BUDDHACARITA 12.33: Do Cracks Appear?

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ity-avidyām hi vidvān sa pañca-parvāṁ samīhate |

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tamo mohaṁ mahā-mohaṁ tāmisra-dvayam-eva ca || 12.33

12.33

Thus does the wise one, then, targeting ignorance,

Think of ignorance as fivefold:

As obscuration, as delusion, as great delusion,

And as the two kinds of darkness.

COMMENT:

Insofar as the central gist of today's verse is a description of one who is wise (vidvān) targetting or aiming to cease ignorance (avidyām), it is very reminiscent of the Buddha's teaching as distilled by Nāgārjuna:

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 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.

The analysis of ignorance into five categories, however, might be Arāḍa's own idea.

EHJ notes:

The teacher referred to is Vārsaganya according to Vācaspati Miśra on Sāmhhyakārikā 47; the sūtra is Tattvasamāsa 14,  and is alluded to in the Yogasūtrabhāṣya and the Purānas, but not specifically in the MBh. Samīhate, “desire,” “wish,” [translated by EHJ as "declares"] is equivalent to iṣ as used in philosophical works of asserting a principle.

Against EHJ's view that vidvān saḥ, “that wise teacher” (EHJ) or “he the wise one,” refers to “the great Sāṁkhya teacher Vārsaganya” (PO's words), is the fact that samīhate is in the present tense. The present tense suggests to me that Arāḍa is concerned with how a wise practitioner is to practice now, and is not so concerned (as EHJ is concerned) with the history of Sāṁkhya philosophy. 

But a still stronger refutation of EHJ's view on Vārsaganya might be provided, again, by Aśvaghoṣa's description of Arāḍa's teaching in BC12.15 as svasya śaṣtrasya, his own teaching.

I may seem to labour the point but I think that to fail to understand this point is to fail to do Arāḍa justice. Arāḍa was more than a representative of Sāṁkhya philosophy or of the Brahmanical tradition. He had conducted his own research into the cycle of saṁsāra and he was teaching a teaching which was his own teaching.

Sharpening our critical faculties, therefore, we are required to see why

•  the awakened Buddha would later say that Arāḍa (and only Arāḍa) had been his teacher, and why he thought that Arāḍa along with Udraka, as two men with only a little dust on their eyes, might be amenable to his dharma; and at the same time
• why the bodhisattva saw a fault in Arāḍa's teaching, was not satisfied with it, and abandoned it in favour of severe asceticism.

So the question that seems to arise in connection with today's verse is whether separating ignorance into five is itself a manifestation of ignorance?

In the Buddha's teaching as recorded by Nāgārjuna, the key to the cessation of ignorance, and of the whole edifice of suffering built on ignorance, is expressed as tattva-darśana, and as jñānasyāsyaiva bhāvana. These expressions are ambiguous, and something has to be lost in translating them. But what we can say with certainty is that they are expressions in the singular. Tattva-darśanāt is ablative singular. Jñānasyāsya, similarly, is genitive singular; it expresses a unitary act of knowing.

“Realizing reality” is pithy as a translation of tattva-darśana, but it easily suggests reality as an object realized by a doing subject. It thus, in purporting to point to the absence of any gap, in fact invites a crack to appear. 

In conclusion, to answer the question asked in the title of this post, Do cracks appear?, yes, of course, they most certainly do, as has been amply demonstrated throughout human history. 

I have started reading Paul Fussell's book The Great War & Modern Memory, which is a kind of study of how big cracks began to appear exactly 100 years ago.

Young men went to war with idealistic and optimistic thoughts and expectations and met in spades the horrors of sickness, injury and death. 

Thus had opened one big crack. 

It was against the opening of any such crack that Dogen took pains to warn us at the beginning of his instructions for sitting-Zen.

If the slightest crack opens, it turns into a gulf like between heaven and earth, and swallows young men like the mud of the Somme.

So we should not be too quick to dismiss the teaching of Arāḍa. But as and when we see a crack appearing in his teaching we should not hesitate to drop him like a stone, which is exactly what the bodhisattva did... until such time as the bodhisattva became the fully awakened Sambuddha and knew that Arāḍa, conversely, might be able to learn from him. 

VOCABULARY

iti: “...,” thus

avidyām (acc. sg.): f. ignorance

hi: for

vidvān (nom. sg.): m. the wise one

saḥ (nom. sg. m.): he, that

pañca-parvām (acc. sg. f.): mfn. (river) having 5 windings ; (also) five fold, Bcar.

parvan: n. a knot , joint ; a break , pause , division , section (esp. of a book)

samīhate = 3^rd pers. sg. sam- √ īh : to strive after , wish for , desire , endeavour to gain (acc.)

√ īh: to endeavour to obtain ; to aim at , attempt ; to long for , desire ; to take care of ; to have in mind , think of (with acc.)

tamaḥ (nom. sg.): n. darkness , gloom ; darkness of hell ; the obscuration of the sun or moon in eclipses , attributed to rāhu; mental darkness , ignorance , illusion , error (in sāṁkhya phil. one of the 5 forms of a-vidyā)

moham (nom. sg.): m. loss of consciousness , bewilderment , perplexity , distraction , infatuation , delusion , error , folly

mahā-moham (nom. sg.): m. great confusion or infatuation of mind

mahā́-mohana: mfn. very confusing or bewildering MBh

tāmisra-dvayam (nom. sg. n.): EBC/EHJ/PO the two kinds of darkness

tāmisra: m. the dark half of the month; m. (in sāṁkhya phil.) indignation , anger (one of the 5 forms of a-vidyā)

tamisra: n. darkness , dark night (also pl.) ; n. a dark hell , hell (in general) ; n. anger

tamisrā: a dark night

eva: (emphatic)

ca: and

諸世間愚夫 攝受於五節
闇癡與大癡 瞋恚與恐怖

BUDDHACARITA 12.32: Pulling Down – To Be Understood as a Psychological, or as a Psychophysical, Phenomenon?

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mamedam-aham-asyeti yad-duḥkham-abhimanyate |

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vijñeyo 'bhyavapātaḥ sa saṁsāre yena pātyate || 12.32

12.32

The suffering of “This is mine,” “I belong to this,”

The suffering which one invents –

Know, as that suffering, the pulling down

By which one is flung back into saṁsāra.

COMMENT:

In my first stab at translating abhyavapāta in BC12.24, I went with “falling on down” as the opposite conception to 仏向上事 BUTSU-KOJO-JI, “The Matter of a Buddha Going On Up” (as per the title of Shobogenzo chap. 28).

The MW dictionary, interestingly, gives as its definition of abhyavapāta, “gravitation,” and this is how EBC translates abhyavapātaḥ in today's verse. EHJ goes with “falling away” and PO also “falling away.”

Taking abhyavapātaḥ as gravitation leads EBC to translate today's verse as follows:

The misery which a man imagines by the ideas "This is mine," "I am connected with this," is to be recognised as "gravitation," — by this a man is borne downwards into new births.

Strictly speaking, Arāḍa is indicating abhyavapātaḥ (nom. sg. m.) as the thing to be known or recognised or investigated or understood (vijñeyaḥ; nom. sg. m.), rather than duḥkham (acc. sg. n.). Hence, as is generally the case, EHJ's translation most accurately mirrors the grammar of the Sanskrit:

Falling away is to be understood as wrong imagination about suffering that “this is mine,” “I belong to this,” and thereby a man is caused to fall away in the cycle of transmigration.

To know gravitation as the suffering of “This is mine,” somehow does not make sense. Gravitation is a universal force, whereas the suffering of “This is mine” is a psychological phenomenon.

And yet EBC's effort to connect the physical with the psychological may have something to be said for it.

The translation of abhyavapātaḥ that I have opted for in the end is a term that is used in Alexander work to describe a phenomenon which has both a psychological aspect and a gravitational aspect, and that is “pulling down.”

Thus, translated as I have translated them above, Arāḍa's words can be read in (at least) two ways.

One reading is that Arāḍa understood the pulling down by which one is flung back into saṁsāra as a psychological phenomenon – namely, the suffering of “This is mine;” “I belong to this.” (I note in passing that idam [this; nom. neuter] and asya [this; genitive neuter] are officially neither feminine or masculine, but when pulling down is investigated in practice by a bloke, as vividly demonstrated by Nanda's example, idam and asya are very liable to be feminine.) 

Another reading, which credits Arāḍa with deeper understanding, is that the pulling down by which one is flung back into saṁsāra is a psycho-physical phenomenon; therefore Arāḍa is guiding the bodhisattva to investigate physical pulling down (failing to respond as skillfully as one might to the downward pull of gravity) not only as a physical fact but also as a psychological phenomenon, and not only as a psychological phenomena but also as a neuro-muscular fact. 

When a bloke investigates in practice pulling down as a neuro-muscular fact, sooner or later, dull-witted though that bloke may have demonstrated himself to be in the psychological area of thinking up suffering, the bloke cannot fail to notice the importance of the vestibular system as the central apparatus human beings have for dealing with the earth's gravitational pull. 

Thus, as a shaven-headed bloke totters outside in the dimness of early dawn, and heads for a meditation hut 60 yards away, he deeply appreciates  -- more deelpy than he would have done if he had never heard of the vestibular reflexes -- the hazel thumb-stick he holds in his right hand. 

VOCABULARY

mama (gen. sg.): mine

idam (nom. sg. n.): this

aham (nom. sg. m.): I

asya (gen. sg.): of this, of it

iti: “....,” thus

yad (nom. sg. n.): that which

duḥkham (acc. sg.): n. suffering, misery

abhimanyate = 3^rd pers. sg. abhi- √ man: to think of , long for , desire ; to intend to injure , be insidious , threaten , injure ; to allow , agree ; to think of self , be proud of ; to think , suppose , imagine , take for (acc.)

vijñeyaḥ (nom. sg. m.): to be known, to be understood

vi- √ jñā: to distinguish , discern , observe , investigate , recognize , ascertain , know , understand

abhyavapāta: m. gravitation, Bcar. xii, 24

-taḥ: (ablative sufix)

abhy-ava- √ pat: to fly near

ava- √ pat: to fly down

ava-pāta: m. falling down ; descent , descending upon; flying down ; a hole or pit for catching game in

√ pat: to fly , soar , rush on ; to fall down or off , alight , descend (with acc. or loc.) , fall or sink (with or without adhas or narake , " to go down to hell " ; with caraṇau or °ṇayoḥ , " to fall at a person's feet ") ; to fall (in a moral sense)

pāta: flying , mode of flying , flight; throwing one's self or falling into (loc.) or from (abl.) , fall , downfall (also ifc. after what would be a gen. or abl. &c e.g. , gṛha- , fall of a house ; parvata- , fall from a mountain ; bhū- , fall on the earth) ; alighting , descending or causing to descend , casting or throwing upon , cast , fall (of a thunderbolt) , throw , shot ; a fault , error , mistake

saḥ (nom. sg. m.): that, it

saṁsāre (loc. sg.): saṁsāra, the cycle of wandering

yena (inst. sg.): by which

pātyate = 3^rd pers. sg. causative passive pat: to let fly or cause to fall , to fling , hurl , throw ; to lay low , bring down (lit. and fig.) , overthrow , ruin , destroy ; to throw upon or in , lay on (loc.) ; to knock out (teeth) ; to cast (dice) ; to turn , direct , fix (eyes) ; to seduce to , betray into (loc.)

諸物悉我所 是名爲攝受
如此八種惑 彌淪於生死

BUDDHACARITA 12.31: Use of the Self & Over-Attachment

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sajjate yena dur-medhā mano-vāg-buddhi-karmabhiḥ |

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viṣayeṣv-anabhiṣvaṅga so 'bhiṣvaṅga iti smtaḥ || 12.31

12.31

That by which the dull-witted,

Using mind, voice, intent and actions,

Are tied fast to objects,

O one who is free of over-attachment! –

That is known as over-attachment.

COMMENT:

"The fact to be faced is that the human self was robbed of much of its inheritance when the separation implied by the conception of the organism as 'spirit,' 'mind' and 'body' was accepted as a working principle, for it left unbridged the gap between the 'subconscious' and the conscious. I venture to assert that if the gap is to be bridged, it will be by means of a knowledge, gained through practical experience, which will enable us to inhibit our instinctive, 'subconscious' reaction to a given stimulus, and to hold it inhibited while initiating a conscious direction, guidance, and control of the use of the self that was previously unfamiliar."

"I suggest that only those who become capable of translating into practice what is involved in the procedure just described can justly claim to have experienced detachment in the basic sense."

-- F. M. Alexander, The Universal Constant in Living, 1946

If EHJ and PO are to be believed, Arāḍa is interested in attachment as an element of Sāmkhya philosophy. But if we judge him by his own words, Arāḍa is interested not so much in philosophy as in the practical problem of how to get this body out of the cycle of unconscious reaction to stimuli.

Precisely this interest led FM Alexander, like Arāḍa before him, to investigate attachment in the practical, non-philosophical context of gaining particular objects or ends (viṣayeṣu). 

So, for example, the Alexander teacher, with words or else with non-verbal hints, causes the sitting pupil to form in his mind an object or end like standing up. And the pupil learns to untie his mind from attachment to that object, aided by directions like “Let the neck be free, to let the head go forward and up, to let the back lengthen and widen, while sending the knees forwards and away.”

A further reflection prompted by today's verse is that we use essentially the same things in our ignorance to become over-attached that we use on a path to becoming unattached.

Thus, in the traditional three-way classification of the eightfold noble path into prajñā (wisdom), śīla (conduct), and samādhi (balance), use of the mind can be read as corresponding with prajñā, use of the voice and of actions with śīla, and use of intent/judgement/decision-making with samādhi.

This reflection was prompted in particular by thinking about the meaning of the word vāc (speech, voice) in the 2^nd pāda of today's verse. It was specifically problems in the use of his voice that originally alerted FM Alexander to the general problem of unconscious misuse of his whole self. This misuse, Alexander eventually found, by tracing the problem back to its source in a manner very reminiscent of the Buddha's description of pratītya-samutpāda (Springing Up by going back), was rooted in the ignorance of faulty sensory appreciation. At the same time, Alexander found that his misuse was rooted in that manifestation of over-attachment to results which he termed “end-gaining.”

Conversely, on the way back out again, out of the saṁsāric cycle of unconscious reaction, Alexander developed an exercise called the whispered ah! as an aid to developing conscious use of the voice.

What I am discussing here has got nothing to do with Brahmanism or any other of those false ideologies that people call “religions.”

When Patrick Olivelle in the introduction to his translation of Buddhacarita writes about the Buddha's teaching as the consummation of Brahmanism, I could not disagree with him more strongly. The Buddha's dharma, as Nāgārjuna concludes at the end of MMK, tends in the direction of abandoning all -isms.

But if Patrick Olivelle wanted to argue that the Buddha's awakening was the consummation of Arāḍa's teaching, that might be harder to argue against. Because the main gist of Arāḍa's own teaching (svasya śaṣtrasya; BC12.15), as it is emerging in the present Canto, seems to be the seeking of a practical means for liberating the self from the cycle of saṁsāra.

VOCABULARY

sajjate = 3^rd pers. sg. passive sañj: to be attached or fastened , adhere , cling , stick

yena (inst. sg.): by which

dur-medhāḥ (nom. pl. m.): mfn. dull-witted , stupid , ignorant

medha: m. the juice of meat ; marrow (esp. of the sacrificial victim) , sap , pith , essence

mano-vāg-buddhi-karmabhiḥ (inst. pl.): by mind, speech, judgements and actions

viṣayeṣu (loc. pl.): m. objects, sense-objects

anabhiṣvaṅga (voc. sg.): O one who is free of overattachment

saḥ (nom. sg. m.): that

abhiṣvaṅgaḥ (nom. sg.): m. intense attachment or affection to (loc.)

iti: “..., thus

smṛtaḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. remembered , recollected , called to mind , thought of ; handed down , taught , prescribed , (esp.) enjoined by smṛti or traditional law , declared or propounded in the law-books ; termed , styled , named (nom. with or without iti)

愚癡所計著 意言語覺業

及境界計 着 是説名爲著

BUDDHACARITA 12.30: Wrong Means, Or No Means At All

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namas-kāra-vaṣaṭ-kārau prokṣaṇābhyukṣaṇādayaḥ |

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an-upāya iti prājñair-upāya-jña praveditaḥ || 12.30

12.30

Calling out namas, “Homage!,”

calling out vaṣat,  “Into the flame!,”

Sacrificial pre-sprinkling,

over-sprinkling, and the rest,

Are declared by the wise,

O knower of means!,

to be wrong means.

COMMENT:

Namas is a Sanskrit word which was rendered phonetically into Chinese characters as 南無, pronounced in Japanese NAMU.

The word is preserved in Japan today in such chants as

南無妙法蓮華経

NAMU-MYOHO-RENGE-KYO

Homage to the Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Dharma.

Dogen compared such repetitive chanting to frogs croaking all day long in the paddy fields. He did not regard it as an effective means of pursuing the truth that the Buddha realized. The essential means for making the Buddha's truth one's own, for Dogen, was nothing but sitting. 

In today's verse Arāḍa is describing the use of this word namas in a context he describes as an-upāya, which EBC translates as “false means,” EHJ as “wrong means” and PO as “wrongful means.” The MW dictionary defines  an-upāya as “bad means” but adds that in the instrumental (an-upāyena) the meaning is “to no purpose.”

So an-upāya means “wrong means," but equally -- as suggested by "to no purpose" -- it can also be read as meaning “the absence of any means.” Both elements in the duality expressed in BC12.24 as aviśeṣānupāyābhyām, then, can be understood as expressing a lack or an absence, viz: 

1. a-viśeṣa: a lack of power to distinguish between the Awake and the Not Awake, and between constituent parts of the Primary Matter, and

2. an-upāya: a lack of the means by which to gain an end.

Speaking of means which are either wrong or practically non-existent in their ineffectuality, I would like to complain about the amount of praying that still goes on, here in the 21st century, on BBC Radio 4 Long Wave. Radio 4 for the most part is a bastian of rationality. But there is Prayer for the Day at the beginning of the day; Thought for the Day during the Today programme, usually delivered by some religious believer or other; then, on Long Wave, a Christian morning service in which prayers are usually directed towards some place or person currently in the news. Yesterday, along with the usual prayers for sufferers in Syria and Iraq, Radio 4 LW listeners were asked to pray for the 5-year old boy who has been in the news in Britain since his parents took him from Southampton to Spain in search of better medical treatment. We were asked to pray for him, and for his family.

But what kind of a practical means for helping others is such prayer?

Isn't it just the totally ineffectual expression of a kind of superstituous ignorance? 

In respose to whatever is making the news, politicians and vicars alike clearly believe "something needs to be done." So politicians announce this and that, and vicars for their part, like children on the top deck of a bus turning a plastic steering wheel, seriously intone prayers requesting God's help. 

That kind of prayer seems to me, since I don't believe in divine intervention that contravenes the law of cause-and-effect , to be not so much a false means, or a wrong means, or a wrongful means as a totally non-existent or empty means. 

In conclusion, then, for saying what deserves to be said, namo arāda! Homage to Arāḍa!

Ironically enough, in view of the above rant, much as I generally close my ears to "Thought for the Day," or turn the radio off for five minutes while the religious thinker is blathering on, a couple of days ago a "religious commentator" named Clifford Longley spurred my interest greatly when he spoke on the theme of irony. He related how the horrors of the First World War nurtured and sharpened the British sense of irony -- so that the myth of divine intervention on Britain's side through the Angels of Mons was initially welcomed by a gullible public, but such religious optimism -- the sense that God is on our side -- gradually gave way in the face of the real horrors of the War to a greater taste for irony. For further investigation along these lines Longley recommended the book The Great War & Modern Memory. 

I decided to go ahead and order the book. Maybe investigating in detail how the harsh realites of war so devastated people's easy expectations will help me to understand more clearly why Aśvaghoṣa was so devoted to describing the harsh realities of aging, sickness and death; and at the same time so evidently fond of playing with various kinds of irony, including not only verbal irony but also situational or dramatic irony, as when a speaker does not understand the profound truth of his own words. 

Clifford Longley ended his Radio 4 talk by expressing a hankering for an age more grounded, after all, in religious faith. 

But how could anybody, having understood how the harsh realities of the First World War confounded the optimistic expectations of religious believers, carry on seeing religious faith as an effective means-whereby for dealing with harsh reality? 

Longley sounded to me like a punter wishing to place money on a horse that already lost a race, or on a boxer that had already been knocked out. 

Religious faith might be a second-rate means for countering the enemy which is fear. But if the original enemy is ignorance, religious faith is a wrong means for defeating that enemy, or is no means at all. 

From the standpoint of an animal rights activist, then, Arāḍa in today's verse can be heard to assert that animal sacrifice is morally wrong, or evil. And I would not disagree with that perception. But an even more fundamental objection to religious behaviour like prayer and ritual sacrifice is that it is impractical. It fails to meet the pragmatic criterion of truth -- it doesn't work

VOCABULARY

namas-kāra-vaṣaṭ-kārau (nom. dual): the exclamations namas and vaṣaṭ

namas-kāra: m. the exclamation " namas " , adoration , homage

namas: n. bow , obeisance , reverential salutation , adoration (by gesture or word)

kāra: m. (ifc.) ( √1. kṛ) an act , action ; m. or f. act of worship , song of praise ; m. ( √2. kṛ) a song or hymn of praise

√2. kṛ: to make mention of , praise , speak highly of

vaṣaṭ-kāra: m. the exclamation vaṣaṭ (also personified as a deity)

vaṣaṭ: ind. (accord. to some fr. √1. vah ; cf. 2. vaṭ and vauṣaṭ) an exclamation uttered by the hotṛ priest at the end of the sacrificial verse (on hearing which the adhvaryu priest casts the oblation offered to the deity into the fire ; it is joined with a dat. e.g. pūṣṇe vaṣaṭ ; with √ kṛ , " to utter the exclamation vaṣaṭ ") RV. VS. Br. S3rS. Mn. MBh. Pur.

prokṣaṇābhyukṣaṇādayaḥ (nom. pl.) consecration by pre-sprinkling, over-sprinkling, and the like

prokṣaṇa: n. consecration by sprinkling (of a sacrificial animal or of a dead body before burial)

pra- √ukṣ: to sprinkle upon , besprinkle , consecrate (for sacrifice) ; to sacrifice , kill , slaughter (a sacrificial victim)

ukṣ: to sprinkle , moisten , wet ; to sprinkle or scatter in small drops

abhyukṣaṇa: n. sprinkling over , wetting

abhy- √ ukṣ: to sprinkle over , besprinkle

ādi: et cetera

an-upāyaḥ (nom. sg.): m. bad means (an-upāyena, to no purpose)

an-: a prefix corresponding to Gk. ἀ , ἀν , Lat. in , Goth. and Germ. un , Eng. in or un , and having a negative or privative or contrary sense (an-eka not one ; an-anta endless ; a-sat not good ; a-paśyat not seeing)

upāya: m. coming near , approach , arrival ; that by which one reaches one's aim , a means or expedient (of any kind) , way , stratagem , craft , artifice ; (esp.) a means of success against an enemy (four are usually enumerated , sowing dissension , negotiation , bribery , and open assault)

iti: “...,” thus

prājñaiḥ (inst. pl. m.): by the wise

upāya-jña (voc. sg.): O knower of proper means!

praveditaḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. EBC/EHJ/PO declared

pra- √ vid : to know , understand ; Caus. -vedayati , °te , to make known , communicate , relate

禮拜誦諸典 殺生祀天祠
水火等爲淨 而作解脱想
如是種種見 是名無方便 

BUDDHACARITA 12.29: Meaningful Differences

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aviśeṣaṁ viśeṣa-jña pratibuddhāprabuddhayoḥ |

⏑⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦−⏑−⏑¦⏑−⏑−

praktīnāṁ ca yo veda so 'viśeṣa iti smtaḥ || 12.29

12.29

What knows no distinction,

O knower of distinctions!

Between the Awake and the Not Awake,

Or among the constituent parts of the Primary Matter,

Is known as “lack of discrimination.”

COMMENT:

The distinctions Arāḍa refers to in today's verse are ostensibly those drawn in Sāṁkhya philosophy.

But considering that the fully awakened Buddha regarded Arāḍa as having but a little dust on his eye, Aśvaghoṣa might be expecting us to dig for deeper meaning than that. Aśvaghoṣa might be expecting us to understand what practical -- as opposed to philosophical -- purpose could be served by the distinctions Arāḍa sees.

To that end, the distinction referred to in the 2^nd pāḍa between the Awake and the Not Awake can be read in light of FM Alexander's aphorism that "When an investigation comes to be made it will be found that every single thing we do in the work is exactly what is done in Nature, where the conditions are right, the difference being that we are learning to do it consciously."

In the 3^rd pāda prakṛtīnām is genitive plural of prakṛti, hitherto translated and understood as the Primary Matter (singular) and explained in terms of the primacy of devoting oneself to a path or a means-whereby as opposed to the alternative approach of blindly striving for results (see comment to BC12.18).

In the plural, the MW dictionary gives prakṛti as (in the sāṁkhya phil.)... the 8 producers or primary essences which evolve the whole visible world (viz. a-vyakta, buddhi, ahaṁ-kāra, and the 5 tan-mātras or subtle elements).

Thus EBC translated prakṛtīnām in today's verse “between the different evolvents;” EHJ translated “between the primary constituents” and PO “among Primal nature's constituents.”

I know next to nothing about Sāmkhya philosophy, and I am not particularly interested in filling that gap in my knowledge. But a distinction which I know has value in practice concerns the primary importance, in sitting, of the pelvis. And the important distinction to make, with regard to the pelvis, might be this: The pelvis is part of the back, and not part of the legs.

Similarly one can say that when one is sitting well, the neck is part of the back, the neck is the top of an integrated back, so that a certain separation or freedom is allowed, at the atlanto-occipital joint, where the back (including pelvis and neck) and the head join. 

Again the shoulders sit easy on the back, the shoulders are part of the back, and are not bullied out of position by the doings of the arms and hands.

In conclusion, within the primary criterion which is the samādhi of accepting and using the self (Jap: JIJUYO-ZANMAI), what is truly primary? 

My Zen teacher taught his students that the primary thing was the action of keeping the spine straight vertically. 

FM Alexander spoke of recognizing that relativity in the use of the head, neck, and other parts which proved to be a primary control of the general use of the self.

I would say that my Zen teacher's teaching about keeping the spine straight vertically was a crude approximation of a truth that FM Alexander, and teachers he taught, learned to demonstrate with great delicacy and accuracy. 

Both teachers were interested in what was primary, and made distinctions between what was of primary and secondary importance. Thus, for my Zen teacher, parts that were of primary importance were the spine and the autonomic nervous system. For FM Alexander the relation between the head and neck, and between the head and neck and other parts, was primary. Other relationships between body parts were secondary. 

My Zen teacher, Rev. Gudo Nishijima, made a clear philosophical distinction between thinking, feeling, and action. 

FM Alexander made a clear distinction in practice between doing and not doing, the key to the cessation of the former and allowing of the latter being what Alexander called "thinking" -- not thinking as opposed to action, but thinking as opposed to doing, thinking as facilitator of action. 

For more than fifteen years after I  met him in the summer of 1982, my Zen teacher showed incredible generosity to me, who he saw as being his potential successor. But a spanner was thrown in the works of our relationship circa 1997, due partly to my own lack of diplomatic / political skills and partly to his prejudice against Alexandrian "thinking." 

It is a deep irony, it strikes me this morning, a deep irony that I cannot help expressing as the conclusion to the comment I prepared last night, that my way of repaying my teacher's generosity is to publicize as clearly as I can his supreme ignorance with regard to the teaching of Nāgārjuna which he admired so much. 

The point I am primarily here to clarify is that my Zen teacher and I, when we sat together in Japan stiffening our necks by pulling our chins in, were exactly who Nāgārjuna -- when he made his supremely meaningful distinction between the ignorant and the wise -- called the ignorant ones. 

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 reality making itself known.

VOCABULARY

aviśeṣam (acc. sg. n.): mfn. without difference , uniform

viśeṣa-jña (voc.): O one who knows what is special!

pratibuddhāprabuddhayoḥ (gen. dual n.): the awake and the unawake; EBC: the illuminated and the unwise; EHJ: the intelligent and the unintelligent; PO: the Conscious and the Unconscious

pratibuddha: mfn. awakened , awake ; illuminated , enlightened

a-prabuddha: mfn. not awake

prabuddha: mfn. awakened , awake , roused , expanded , developed , opened , blown ; known , understood , recognised ; enlightened , clear-sighted , clever , wise

prakṛtīnām (gen. pl.): f. " making or placing before or at first " , the original or natural form or condition of anything , original or primary substance (opp. to vi-kṛti q.v.) ; pl. the 8 producers or primary essences which evolve the whole visible world (viz. a-vyakta , buddhi or mahat , ahaṁ-kāra , and the 5 tan-mātras or subtle elements ; rarely the 5 elements alone)

ca: and

yaḥ (nom. sg. m.): [that] which

veda = 3^rd pers. sg. perf. vid: to know , understand , perceive , learn , become or be acquainted with , be conscious of , have a correct notion of ; (ya evam veda [in Br. ], " who knows thus " , " who has this knowledge ")

saḥ (nom. sg. m.): it

aviśeṣaḥ (nom. sg): m. non-distinction , non-difference , uniformity ;

iti: “..., thus

smṛtaḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. remembered , recollected , called to mind , thought of ; handed down , taught , prescribed , (esp.) enjoined by smṛti or traditional law , declared or propounded in the law-books ; termed , styled , named (nom. with or without iti)

如是不分別 是説名總攬
愚黠性變等 不了名不別

BUDDHACARITA 12.28: The Blur (2) – I Am This Job, This Flock

⏑−−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑−−−¦⏑−⏑−

ya evāhaṁ sa evedaṁ mano buddhiś ca karma ca |

−−−⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑⏑−−¦⏑−⏑−

yaś caivaiṣa gaṇaḥ so 'ham iti yaḥ so 'bhisaṁplavaḥ || 12.28

12.28

“What I am is just this –

This mind, this intelligence, this occupation.

Again, what this present group is, I am.”

That is blurring of boundaries.

COMMENT:

Again, I read today's verse as the teaching of a teacher who has only a little dust on his eyes – the teaching of a teacher whose teaching deserves to be studied.

For the 3rd pāda of today's verse EBC's text has

yaś caivaṁ sa gaṇaḥ so 'ham,

which EBC translates all this aggregate is the same as "I". 

The old Nepalese manuscript has 

yaś caiveśa gaṇaḥ so 'ham.

EHJ noted that idam in the 1st pāda suggests that the old Nepalese manuscript's reading in the 3rd pāda derives from eṣa. He therefore amended the 3rd pāda to read:

yaś caivaiṣa gaṇaḥ so 'ham,

which EHJ translated this group is identical with the ego.

PO translates I'm truly the same as this group.

“This aggregate” or “this group” could mean the group formed from the three elements specified in the 2^nd pāda – this group of mind, intelligence and karma. I suppose from EHJ's note that this is how he read it. 

At the same time, the first word that the MW dictionary gives in its definition of gaṇa is “flock.”

Taking gaṇa in this second sense, Arāḍa in today's verse can be read as describing our tendency to fail to be true to our selves because of mistakenly identifying ourselves 

1., on the inside, with partial aspects of ourself like our mind, our intelligence, and our karma (i.e. in this context our job or occupation); and 

2., on the outside, with a group to which we consider ourselves to belong.

When Emperor Wu asked Master Bodhidharma who he was, Bodhidharma famously replied “I don't know.”

Bodhidharma knew full well that he was not any specific or extrinsic things. He knew full well that Emperor Wu's question was the question of an ignorant person who had not transcended the blur.

In response, Master Bodhidharma didn't affirm the blurring of boundaries by saying, “I am an enlightened being.” Or “I am an Indian Zen Master.” Or even “I am a humble Buddhist monk.” Being true to himself from his head to his toes, he just said, in all clarity, "I don't know.”

So it may not be possible to draw the line between self and others, but that is no excuse for blurring it. 

VOCABULARY

yaḥ (nom. sg. m.): [that] which

eva: (emphatic)

aham (nom. sg. m.): I

sa (nom. sg. m.):

eva: (emphatic)

idam (nom. sg. n.): this

manaḥ (nom. sg.): n. mind

buddhiḥ (nom. sg.): f. intelligence

ca: and

karma (nom. sg.): n. karma, action ; office , special duty , occupation ; work, labour

ca: and

yaḥ (nom. sg. m.): [that] which

ca: and

eva: (emphatic)

eṣaḥ (nom. sg. m.): this , this here , here (especially as pointing to what is nearest to the speaker e.g. eṣa bāṇaḥ , this arrow here in my hand

gaṇaḥ (nom. sg.): m. a flock , troop , multitude , number , tribe , series , class ; a company , any assemblage or association of men formed for the attainment of the same aims ; a sect in philosophy or religion

saḥ (nom. sg. m.): it, this

aham (nom. sg.): m. the I

iti: “....,” thus

yaḥ (nom. sg. m.): [that] which

saḥ (nom. sg. m.): it, this

abhisaṁplavaḥ (nom. sg.):m. fluctuation, Bcar.

abhi-: ind. (a prefix to verbs and nouns , expressing) to , towards , into , over , upon. (As a prefix to verbs of motion) it expresses the notion or going towards , approaching , &c

samplava: m. flowing together , meeting or swelling (of waters) , flood , deluge ; a dense mass , heap , multitude ; conglomeration , taking a form or shape , rise , origin ; noise , tumult (esp. of battle) ;

若説法是我 説彼即是意亦説覺與業 諸數復説我