's self uninjured , unmolested , contented , doing well , sound, well , healthy
iva: like, as if
abhavat: became
mRShTaad = ablative from mRShTa: sweet , pleasant , agreeable
NB The Clay Sanskrit Library version has a typo (mRShaad) in the transcription here. Johnston's original shows mrShTaad.
apathyaad = ablative of apathya: unfit, (in med.) unwholesome as food or drink in particular complaints
virataH (nominative, singular): one who has desisted from (abl. , loc. , or comp.)
jijiiviShur: wishing to live
iva: like
aaturaH (nominative, singular): a sick man
Thursday, March 26, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 16.42: Forward and Backward Steps
tasmaat pravRttiM parigaccha duHkhaM
pravartakaan apy avagaccha doShaan
nivRttim aagaccha ca tan-nirodhaM
nivartakaM c' aapy avagaccha maargaM
16.42
Accordingly, comprehend suffering as end-gaining,
And understand the faults as doing.
Realise the stopping of all that as non-doing,
And understand the path as a turning back.
COMMENT:
The first difficulty with this verse has been plucking up the courage to translate pravRtti as "end-gaining," instead of a less overtly Alexandrian term such as "progressive striving."
A second difficulty has been deciding what is the object of nirodha in the 3rd line. Does tan-nirodha mean the inhibition/suppression/stopping of those [faults], the stopping of that [suffering], the stopping of that [end-gaining], or the inhibition/stopping of all that [stuff in the first two lines]?
My ears are, I hope, open to feedback.
Notwithstanding the above difficulties, I am very happy to have arrived at this translation of this verse. My sense is that the argument I have been struggling to make for 15 years has, with this translation of this verse, already become obsolete -- because this verse is just Ashvaghosha's teaching, just the Buddha's teaching, just the teaching of all the ancestors in India, and there is not any room for argument.
This verse is also just the teaching of FM Alexander. There is, as I see it, no contradiction at all.
That being so, I would like to illustrate the meaning of each of the four lines of this verse with some quotes from FM Alexander and some of the teachers he taught.
(1)
Whenever a person sets out to achieve a particular end his procedure will be based on one of two principles which I have called "end-gaining" and the "means-whereby" principles. The "end-gaining" principle involves a direct procedure on the part of the person endeavouring to gain the desired "end." This direct procedure is associated with dependence upon subsconscious guidance and control, leading, in cases where a condition of mal-coordination is present, to an unsatisfactory use of the mechanisms and to an increase in the defects and peculiarities already existing.
(FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual)
When a person has reached a given stage of unsatisfactory use and functioning, his habit of end-gaining will prove to be the impeding factor in all his attempts to profit by any teaching method whatsoever. Ordinary teaching methods, in whatever sphere, cannot deal with this impeding factor, indeed, they tend actually to encourage 'end-gaining.'
(FM Alexander, The Use of the Self)
"In most people their direction of the use of themselves is habitual and instinctive... Unfortunately, with the increasing prevalence of untrustworthy sensory appreciation, this instinctive direction of use tends, as time goes on, to become more and more a misdirection, having a harmful effect, as was proved in my own case, upon functioning and consquently, upon the reactions which result." (Ibid)
(2)
"The wrong inner patterns are the doing which has to be stopped."
(Marjory Barlow, 1965 Memorial Lecture)
(3)
Non-doing is, above all, an attitude of mind. It's a wish. 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 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 in an Alexander lesson, and if we're wise, and we understand, it's also what we aim at in our own practice of non-doing. It is something that requires practice. Like most other things in life, it isn't some-thing that you can achieve by simply wishing 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...
(Walter Carrington, Thinking Aloud)
Of course, non-doing is a kind of doing, but it is very subtle. The difference is that, in doing, you do it, whereas in non-doing, it does you.
(Patrick Macdonald, The Alexander Technique As I See It.)
(4)
It is owing to this habit of rushing from one extreme to another -- a habit which, as I have pointed out, seems to go hand in hand with subconscious guidance and direction -- to this tendency, that is, to take the narrow and treacherous sidetracks instead of the great, broad, midway path, that our plan of civilization has proved a comparative failure.
(FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual)
I venture to predict that before we can unravel the horribly tangled skein of our present existence, we must come to a full STOP, and return to conscious, simple living, believing in the unity underlying all things, and acting in a practical way in accordance with the laws and principles involved. (Ibid.)
VOCABULARY:
tasmaat: from that, on that account, therefore
praVrttim (accusative): moving onwards , advance , progress; active life (as opp. to ni-vRtti [q.v.] and to contemplative devotion)
parigaccha = imperative of pari-√ gam: to go round or about or through , circumambulate , surround , inclose; to come to any state or condition , get , attain (acc.)
pari: ind. round , around, fully
pravartakam (acc. sg.): acting , proceeding; setting in motion or action , setting on foot , advancing , promoting , forwarding
api: also
avagaccha = imperative of ava-√ gam: to understand
ava: ind. off , away , down
doShaan (accusative, plural): m. faults
nivRttim (accusative): returning; ceasing , cessation; ceasing from worldly acts , inactivity , rest
aagaccha = imperative aa-√ gam: to come, arrive at , attain , reach ; to fall into (any state of mind) , have recourse to
aa: near, near to towards; with roots like gam it reverses the action ; e.g. aa-gacchati , " he comes "
ca: and
tat: those [faults]; that [suffering/end-gaining]; [all] that; the
nirodhaM (accusative): suppression, inhibition, stopping
nirvartakam (acc. sg.): turning back ; causing to cease , abolishing , removing; desisting from , stopping , ceasing
ca: and
api: also
avagaccha (imperative): understand
maargam (acc. sg.): m. the path
EH Johnston:
Accordingly recognise suffering to be identical with active being and understand that the faults are the cause of active being; realise that inactivity is the suppression of active being and understand that it is the Path which leads to inactivity.
Linda Covill:
Therefore accept that active life is suffering, and understand faults as being related to active life; recognize cessation of suffering to be the ceasing of active life, and know the path as being related to cessation.
pravartakaan apy avagaccha doShaan
nivRttim aagaccha ca tan-nirodhaM
nivartakaM c' aapy avagaccha maargaM
16.42
Accordingly, comprehend suffering as end-gaining,
And understand the faults as doing.
Realise the stopping of all that as non-doing,
And understand the path as a turning back.
COMMENT:
The first difficulty with this verse has been plucking up the courage to translate pravRtti as "end-gaining," instead of a less overtly Alexandrian term such as "progressive striving."
A second difficulty has been deciding what is the object of nirodha in the 3rd line. Does tan-nirodha mean the inhibition/suppression/stopping of those [faults], the stopping of that [suffering], the stopping of that [end-gaining], or the inhibition/stopping of all that [stuff in the first two lines]?
My ears are, I hope, open to feedback.
Notwithstanding the above difficulties, I am very happy to have arrived at this translation of this verse. My sense is that the argument I have been struggling to make for 15 years has, with this translation of this verse, already become obsolete -- because this verse is just Ashvaghosha's teaching, just the Buddha's teaching, just the teaching of all the ancestors in India, and there is not any room for argument.
This verse is also just the teaching of FM Alexander. There is, as I see it, no contradiction at all.
That being so, I would like to illustrate the meaning of each of the four lines of this verse with some quotes from FM Alexander and some of the teachers he taught.
(1)
Whenever a person sets out to achieve a particular end his procedure will be based on one of two principles which I have called "end-gaining" and the "means-whereby" principles. The "end-gaining" principle involves a direct procedure on the part of the person endeavouring to gain the desired "end." This direct procedure is associated with dependence upon subsconscious guidance and control, leading, in cases where a condition of mal-coordination is present, to an unsatisfactory use of the mechanisms and to an increase in the defects and peculiarities already existing.
(FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual)
When a person has reached a given stage of unsatisfactory use and functioning, his habit of end-gaining will prove to be the impeding factor in all his attempts to profit by any teaching method whatsoever. Ordinary teaching methods, in whatever sphere, cannot deal with this impeding factor, indeed, they tend actually to encourage 'end-gaining.'
(FM Alexander, The Use of the Self)
"In most people their direction of the use of themselves is habitual and instinctive... Unfortunately, with the increasing prevalence of untrustworthy sensory appreciation, this instinctive direction of use tends, as time goes on, to become more and more a misdirection, having a harmful effect, as was proved in my own case, upon functioning and consquently, upon the reactions which result." (Ibid)
(2)
"The wrong inner patterns are the doing which has to be stopped."
(Marjory Barlow, 1965 Memorial Lecture)
(3)
Non-doing is, above all, an attitude of mind. It's a wish. 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 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 in an Alexander lesson, and if we're wise, and we understand, it's also what we aim at in our own practice of non-doing. It is something that requires practice. Like most other things in life, it isn't some-thing that you can achieve by simply wishing 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...
(Walter Carrington, Thinking Aloud)
Of course, non-doing is a kind of doing, but it is very subtle. The difference is that, in doing, you do it, whereas in non-doing, it does you.
(Patrick Macdonald, The Alexander Technique As I See It.)
(4)
It is owing to this habit of rushing from one extreme to another -- a habit which, as I have pointed out, seems to go hand in hand with subconscious guidance and direction -- to this tendency, that is, to take the narrow and treacherous sidetracks instead of the great, broad, midway path, that our plan of civilization has proved a comparative failure.
(FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual)
I venture to predict that before we can unravel the horribly tangled skein of our present existence, we must come to a full STOP, and return to conscious, simple living, believing in the unity underlying all things, and acting in a practical way in accordance with the laws and principles involved. (Ibid.)
VOCABULARY:
tasmaat: from that, on that account, therefore
praVrttim (accusative): moving onwards , advance , progress; active life (as opp. to ni-vRtti [q.v.] and to contemplative devotion)
parigaccha = imperative of pari-√ gam: to go round or about or through , circumambulate , surround , inclose; to come to any state or condition , get , attain (acc.)
pari: ind. round , around, fully
pravartakam (acc. sg.): acting , proceeding; setting in motion or action , setting on foot , advancing , promoting , forwarding
api: also
avagaccha = imperative of ava-√ gam: to understand
ava: ind. off , away , down
doShaan (accusative, plural): m. faults
nivRttim (accusative): returning; ceasing , cessation; ceasing from worldly acts , inactivity , rest
aagaccha = imperative aa-√ gam: to come, arrive at , attain , reach ; to fall into (any state of mind) , have recourse to
aa: near, near to towards; with roots like gam it reverses the action ; e.g. aa-gacchati , " he comes "
ca: and
tat: those [faults]; that [suffering/end-gaining]; [all] that; the
nirodhaM (accusative): suppression, inhibition, stopping
nirvartakam (acc. sg.): turning back ; causing to cease , abolishing , removing; desisting from , stopping , ceasing
ca: and
api: also
avagaccha (imperative): understand
maargam (acc. sg.): m. the path
EH Johnston:
Accordingly recognise suffering to be identical with active being and understand that the faults are the cause of active being; realise that inactivity is the suppression of active being and understand that it is the Path which leads to inactivity.
Linda Covill:
Therefore accept that active life is suffering, and understand faults as being related to active life; recognize cessation of suffering to be the ceasing of active life, and know the path as being related to cessation.
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