12.1
"To earn a nymph as wages
You are practising the Dharma!"
Thus to be upbraided,
As was Nanda then by Ananda,
Made him deeply ashamed.
12.2
Because of his great shame
The exuberance in his heart was no more.
Downcast, due to disenchantment,
His mind did not abide firm in the practitioner's vow.
12.3
Though he was fixated on sexual love,
And at the same time indifferent to ridicule,
His motivation had matured to a point
Where neither could he disregard the other's words.
12.4
Being of an unquestioning nature
He had presumed heaven to be a constant;
So on learning that it was perishable
He was fiercely shocked.
12.5
Turning back from heaven,
The chariot of his mind,
whose horse was willpower,
Was like a great chariot turned back
from a wrong road
By an attentive charioteer.
12.6
Turned back then from his thirst for heaven,
He seemed suddenly to become well.
He had given up something sweet
that was bad for him
Like a sick man wishing to live.
12.7
Just as he forgot about his beloved wife
On seeing the celestial nymphs,
So also,
when startled by their impermanence,
Did he put the nymphs behind him.
12.8
"Even the greatest beings
Are subject to return!"
So he reflected,
And from his shock, though given to redness,
He seemed to blanch.
12.9
The shock happened
For the growth in him of a higher good --
Just as the verb "grow" is listed [after "happen"]
In the lexicon recited by grammarians.
12.10
Because of his sensuality, however, his mind
Was by no means gripped by the kind of constancy
Which is shown, in all three times,
By the received usage of the irregularity which is "being."
12.11
Trembling went he of mighty arm,
Like a top bull elephant, through with rut:
At a suitable moment, he approached the guru,
Wishing to communicate his intention.
12.12
After bowing his head to the guru,
Eyes filled with tears,
He joined the palms of his hands and spoke as follows,
His face somewhat lowered, in shame:
12.13
“For my gaining of the nymphs,
Master, you stand as guarantor.
But I have no need of nymphs;
I relinquish your guarantee.
12.14
For since I have heard of heaven's fleeting whirl
And of the varieties of aimless wandering,
Neither among mortal beings
nor among heavenly beings
Does the onward cycle of doing appeal to me.
12.15
If, after struggling to get to heaven,
Through self-restriction and restraint,
Men fall at last, unsatisfied,
Then homage to the heaven-bound
who give up on the way.
12.16
And so, through the whole world of man,
with its changeability and its fixity, I see;
And in the destroyer of all suffering,
Your most excellent Dharma, I rejoice.
12.17
Therefore, in detail and in summary,
Could you please communicate it to me,
O best of listeners, so that through listening
I might come to the ultimate step.”
12.18
Then, knowing from where he was coming,
And that, though his senses were set against it,
Higher good was now emerging,
The Realised One spoke:
12.19
"Aha! This gaining of a foothold
Is the harbinger of higher good in you,
As, when a firestick is rubbed,
Rising smoke is the harbinger of fire.
12.20
Long carried off course
By the restless horses of the senses,
You have now set foot on a path,
With clarity of vision, happily, that will not dim.
12.21
Today your birth bears fruit;
Your gain today is great;
For though you know the taste of love,
Your mind is yearning for indifference.
12.22
In this world which likes what is close to home,
A fondness for non-doing is rare;
For men shrink from the end of becoming
Like the puerile from the edge of a cliff.
12.23
'I would not suffer; I would be happy:'
People labour under this illusion;
And respite from incessant suffering
They sense not as such, but as happiness.
12.24
Upon transient whims which are akin to enemies,
Being eternally the causes of suffering,
Upon whims like love, the world fixes.
It does not know
the happiness that is immune to change.
12.25
But that which prevents all suffering,
The nectar of deathlessness,
you have in your hands:
It is an antidote which, having drunk poison,
You are going in good time to drink.
12.26
In its fear of worthless wandering
Your intention is worthy of respect,
For a fire of passion such as yours,
Upward looker in the Dharma,
is being re-directed.
12.27
With a mind unbridled by burning desire
It is exceedingly difficult to be steadfast,
As when dirty water is seen
By a thirsty traveller.
12.28
This consciousness awakening in you, surely,
Was blocked by the dust of passion,
As the dust of a sand-storm
Blocks the light of the sun.
12.29
Seeking to dispell darkness of the heart
It now blossoms forth
Like the light of the sun
dispelling the darkness of the night
When poured forth by mount Meru.
12.30
And this indeed befits
A soul whose essence is simplicity:
That in the supreme and subtle
Higher good you should have confidence.
12.31
This wish for the truth of Dharma, therefore,
You should nurture;
For all dharmas, knower of Dharma,
Invariably have wishing as their cause.
12.32
For, as long as the intention of moving is there,
One mobilizes for the act of moving;
And with the intention of staying at rest
there is an act of staying at rest;
With the intention of standing,
likewise, there is standing up.
12.33
When there is water under the ground
Wherein a man has confidence
And has need of water
Then, with an effort of will,
here the earth he digs.
12.34
If a man had no need of fire,
Nor confidence that fire was in a firestick,
He would never twirl the stick;
Those conditions being met, he twirls the stick.
12.35
Without the confidence that corn will grow
In the soil he tills,
Or without the need for corn;
The farmer would not sow seeds in the earth.
12.36
And so I call it the Hand,
Because it is this confidence, specifically,
That grasps the true Dharma
As a hand takes a gift, naturally.
12.37
From its primacy I describe it as Sensory Power;
From its constancy, as Strength;
And because it relieves poverty of virtue
I describe it as Wealth.
12.38
For its protection of the Dharma,
I call it the Arrow,
And from the difficulty of finding it in this world
I call it the Jewel.
12.39
Again, I call it the Seed
Since it is the cause of higher good;
And for its cleansing action,
in the washing away of wrong,
Again, I call it the River.
12.40
Since in the emerging of Dharma
Confidence is the primary cause,
Therefore I have named it after its effects
In this case like this, in that case like that.
12.41
This shoot of confidence, therefore,
You should nurture;
When it grows the Dharma grows,
As a tree grows with the growth of its root.
12.42
When a person's seeing is disordered,
When a person's sense of purpose is weak:
The confidence of that person is unsteady,
For he is not veering in the direction he should.
12.43
So long as the real truth is not seen or heard,
Confidence does not become strong or firm;
But when, through restraint,
the power of the senses is circumvented
and the real truth is realised,
The tree of confidence bears fruit and weight.
The 12th Canto of the epic poem Handsome Nanda, titled
'Gaining Hold.'
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 12.43: Towards Circumvention of the Senses
yaavat tattvam na bhavati hi dRShTaM shrutaM vaa
taavac chraddhaa na bhavati bala-sthaa sthiraa vaa
dRShTe tattve niyama-paribhuut'-endriyasya
shraddaa-vRkSho bhavati sa-phalash c'aashrayash ca
= = = = - - - - - = = - = =
= = = = - - - - - = = - = =
= = = = - - - - - = = - = =
= = = = - - - - - = = - = -
saundaranande mahaa-kaavye pratyavamarsho naama dvaadashaH sarghaH
= - - = = - = = = = - - = = = = = - = = =
12.43
For so long as the real truth is not seen or heard,
Confidence does not become strong or firm;
But when, through restraint,
the power of the senses is circumvented
and the real truth is realised,
The tree of confidence bears fruit and weight.
The 12th Canto of the epic poem Handsome Nanda, titled
'Gaining Hold.'
COMMENT:
What is the real truth?
My view of the real truth is not the real truth.
I came to England at the end of 1994 with the strong intention of getting to the bottom of the discoveries of FM Alexander, because initial experience of Alexander lessons in Tokyo awakened a shoot of confidence in me with regard to the real truth of Alexander work. Alexander work is a means of circumventing the senses and allowing the right to do itself, via inhibition of the wrong. In this work, I am confident, there is real truth.
I used to believe that my sitting practice was practically bursting with real truth. But Alexander work falsified my former belief. Alexander work showed me that there was not so much real truth in my sitting practice as I had believed there was. To put it another way, my sitting practice was much fuller of faults than I realised. Those faults, I have come to realise, are profoundly related with four vestibular reflexes which have to do with (1) fear, (2) balance, (3) side-to-side coordination (see above photo), and (4) top-to-bottom coordination. Because I was practising these faults unconsciously, my sitting practice was much fuller of faults than I realised.
To put it simply, in 7 words:
What I felt was up was down.
Or to put it in 13 words:
What I felt to be true uprightness
Turned out to be just uptightness.
Any confidence I have now to mine for Ashvaghosha's gold has grown from the clear realisation, which Alexander work practically forced upon me, of the distinction that exists between the fool's gold of uptightness and the true gold of uprightness. Alexander work gave me a shoot of confidence in the existence of true gold.
Before Alexander work, I sincerely believed in the truth of Master Dogen's teaching, but it was only belief, not confidence. I loved then as I have continued to love, Master Dogen's teaching of learning the backward step, so that body and mind drop off, and the original face appears. I appreciated the beauty of Master Dogen's words and sensed the truth in them, but I had not understood the meaning of those words as well as I believed I had.
To see and hear the real truth might be to really experience body and mind dropping off and one's original face emerging; in other words, to experience the right thing doing itself. But to express a view on it which one sincerely believes to be true, is not it.
There is, however, a criterion other than verbal expression by which to judge whether or not a person has seen and heard the real truth. That criterion, the Buddha tells us now, is confidence. Real experience of the real truth causes a person's confidence in the real truth to grow strong and firm, like a healthy sapling that grows over 10, 20, 30, 50 or 70 years into a great tree.
A protege of FM Alexander named Patrick Macdonald who was notorious for his wry sense of humour apparently used to say that the first 10 years were the worst. But as he got older he started saying that the first 20 years were the worst. Then he started saying that the first 40 years were the worst, and so on. Once in his old age Patrick Macdonald asked my teacher how long she had been teaching, and she told him: 35 years. "Oh, really?" Macdonald inquired, "Is that all?" I think he was making the same point that the Buddha is making with the metaphor of the tree: real confidence does not grow strong or firm in one or two summers.
Patrick Macdonald, they say, placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of taking a pupil UP. But he famously remarked that for the first 30 years he himself was taking everybody down. He understood that despite his wish to leave his wrists totally open so that he might take his pupil up, some recalcitrant downward, depressive, or controlling tendency had remained in him which was not willing to partake in that wish.
To practice the real truth, it seems to me, is to say no to reliance on all such wayward depressing tendencies. Those tendencies have both intellectual and sensory roots.
Nanda had reached the point at the beginning of this Canto when he was able to retreat from his former thirst for heaven, which was sustained by a wrong intellectual conception about the satisfaction to be found among celestial nymphs. He had reached the point of giving up an idea that was putting him wrong.
Here at the end of the Canto, the challenge that still faces Nanda is to circumvent those senses of his which, Ashvaghosha tells us in 12.18, are still set against ultimate good. This circumvention is the subject of Canto 13.
In discussing the senses, sometimes Ashvaghosha cites the five senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch, which he calls in 13.56 a-kushala-karaaNaam ariiNaaM, "evil-causing enemies." But often in records of the Buddha's teaching, for example in the Heart Sutra, six senses are enumerated. This caused me often to wonder, when I was in Japan, how to understand and how to translate the sixth sense, called in Sanskrit manendriya. Those questions were answered, to my satisfaction at least, when I got into Alexander work and started hearing about proprioception, and what Alexander called "debauched kinaesthesia."
On its own man means to perceive, know, understand, or comprehend, so manendriya suggests the compound sense of proprioception, central to which is the vestibular sense. It was my Alexander head of training, Ray Evans, who when I met him in 1995 first alerted me to the primary importance, at the centre of all the senses, of the vestibular sense. The vestibular system, calibrated by the semi-circular canals of the inner ear, is central to our sense of the body as a structure in or out of balance, as the body remains still, or moves through space, as it floats weightlessly in water, or as the body stands on the earth, bearing weight.
EH Johnston:
For so long as the real path is not seen or heard, so long faith does not become strong or firm, but when a man by restraining his senses with self-control sees the real truth, the tree of his faith bears fruit and becomes the vehicle (of further advance).'
Linda Covill:
As long as reality is not seen or heard, faith is not firm or strongly fixed. But when a man's senses are governed by the rules of restraint and he sees reality, then the tree of faith is fruitful and supportive.
End of Canto 12: Comprehension.
VOCABULARY:
yaavat (correlative of taavat): insofar as
tattvam (accusative): what is, reality ; n. true or real state , truth , reality ; (in phil.) a true principle
na: not
bhavati: is, becomes
hi: for
dRShTa: seen, looked at
shruta: mfn. heard , listened to , heard about or of , taught , orally transmitted or communicated from age to age
vaa: or
taavat (correlative of yaavat): so
shraddhaa: confidence, trust, belief,
na: not
bhavati: is, becomes
bala-stha: mfn. " being in strength or power " , strong , powerful , vigorous
sthira: mfn. firm , hard , solid , compact , strong ; fixed , immovable , motionless , still , calm ; firm , not wavering or tottering , steady
vaa: or
dRShTe = locative of dRShTa: seen
tattve = locative of tattva: what is, reality
niyama: restraining, checking, holding back, preventing, controlling
paribhuuta: overpowered, conquered, slighted, disregarded, despised
indriyasya = genitive of indriya: sense, power of the senses
shraddhaa: confidence, trust, belief,
vRkShaH = nominative of vRkSha: tree
bhavati: is, becomes
sa-phalaH (nominative): fruitful, bearing fruit
ca: and
aashrayaH (nominative): something on which to rely, depend, or rest upon
ca: and
taavac chraddhaa na bhavati bala-sthaa sthiraa vaa
dRShTe tattve niyama-paribhuut'-endriyasya
shraddaa-vRkSho bhavati sa-phalash c'aashrayash ca
= = = = - - - - - = = - = =
= = = = - - - - - = = - = =
= = = = - - - - - = = - = =
= = = = - - - - - = = - = -
saundaranande mahaa-kaavye pratyavamarsho naama dvaadashaH sarghaH
= - - = = - = = = = - - = = = = = - = = =
12.43
For so long as the real truth is not seen or heard,
Confidence does not become strong or firm;
But when, through restraint,
the power of the senses is circumvented
and the real truth is realised,
The tree of confidence bears fruit and weight.
The 12th Canto of the epic poem Handsome Nanda, titled
'Gaining Hold.'
COMMENT:
What is the real truth?
My view of the real truth is not the real truth.
I came to England at the end of 1994 with the strong intention of getting to the bottom of the discoveries of FM Alexander, because initial experience of Alexander lessons in Tokyo awakened a shoot of confidence in me with regard to the real truth of Alexander work. Alexander work is a means of circumventing the senses and allowing the right to do itself, via inhibition of the wrong. In this work, I am confident, there is real truth.
I used to believe that my sitting practice was practically bursting with real truth. But Alexander work falsified my former belief. Alexander work showed me that there was not so much real truth in my sitting practice as I had believed there was. To put it another way, my sitting practice was much fuller of faults than I realised. Those faults, I have come to realise, are profoundly related with four vestibular reflexes which have to do with (1) fear, (2) balance, (3) side-to-side coordination (see above photo), and (4) top-to-bottom coordination. Because I was practising these faults unconsciously, my sitting practice was much fuller of faults than I realised.
To put it simply, in 7 words:
What I felt was up was down.
Or to put it in 13 words:
What I felt to be true uprightness
Turned out to be just uptightness.
Any confidence I have now to mine for Ashvaghosha's gold has grown from the clear realisation, which Alexander work practically forced upon me, of the distinction that exists between the fool's gold of uptightness and the true gold of uprightness. Alexander work gave me a shoot of confidence in the existence of true gold.
Before Alexander work, I sincerely believed in the truth of Master Dogen's teaching, but it was only belief, not confidence. I loved then as I have continued to love, Master Dogen's teaching of learning the backward step, so that body and mind drop off, and the original face appears. I appreciated the beauty of Master Dogen's words and sensed the truth in them, but I had not understood the meaning of those words as well as I believed I had.
To see and hear the real truth might be to really experience body and mind dropping off and one's original face emerging; in other words, to experience the right thing doing itself. But to express a view on it which one sincerely believes to be true, is not it.
There is, however, a criterion other than verbal expression by which to judge whether or not a person has seen and heard the real truth. That criterion, the Buddha tells us now, is confidence. Real experience of the real truth causes a person's confidence in the real truth to grow strong and firm, like a healthy sapling that grows over 10, 20, 30, 50 or 70 years into a great tree.
A protege of FM Alexander named Patrick Macdonald who was notorious for his wry sense of humour apparently used to say that the first 10 years were the worst. But as he got older he started saying that the first 20 years were the worst. Then he started saying that the first 40 years were the worst, and so on. Once in his old age Patrick Macdonald asked my teacher how long she had been teaching, and she told him: 35 years. "Oh, really?" Macdonald inquired, "Is that all?" I think he was making the same point that the Buddha is making with the metaphor of the tree: real confidence does not grow strong or firm in one or two summers.
Patrick Macdonald, they say, placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of taking a pupil UP. But he famously remarked that for the first 30 years he himself was taking everybody down. He understood that despite his wish to leave his wrists totally open so that he might take his pupil up, some recalcitrant downward, depressive, or controlling tendency had remained in him which was not willing to partake in that wish.
To practice the real truth, it seems to me, is to say no to reliance on all such wayward depressing tendencies. Those tendencies have both intellectual and sensory roots.
Nanda had reached the point at the beginning of this Canto when he was able to retreat from his former thirst for heaven, which was sustained by a wrong intellectual conception about the satisfaction to be found among celestial nymphs. He had reached the point of giving up an idea that was putting him wrong.
Here at the end of the Canto, the challenge that still faces Nanda is to circumvent those senses of his which, Ashvaghosha tells us in 12.18, are still set against ultimate good. This circumvention is the subject of Canto 13.
In discussing the senses, sometimes Ashvaghosha cites the five senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch, which he calls in 13.56 a-kushala-karaaNaam ariiNaaM, "evil-causing enemies." But often in records of the Buddha's teaching, for example in the Heart Sutra, six senses are enumerated. This caused me often to wonder, when I was in Japan, how to understand and how to translate the sixth sense, called in Sanskrit manendriya. Those questions were answered, to my satisfaction at least, when I got into Alexander work and started hearing about proprioception, and what Alexander called "debauched kinaesthesia."
On its own man means to perceive, know, understand, or comprehend, so manendriya suggests the compound sense of proprioception, central to which is the vestibular sense. It was my Alexander head of training, Ray Evans, who when I met him in 1995 first alerted me to the primary importance, at the centre of all the senses, of the vestibular sense. The vestibular system, calibrated by the semi-circular canals of the inner ear, is central to our sense of the body as a structure in or out of balance, as the body remains still, or moves through space, as it floats weightlessly in water, or as the body stands on the earth, bearing weight.
EH Johnston:
For so long as the real path is not seen or heard, so long faith does not become strong or firm, but when a man by restraining his senses with self-control sees the real truth, the tree of his faith bears fruit and becomes the vehicle (of further advance).'
Linda Covill:
As long as reality is not seen or heard, faith is not firm or strongly fixed. But when a man's senses are governed by the rules of restraint and he sees reality, then the tree of faith is fruitful and supportive.
End of Canto 12: Comprehension.
VOCABULARY:
yaavat (correlative of taavat): insofar as
tattvam (accusative): what is, reality ; n. true or real state , truth , reality ; (in phil.) a true principle
na: not
bhavati: is, becomes
hi: for
dRShTa: seen, looked at
shruta: mfn. heard , listened to , heard about or of , taught , orally transmitted or communicated from age to age
vaa: or
taavat (correlative of yaavat): so
shraddhaa: confidence, trust, belief,
na: not
bhavati: is, becomes
bala-stha: mfn. " being in strength or power " , strong , powerful , vigorous
sthira: mfn. firm , hard , solid , compact , strong ; fixed , immovable , motionless , still , calm ; firm , not wavering or tottering , steady
vaa: or
dRShTe = locative of dRShTa: seen
tattve = locative of tattva: what is, reality
niyama: restraining, checking, holding back, preventing, controlling
paribhuuta: overpowered, conquered, slighted, disregarded, despised
indriyasya = genitive of indriya: sense, power of the senses
shraddhaa: confidence, trust, belief,
vRkShaH = nominative of vRkSha: tree
bhavati: is, becomes
sa-phalaH (nominative): fruitful, bearing fruit
ca: and
aashrayaH (nominative): something on which to rely, depend, or rest upon
ca: and
Saturday, July 4, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 12.42: Unsteady Confidence & Errant Direction
vyaakulaM darshanam yasya
dur-balo yasya nishcayaH
tasya paariplavaa shraddhaa
na hi kRtyaaya vartate
= - = = - = = -
= - = = - = - =
= - = = - = = =
- - = = - = - =
12.42
When a person's seeing is disordered,
When a person's sense of purpose is weak:
The confidence of that person is unsteady,
For he is not veering in the direction he should.
COMMENT:
This verse, as I read it, is still clearer evidence that the Buddha is describing confidence as not primarily a psychological phenomenon but as primarily a physiological phenomenon, in particular as a function of the vestibular system.
If a child is suffering from primitive vestibular reflexes that have been retained in very immature form, that child will invariably have reading difficulties. Often the mother will sense that there is something wrong with her son's eyes and send him off to the optician, only to be told that the boy has got 20 : 20 vision. This prompted Jane Field, a fellow-trainee of the Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester to publish a pamphlet titled, "My vision is perfect. Why don't I see?"
In fact, the problem in such cases of disordered seeing is not in the child's eyes but in his ears. As Alfred Tomatis correctly observed "we sing with our ears." And not only that: we also read with our ears, and see with our ears. We interpret all sensory information that relates to the dynamic orientation of ourselves and all things in space, primarily through our vestibular system. When a person's seeing is disordered, the fundamental problem is always vestibular. The problem has to do, primarily, with the person's lack of ability to orient himself or herself within the gravitational field.
Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler may be three of the best known Germanic/Austrian/Jewish figures in the history of 20th century ideas, but another Viennese Jew who deserves to be better known is Paul Schilder, to whom is attributed the phrase that "When we understand the vestibular system, we will understand neuroses."
The following is quoted from Chapter 13 of Paul Schilder: Mind Explorer (1985) by David G. Hubbard and Charles G. Wright:
Dr. Schilder appears to be the first pyschiatrist to view the human psyche as a physical phenomenon, suspended in space, and actively moving through it.
As a gifted neurologist, Schilder returned again and again to the cerebellar and vestibular systems, which are intimately concerned with body motion and spatial orientation. Most investigators have overlooked the role of gravity (as a linear accelerative force which constantly influences vestibular function) in connection with human development and behaviour. Paul Schilder did not.
Stimulated by Schilder's ideas regarding motion and space, the senior author began some time ago to consider the potential influence of gravity in relation to human personality development. Psychoanalysis teaches theories of oral, anal, and genital stages which decisively influence development. On the other hand, Schilder's work seems to suggest an additional pyschological stage (gravitational) which is operative over a lengthy period of personality development extending through and beyond the traditionally recognized stages. This gravitational stage appears to be more influential in orderly, sequential development of logic, of neurobiological reflexes, and of personality function than Freud's classical stages. We must, for example, bear in mind that a human infant spends the first years of life learning to move and orient its physical body against the ever-present force of gravity. The individual then spends much time and effort during the following 10 to 15 years developing motor skills which make possible coordinated movement despite that force. It would seem that this long process must play a part in molding the maturation of personality.
Surprisingly, however, a careful search of the literature both in psychiatry and neurobiology revealed almost no reference to the influence of gravity upon development.
Neither Gautama the Buddha nor FM Alexander would feature in such a search of literature in psychiatry and neurobiology. But both understood that confidence, at the deepest level, has to do with gravitational security or insecurity. It has to do with knowing or not knowing where one is going, relative to the vertical. It has to do, in short, with direction in life. Confidence, at the deepest level, has to do with veering in a direction which is not down.
FM Alexander was an unsurpassed genius of recent times in understanding the influence of gravity upon development. That is why he asked his students to ask themselves what it means to allow the head to go forward and UP.
The Buddha was 2000 years ahead of his time in understanding the influence of gravity upon development. That is why he transmitted as the one great matter the practice of UPright sitting -- with a physical effort, with an effort of the pysche, and with the sense of effortlessness which is experienced when the right thing doing itself.
Confidence that the right thing does itself comes from experience of the right thing doing itself. The job of an Alexander teacher is to give the Alexander pupil the experience of the right thing doing itself. The means to accomplish this is to stop the wrong thing from doing itself, using four preventive directions which, I have argued, correspond to four vestibular reflexes.
In conclusion, then, what is the relation between vestibular dysfunction and psychological insecurity? Is it the relation between seed and corn? Or is it the relation between H2O and water?
EH Johnston:
As for the man whose doctrinal sight is dim and resolution weak, his faith is unreliable ; for it does not work to the desired end.
Linda Covill:
When a man's vision is blurred and he is weak in resolve, his faith wavers, for it is not operating towards its proper outcome.
VOCABULARY:
vyaakula: bewildered , confounded , perplexed , troubled ; confused , disordered ; quivering (as lightning)
darshana: n. seeing , observing , looking , noticing , observation , perception
yasya (genitive): for [him] who
dur-bala: mfn. of little strength , weak , feeble
yasya (genitive): for [him] who
nishcaya: conviction , certainty , positiveness ; resolution , resolve, fixed intention , design , purpose , aim
tasya (correlative of yasya): of him
paariplava: swimming ; moving to and fro , agitated , unsteady , tremulous ; wavering , irresolute
shraddhaa: confidence
na: not
hi: for
kRtyaaya = dative of kRtya: "to be done" ; action, achievement ; what ought to be done ; what is proper or fit ; effect, result ; purpose, end, object
vartate = 3rd person singular of vRt: to turn, roll on; to move or go on , get along , advance , proceed ; to be intent on , attend to (dat.); to act , conduct one's self , behave towards (loc. dat. , or acc); follow a course of conduct, proceed, continue ; to tend or turn to , prove as (dat.)
dur-balo yasya nishcayaH
tasya paariplavaa shraddhaa
na hi kRtyaaya vartate
= - = = - = = -
= - = = - = - =
= - = = - = = =
- - = = - = - =
12.42
When a person's seeing is disordered,
When a person's sense of purpose is weak:
The confidence of that person is unsteady,
For he is not veering in the direction he should.
COMMENT:
This verse, as I read it, is still clearer evidence that the Buddha is describing confidence as not primarily a psychological phenomenon but as primarily a physiological phenomenon, in particular as a function of the vestibular system.
If a child is suffering from primitive vestibular reflexes that have been retained in very immature form, that child will invariably have reading difficulties. Often the mother will sense that there is something wrong with her son's eyes and send him off to the optician, only to be told that the boy has got 20 : 20 vision. This prompted Jane Field, a fellow-trainee of the Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester to publish a pamphlet titled, "My vision is perfect. Why don't I see?"
In fact, the problem in such cases of disordered seeing is not in the child's eyes but in his ears. As Alfred Tomatis correctly observed "we sing with our ears." And not only that: we also read with our ears, and see with our ears. We interpret all sensory information that relates to the dynamic orientation of ourselves and all things in space, primarily through our vestibular system. When a person's seeing is disordered, the fundamental problem is always vestibular. The problem has to do, primarily, with the person's lack of ability to orient himself or herself within the gravitational field.
Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler may be three of the best known Germanic/Austrian/Jewish figures in the history of 20th century ideas, but another Viennese Jew who deserves to be better known is Paul Schilder, to whom is attributed the phrase that "When we understand the vestibular system, we will understand neuroses."
The following is quoted from Chapter 13 of Paul Schilder: Mind Explorer (1985) by David G. Hubbard and Charles G. Wright:
Dr. Schilder appears to be the first pyschiatrist to view the human psyche as a physical phenomenon, suspended in space, and actively moving through it.
As a gifted neurologist, Schilder returned again and again to the cerebellar and vestibular systems, which are intimately concerned with body motion and spatial orientation. Most investigators have overlooked the role of gravity (as a linear accelerative force which constantly influences vestibular function) in connection with human development and behaviour. Paul Schilder did not.
Stimulated by Schilder's ideas regarding motion and space, the senior author began some time ago to consider the potential influence of gravity in relation to human personality development. Psychoanalysis teaches theories of oral, anal, and genital stages which decisively influence development. On the other hand, Schilder's work seems to suggest an additional pyschological stage (gravitational) which is operative over a lengthy period of personality development extending through and beyond the traditionally recognized stages. This gravitational stage appears to be more influential in orderly, sequential development of logic, of neurobiological reflexes, and of personality function than Freud's classical stages. We must, for example, bear in mind that a human infant spends the first years of life learning to move and orient its physical body against the ever-present force of gravity. The individual then spends much time and effort during the following 10 to 15 years developing motor skills which make possible coordinated movement despite that force. It would seem that this long process must play a part in molding the maturation of personality.
Surprisingly, however, a careful search of the literature both in psychiatry and neurobiology revealed almost no reference to the influence of gravity upon development.
Neither Gautama the Buddha nor FM Alexander would feature in such a search of literature in psychiatry and neurobiology. But both understood that confidence, at the deepest level, has to do with gravitational security or insecurity. It has to do with knowing or not knowing where one is going, relative to the vertical. It has to do, in short, with direction in life. Confidence, at the deepest level, has to do with veering in a direction which is not down.
FM Alexander was an unsurpassed genius of recent times in understanding the influence of gravity upon development. That is why he asked his students to ask themselves what it means to allow the head to go forward and UP.
The Buddha was 2000 years ahead of his time in understanding the influence of gravity upon development. That is why he transmitted as the one great matter the practice of UPright sitting -- with a physical effort, with an effort of the pysche, and with the sense of effortlessness which is experienced when the right thing doing itself.
Confidence that the right thing does itself comes from experience of the right thing doing itself. The job of an Alexander teacher is to give the Alexander pupil the experience of the right thing doing itself. The means to accomplish this is to stop the wrong thing from doing itself, using four preventive directions which, I have argued, correspond to four vestibular reflexes.
In conclusion, then, what is the relation between vestibular dysfunction and psychological insecurity? Is it the relation between seed and corn? Or is it the relation between H2O and water?
EH Johnston:
As for the man whose doctrinal sight is dim and resolution weak, his faith is unreliable ; for it does not work to the desired end.
Linda Covill:
When a man's vision is blurred and he is weak in resolve, his faith wavers, for it is not operating towards its proper outcome.
VOCABULARY:
vyaakula: bewildered , confounded , perplexed , troubled ; confused , disordered ; quivering (as lightning)
darshana: n. seeing , observing , looking , noticing , observation , perception
yasya (genitive): for [him] who
dur-bala: mfn. of little strength , weak , feeble
yasya (genitive): for [him] who
nishcaya: conviction , certainty , positiveness ; resolution , resolve, fixed intention , design , purpose , aim
tasya (correlative of yasya): of him
paariplava: swimming ; moving to and fro , agitated , unsteady , tremulous ; wavering , irresolute
shraddhaa: confidence
na: not
hi: for
kRtyaaya = dative of kRtya: "to be done" ; action, achievement ; what ought to be done ; what is proper or fit ; effect, result ; purpose, end, object
vartate = 3rd person singular of vRt: to turn, roll on; to move or go on , get along , advance , proceed ; to be intent on , attend to (dat.); to act , conduct one's self , behave towards (loc. dat. , or acc); follow a course of conduct, proceed, continue ; to tend or turn to , prove as (dat.)
Friday, July 3, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 12.41: Confidence & Growth
shraddh"-aaNkuram imaM tasmaat
saMvardhayituM arhasii
tad-vRddhau vardhate dharmo
muula-vRddhau yathaa drumaH
= = - - - = = =
= = - - - = - =
= = = = - = = =
= - = = - = - =
12.41
This shoot of confidence, therefore,
You should nurture;
When it grows the Dharma grows,
As a tree grows with the growth of its root.
COMMENT:
This verse returns to the metaphor of a tree's growth. The verse is so succinct, even the most dutiful and non-poetic servant of the Buddha might be able to admire the pithy elegance of this verse, which translates itself so easily into English -- apart from the divisive issue of how to translate shraddhaa. I am afraid the following comment is not so succinct. The gold, as always, is in the bold.
The main substance of the Buddha's teaching in this Canto, as Nanda stands before the Buddha, head partially lowered in shame, is to praise Nanda for the confidence that has begun to grow in him. What is this shoot of confidence, which Nanda seemed to voice in 12.16?
Clearly, the shoot of confidence the Buddha has identified has got nothing to do with the smug self-confidence of the opinionated. "This shoot of confidence" (shraddh"-aaNkuram imaM) does not refer to empty self-confidence. Neither, as I read it, does it mean a shoot of mere religious faith, because Nanda has already begun to experience for himself, with the shock of seeing the impermanence of celestial nymphs, the real truth of the teaching he has asked to hear. Nanda doesn't just believe in the truth of the Buddha's teaching: he is not a naive optimist in search of a Holy Grail. Just as the man digging for water evolved out of and was born from water; just as the man twirling the firestick has eaten his daily bread, and survived all his winters, by virtue of fire; and just as the farmer is no stranger to corn, Nanda has already gained real experience of the teaching that eradicates all suffering. And the experience has shaken him to his marrow. The shock of it has caused his usually ruddy complexion to turn white.
So what the Buddha is praising is not religious belief in what must be taken on faith, being not subject to verification by experiment. Nor is the Buddha praising strident confidence in an empty self. The Buddha is praising the emerging confidence of the shameful -- the real confidence of one who has begun to see the wrongness of his former approach.
FM Alexander used to say, "To know when we are wrong is all that we shall ever know in this world."
And this wrong that is all we can know, Alexander argued, I think correctly, is rooted in a combination of (1) an end-gaining idea (such as optimistic belief in permanent bliss among nymphs), and (2) faults in our sensory system.
Allowing this shoot of abashed confidence to grow, therefore, involves reliance on some means which is (1) opposed to reliance on end-gaining, and which (2) circumvents reliance on ever-unreliable senses. This latter theme of circumventing the senses will be taken up in 12.42 & 12.43, and in Canto 13.
But the starting point, in Nanda's case for one, was the shoot of confidence that was rooted in his knowing when he was wrong.
I labour the point because a lot hangs, as I see it, upon whether one translates shraddh"-aaNkuram imaM as "this shoot of confidence" or as "this shoot of faith." Religious faith is generally a kind of optimism in the existence of a state where everything will be all right -- eternal bliss will be enjoyed among celestial nymphs; or true Buddhism will pervade the Universe. Alexander work, in total contrast rests upon a confidence in which one is not afraid of being wrong. Religious faith is a basis for trying to be right. Confidence in seeing where I have been going wrong is a basis for eliminating those wrong ideas and sensory delusions which led me astray. The two approaches are not just different; they are opposite.
What is proclaimed as "Buddhism" or "True Buddhism" or "the true Dharma" generally fits, in my experience, into the former category, and the direction it leads in is not growth of real confidence but attachment to fixed dogma, defensiveness, fear of being shown to be wrong, an "us and them" attitude tending to scorn and hatred of the other, and so on.
If I try again to say what I want to say, more succinctly, from my foolish heart:
A fool speaks truth to power when it's rendered deaf by fears;
When Buddha spoke to Nanda he was, shamefully, all ears.
EH Johnston:
Therefore take heed to cherish this shoot of faith; for as it grows the Law grows, as a tree grows with the growth of its root.
Linda Covill:
Therefore you should nurture this shoot of faith; when it grows, dharma grows, just as a tree grows when its roots grow.
VOCABULARY:
shraddhaa: confidence, trust, belief
aaNkuram (accusative): shoot
imam (m. accusative of ayam): this
tasmaat: from that, therefore
saMvardhayituM = infinitive of saMvardhayati: to cause to grow , rear , bring up , foster , cherish , augment , enlarge , strengthen , beautify , make prosperous or happy
arhasi: please, you should
tad: its
vRddhau = locative of vRddhi: growth
vardhate = 3rd person singular of vRdh: to grow
dharmaH (nominative, singular): teaching, law, Dharma
muula: root
vRddhau = locative of vRddhi: growth
yathaa: just as
drumaH (nominative, singular): tree
saMvardhayituM arhasii
tad-vRddhau vardhate dharmo
muula-vRddhau yathaa drumaH
= = - - - = = =
= = - - - = - =
= = = = - = = =
= - = = - = - =
12.41
This shoot of confidence, therefore,
You should nurture;
When it grows the Dharma grows,
As a tree grows with the growth of its root.
COMMENT:
This verse returns to the metaphor of a tree's growth. The verse is so succinct, even the most dutiful and non-poetic servant of the Buddha might be able to admire the pithy elegance of this verse, which translates itself so easily into English -- apart from the divisive issue of how to translate shraddhaa. I am afraid the following comment is not so succinct. The gold, as always, is in the bold.
The main substance of the Buddha's teaching in this Canto, as Nanda stands before the Buddha, head partially lowered in shame, is to praise Nanda for the confidence that has begun to grow in him. What is this shoot of confidence, which Nanda seemed to voice in 12.16?
Clearly, the shoot of confidence the Buddha has identified has got nothing to do with the smug self-confidence of the opinionated. "This shoot of confidence" (shraddh"-aaNkuram imaM) does not refer to empty self-confidence. Neither, as I read it, does it mean a shoot of mere religious faith, because Nanda has already begun to experience for himself, with the shock of seeing the impermanence of celestial nymphs, the real truth of the teaching he has asked to hear. Nanda doesn't just believe in the truth of the Buddha's teaching: he is not a naive optimist in search of a Holy Grail. Just as the man digging for water evolved out of and was born from water; just as the man twirling the firestick has eaten his daily bread, and survived all his winters, by virtue of fire; and just as the farmer is no stranger to corn, Nanda has already gained real experience of the teaching that eradicates all suffering. And the experience has shaken him to his marrow. The shock of it has caused his usually ruddy complexion to turn white.
So what the Buddha is praising is not religious belief in what must be taken on faith, being not subject to verification by experiment. Nor is the Buddha praising strident confidence in an empty self. The Buddha is praising the emerging confidence of the shameful -- the real confidence of one who has begun to see the wrongness of his former approach.
FM Alexander used to say, "To know when we are wrong is all that we shall ever know in this world."
And this wrong that is all we can know, Alexander argued, I think correctly, is rooted in a combination of (1) an end-gaining idea (such as optimistic belief in permanent bliss among nymphs), and (2) faults in our sensory system.
Allowing this shoot of abashed confidence to grow, therefore, involves reliance on some means which is (1) opposed to reliance on end-gaining, and which (2) circumvents reliance on ever-unreliable senses. This latter theme of circumventing the senses will be taken up in 12.42 & 12.43, and in Canto 13.
But the starting point, in Nanda's case for one, was the shoot of confidence that was rooted in his knowing when he was wrong.
I labour the point because a lot hangs, as I see it, upon whether one translates shraddh"-aaNkuram imaM as "this shoot of confidence" or as "this shoot of faith." Religious faith is generally a kind of optimism in the existence of a state where everything will be all right -- eternal bliss will be enjoyed among celestial nymphs; or true Buddhism will pervade the Universe. Alexander work, in total contrast rests upon a confidence in which one is not afraid of being wrong. Religious faith is a basis for trying to be right. Confidence in seeing where I have been going wrong is a basis for eliminating those wrong ideas and sensory delusions which led me astray. The two approaches are not just different; they are opposite.
What is proclaimed as "Buddhism" or "True Buddhism" or "the true Dharma" generally fits, in my experience, into the former category, and the direction it leads in is not growth of real confidence but attachment to fixed dogma, defensiveness, fear of being shown to be wrong, an "us and them" attitude tending to scorn and hatred of the other, and so on.
If I try again to say what I want to say, more succinctly, from my foolish heart:
A fool speaks truth to power when it's rendered deaf by fears;
When Buddha spoke to Nanda he was, shamefully, all ears.
EH Johnston:
Therefore take heed to cherish this shoot of faith; for as it grows the Law grows, as a tree grows with the growth of its root.
Linda Covill:
Therefore you should nurture this shoot of faith; when it grows, dharma grows, just as a tree grows when its roots grow.
VOCABULARY:
shraddhaa: confidence, trust, belief
aaNkuram (accusative): shoot
imam (m. accusative of ayam): this
tasmaat: from that, therefore
saMvardhayituM = infinitive of saMvardhayati: to cause to grow , rear , bring up , foster , cherish , augment , enlarge , strengthen , beautify , make prosperous or happy
arhasi: please, you should
tad: its
vRddhau = locative of vRddhi: growth
vardhate = 3rd person singular of vRdh: to grow
dharmaH (nominative, singular): teaching, law, Dharma
muula: root
vRddhau = locative of vRddhi: growth
yathaa: just as
drumaH (nominative, singular): tree
Thursday, July 2, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 12.40: The Primacy of Confidence
yasmaad dharmasya c' otpattau
shraddhaa kaaraNam uttamam
may" oktaa kaaryatas tasmaat
tatra tatra tathaa tathaa
= = = = - = = =
= - = - - = - =
- = = = - = = =
= - = - - = - =
12.40
Since in the emerging of Dharma
Confidence is the primary cause,
Therefore I have named it after its effects
In this case like this, in that case like that.
COMMENT:
This verse, as I read it, again comes back to consideration of cause (kaaraNa) and effect (kaarya); and to consideration of how primary (uttama) is confidence (shraddhaa).
There have been times in my life, particularly during my 20s, when I had the sense of making terrific personal sacrifices and terrific effort to cause the Dharma to emerge -- sacrifices and effort "to produce the Holy Law" in EHJ's terminology. Conversely, sometimes the right thing has seemed to do itself without much sense of effort or hardship on my part.
At the centre of the former heroic effort has been a very stubborn optimism -- an optimism that turned out to be unfounded and unhealthy. Learning to allow the right thing to do itself, conversely, whenever I have succeeded in that, has been centred very much on confidence. I would like clearly to draw a distinction, based on my own experience, between optimism and confidence.
Many areas of learning spring to mind in which good teachers are able to remove anxious end-gaining from the learning process, so that a pupil is freed from anxiety and able to learn with confidence. I think of good teachers of swimming (Ian & Chie Cross), dog-handling (Ceasar Milan), and language teaching (Michel Thomas), who from the outset make a point of seeing to it that they inspire confidence in their students.
In my own teaching experience, not that I have got a tremendous amount of it, I endeavour to convey the sense of confidence that Marjory Barlow conveyed to me, which is the confidence that comes from working to a definite principle. I struggle with a tendency to be impatient which, unless I stop it off at source, is liable to excite a student's fear reflexes -- the opposite of confidence. If this impatience is a liability, one asset that I have as a teacher is understanding how important vestibular dysfunction is in undermining a person's confidence. I understand that it is very difficult for a human being to be confident if their vestibular sense is such that they are unsure which way is up, which way is down; which way is forward, which way is back; and which way is left, which way is right.
This understanding of the primary importance of the vestibular system owes much to my Alexander head of training, the late Ray Evans. Following Ray's lead I started training in 1998 in the diagnosis and treatment of immature vestibular reflexes. I went into this field motivated mainly by a desire to understand myself, but as part of the training at INPP Chester we were required to take several children through reflex inhibition programmes, and this led me into continuing with this kind of work, in a small way. Consequently over the past 10 years I have made the following observation time and time again: After a child has for a few weeks been doing the initial daily exercise to slowly recalibrate his vestibular system, I ask the mother if she has noticed any changes and she replies, "Not really anything in particular. It is just that he seems altogether more confident."
EH Johnston:
Since faith is the chief agent in the production of the Law, therefore I give it these names from its action in these ways.
Linda Covill:
As faith is the primary factor in the arising of dharma, I have called it different names on various occasions due to its effects.
VOCABULARY:
yasmaat: since
dharmasya (genitive): of dharma
ca: and
utpattau = locative of utpatti: f. arising , birth , production
shraddhaa: belief, trust, confidence
kaaraNam (accusative): cause, instrument, element ; agency , instrumentality , condition
uttama: highest, chief, primary
mayaa (instrumental of aham): by me
uktaa: (f.) uttered, said, spoken, described
kaarya: to be made or done or practised or performed ; n. conduct , deportment ; n. an effect, result ; n. motive , object , aim , purpose ; n. the denouement of a drama
- taH: (ablative suffix) from, in accordance with
tasmaat (correlative of yasmaat): from that, therefore
tatra tatra: in that and that case
tathaa tathaa: in that and that manner
shraddhaa kaaraNam uttamam
may" oktaa kaaryatas tasmaat
tatra tatra tathaa tathaa
= = = = - = = =
= - = - - = - =
- = = = - = = =
= - = - - = - =
12.40
Since in the emerging of Dharma
Confidence is the primary cause,
Therefore I have named it after its effects
In this case like this, in that case like that.
COMMENT:
This verse, as I read it, again comes back to consideration of cause (kaaraNa) and effect (kaarya); and to consideration of how primary (uttama) is confidence (shraddhaa).
There have been times in my life, particularly during my 20s, when I had the sense of making terrific personal sacrifices and terrific effort to cause the Dharma to emerge -- sacrifices and effort "to produce the Holy Law" in EHJ's terminology. Conversely, sometimes the right thing has seemed to do itself without much sense of effort or hardship on my part.
At the centre of the former heroic effort has been a very stubborn optimism -- an optimism that turned out to be unfounded and unhealthy. Learning to allow the right thing to do itself, conversely, whenever I have succeeded in that, has been centred very much on confidence. I would like clearly to draw a distinction, based on my own experience, between optimism and confidence.
Many areas of learning spring to mind in which good teachers are able to remove anxious end-gaining from the learning process, so that a pupil is freed from anxiety and able to learn with confidence. I think of good teachers of swimming (Ian & Chie Cross), dog-handling (Ceasar Milan), and language teaching (Michel Thomas), who from the outset make a point of seeing to it that they inspire confidence in their students.
In my own teaching experience, not that I have got a tremendous amount of it, I endeavour to convey the sense of confidence that Marjory Barlow conveyed to me, which is the confidence that comes from working to a definite principle. I struggle with a tendency to be impatient which, unless I stop it off at source, is liable to excite a student's fear reflexes -- the opposite of confidence. If this impatience is a liability, one asset that I have as a teacher is understanding how important vestibular dysfunction is in undermining a person's confidence. I understand that it is very difficult for a human being to be confident if their vestibular sense is such that they are unsure which way is up, which way is down; which way is forward, which way is back; and which way is left, which way is right.
This understanding of the primary importance of the vestibular system owes much to my Alexander head of training, the late Ray Evans. Following Ray's lead I started training in 1998 in the diagnosis and treatment of immature vestibular reflexes. I went into this field motivated mainly by a desire to understand myself, but as part of the training at INPP Chester we were required to take several children through reflex inhibition programmes, and this led me into continuing with this kind of work, in a small way. Consequently over the past 10 years I have made the following observation time and time again: After a child has for a few weeks been doing the initial daily exercise to slowly recalibrate his vestibular system, I ask the mother if she has noticed any changes and she replies, "Not really anything in particular. It is just that he seems altogether more confident."
EH Johnston:
Since faith is the chief agent in the production of the Law, therefore I give it these names from its action in these ways.
Linda Covill:
As faith is the primary factor in the arising of dharma, I have called it different names on various occasions due to its effects.
VOCABULARY:
yasmaat: since
dharmasya (genitive): of dharma
ca: and
utpattau = locative of utpatti: f. arising , birth , production
shraddhaa: belief, trust, confidence
kaaraNam (accusative): cause, instrument, element ; agency , instrumentality , condition
uttama: highest, chief, primary
mayaa (instrumental of aham): by me
uktaa: (f.) uttered, said, spoken, described
kaarya: to be made or done or practised or performed ; n. conduct , deportment ; n. an effect, result ; n. motive , object , aim , purpose ; n. the denouement of a drama
- taH: (ablative suffix) from, in accordance with
tasmaat (correlative of yasmaat): from that, therefore
tatra tatra: in that and that case
tathaa tathaa: in that and that manner
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
SAUNDARANANDA 12.39: The Seed and the River
punash ca biijam ity uktaa
nimittaM shreyaso' yadaa
paavan'-aarthena paapasya
nad" iity abhihitaa punaH
- = - = - - = =
- = = = - = - =
= - = = - = = -
- = - - - = - =
12.39
Again, I call it the Seed
Since it is the cause of higher good;
And for its cleansing action,
in the washing away of wrong,
Again, I call it the River.
COMMENT:
How can the seed of confidence cause the growth of a higher good?
For the 2nd line, EHJ's original Sanskrit text, published in devanagari script in 1928, has:
nimittam shreyaso'tpadaa.
In his footnote, however, EHJ notes that both the palmleaf and paper manuscripts of the Saundarananda, as well as the 1910 edition by Shastri, all have:
nimittam shreyaso' yadaa
By the time he came to publish his English translation in 1931, EHJ seems to have had second thoughts about departing from the original manuscripts and writes in a footnote:
"I think on the whole the manuscript reading should be kept in [39] b."
The Clay Sanskrit Library version goes with nimittam shreyaso' yadaa
In this wobbling back and forth by EHJ, I can't help feeling something admirable in Johnston's dutiful sincerity as an Oxford scholar of his day -- so different from the brash pronouncements of the opinionated Zen Master.
In his preface to the Sanskrit text of June 1928, EHJ writes: "I must admit that there are only too many passages in which the text I have adopted or the explanation I have given is only tentative. But even an unsuccessful conjecture or explanation may provide a hint of the right one to some one else and so justify itself."
Johnston's tentative and modest attitude expresses a lack of confidence of a certain kind. The kind of confidence that Johnston lacked is the confidence of the drill and fill dentist who filled my teeth with mercury in the 1970s. EHJ lacked the confidence of the arrogant consultant obstetrician whose presence would sometimes cause a midwife friend of mine to guide birthing mothers in the direction of the sanctuary of the ladies' toilets. EHJ lacked the kind of confidence that wins friends and influences people. EHJ lacked the blustering confidence of the con-man.
The kind of confidence that I see in EHJ is not confidence in his own view, but rather the scholar's confidence in the ultimate value of the text he is working on. That is the confidence not of the con-man but of the well-digger, the firestick-twirler, and the seed-sower. Efforts arising from that seed of confidence result eventually in human beings having access to water, to fire, to food -- and ultimately even to Ashvaghosha's gold.
How can confidence wash away wrongdoing, as a great river would seem to wash away the sewage from the relatively small human settlements of ancient times?
A river does not wash away sewage directly, as if with a brush. The only wish a river has is to keep flowing. Although the river originally has no specific sewage removal function, this function does arise, indirectly, from the river's relentless tendency to flow.
Confidence, similarly, confers many benefits indirectly. When the fear reflexes are not unduly excited, what Alexander called "the primary control" works well, so that all human functions, including respiration, digestion, and elimination, tend to flow better.
Confidence, in other words, does not cleanse the body of anger and other toxins directly; its cleansing effect is felt indirectly through the intermediation of the primary control.
This indirectness is I think reflected in the use of arthena with the genitive paapasya, as in the previous verse with arthena and the genitive dharmasya.
FM Alexander's niece Marjory Barlow, who I knew as a paragon of indirectness, used to tell me, "If you feel you are wrong, give your directions and go into movement without a care in the world. Let it come out in the wash!"
EH Johnston:
Further, it is said to be the Seed in that the highest good originates from it and the River too from its property of cleansing from sin.
Linda Covill:
What is more, it is said to be 'the seed,' since it causes the arising of Excellence; again, it is called 'the river' because it cleanses wickedness.
VOCABULARY:
punaH: further, again
ca: and
biijam (accusative): seed
iti: " "
ukta: uttered, said, spoken
nimitta (accusative): cause
shreyasaH = genitive of shreyas: good (as opposed to evil); higher good, ultimate good
utpad: to arise, originate
yadaa: when, at what time, whenever
paavana: purifying, pure, holy
arthena = instrumental of artha: cause, reason
paapasya = (genitive) of paapa: bad, vicious, wicked, evil
nadii: flowing water, river
iti: " "
abhihita: named, called
punaH: further, again
nimittaM shreyaso' yadaa
paavan'-aarthena paapasya
nad" iity abhihitaa punaH
- = - = - - = =
- = = = - = - =
= - = = - = = -
- = - - - = - =
12.39
Again, I call it the Seed
Since it is the cause of higher good;
And for its cleansing action,
in the washing away of wrong,
Again, I call it the River.
COMMENT:
How can the seed of confidence cause the growth of a higher good?
For the 2nd line, EHJ's original Sanskrit text, published in devanagari script in 1928, has:
nimittam shreyaso'tpadaa.
In his footnote, however, EHJ notes that both the palmleaf and paper manuscripts of the Saundarananda, as well as the 1910 edition by Shastri, all have:
nimittam shreyaso' yadaa
By the time he came to publish his English translation in 1931, EHJ seems to have had second thoughts about departing from the original manuscripts and writes in a footnote:
"I think on the whole the manuscript reading should be kept in [39] b."
The Clay Sanskrit Library version goes with nimittam shreyaso' yadaa
In this wobbling back and forth by EHJ, I can't help feeling something admirable in Johnston's dutiful sincerity as an Oxford scholar of his day -- so different from the brash pronouncements of the opinionated Zen Master.
In his preface to the Sanskrit text of June 1928, EHJ writes: "I must admit that there are only too many passages in which the text I have adopted or the explanation I have given is only tentative. But even an unsuccessful conjecture or explanation may provide a hint of the right one to some one else and so justify itself."
Johnston's tentative and modest attitude expresses a lack of confidence of a certain kind. The kind of confidence that Johnston lacked is the confidence of the drill and fill dentist who filled my teeth with mercury in the 1970s. EHJ lacked the confidence of the arrogant consultant obstetrician whose presence would sometimes cause a midwife friend of mine to guide birthing mothers in the direction of the sanctuary of the ladies' toilets. EHJ lacked the kind of confidence that wins friends and influences people. EHJ lacked the blustering confidence of the con-man.
The kind of confidence that I see in EHJ is not confidence in his own view, but rather the scholar's confidence in the ultimate value of the text he is working on. That is the confidence not of the con-man but of the well-digger, the firestick-twirler, and the seed-sower. Efforts arising from that seed of confidence result eventually in human beings having access to water, to fire, to food -- and ultimately even to Ashvaghosha's gold.
How can confidence wash away wrongdoing, as a great river would seem to wash away the sewage from the relatively small human settlements of ancient times?
A river does not wash away sewage directly, as if with a brush. The only wish a river has is to keep flowing. Although the river originally has no specific sewage removal function, this function does arise, indirectly, from the river's relentless tendency to flow.
Confidence, similarly, confers many benefits indirectly. When the fear reflexes are not unduly excited, what Alexander called "the primary control" works well, so that all human functions, including respiration, digestion, and elimination, tend to flow better.
Confidence, in other words, does not cleanse the body of anger and other toxins directly; its cleansing effect is felt indirectly through the intermediation of the primary control.
This indirectness is I think reflected in the use of arthena with the genitive paapasya, as in the previous verse with arthena and the genitive dharmasya.
FM Alexander's niece Marjory Barlow, who I knew as a paragon of indirectness, used to tell me, "If you feel you are wrong, give your directions and go into movement without a care in the world. Let it come out in the wash!"
EH Johnston:
Further, it is said to be the Seed in that the highest good originates from it and the River too from its property of cleansing from sin.
Linda Covill:
What is more, it is said to be 'the seed,' since it causes the arising of Excellence; again, it is called 'the river' because it cleanses wickedness.
VOCABULARY:
punaH: further, again
ca: and
biijam (accusative): seed
iti: " "
ukta: uttered, said, spoken
nimitta (accusative): cause
shreyasaH = genitive of shreyas: good (as opposed to evil); higher good, ultimate good
utpad: to arise, originate
yadaa: when, at what time, whenever
paavana: purifying, pure, holy
arthena = instrumental of artha: cause, reason
paapasya = (genitive) of paapa: bad, vicious, wicked, evil
nadii: flowing water, river
iti: " "
abhihita: named, called
punaH: further, again
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