MY PERSONAL DHAMMAPADA--Book 15: Well-Being

I had a dream a few weeks ago in which my guru came to me and issued an ultimatum: "It's over. You can no longer use the world's entrance into things that matter. You must use God's." In the dream, 'I' was represented by a stubborn, wilful version of my son, Jesse, who adamantly refused to listen to my/our teacher and stepped out onto a balcony via a sliding door. Bawa told him, "You will not be allowed to use the exit from this room as an entrance back into it. You must use the door I am holding open for you--God's door." Jesse/me scowled, sulked and said, "No." Bawa looked at him with eyes so aflame and intense that I shook. "Aha," he said, "You think you are engaged in a battle of wills with an old man who is no match for your youth. Well, you have no idea of the power you are trying to thwart," and--poof!--he changed into a young body builder type with a turban on his head. "Now, see if you can enter through the world's door." Jesse/me started to walk back into the room th rough it and Bawa fiercely slammed the door shut. Jesse/me shoved the door back at Bawa but he instantly flung it back. And so it went, back and forth, each time the door slamming louder and more forceful. I fled the dream after the contest between Bawa and Jesse/me became what I can only describe as terrifying in its intractability. Bawa said over and over, "You cannot beat back the power I represent. This is the last day of your life where you are not an expression of any power but God's." Because, thankfully, the memory of that dream has pursued me ever since, I am glad to say I have not awakened from it. But now I face the dilemma of trying to attune myself and act in accordance with the power my teacher proclaimed. I find this realignment very difficult since I am obsessively self-willed and vulnerable to excesses of emotion about things I cannot change. I say all this because I am being called to the sidelines of political and social concerns which have preoccupied me all my life and I have the futile, delusional feeling that the world will fail if I am not lending my life to the causes in which I believe. Then I turned to Book 15 of the Dhammapada, which I translate as "Well-Being." It described the entrance door Bawa was holding open for me and all his children. I dedicate this rendering to Bawa and all teachers who have served as doormen at this entrance. [Note: This is not a translation. At best, or most, it is a "transdaption," a response to an academically legitimate version by Glenn Wallis. See this, as well as the preceding renderings, as a "reading," a duet with Buddha on a song originally written by him. There has been much criticism of this approach to bringing across great scripture and poetry. Out of deference to these critics, I make it clear that what follows is not a translation but an interaction with a great text.]


MY PERSONAL DHAMMAPADA:
Book 15: Well-Being
for Bawa

At last the great concordance:
to love thy enemies,
to practice peace without any renewable residue
of rage, resentment or regret.

At last the great convergence:
to dwell anchored in love,
to be rooted in equanimity
that heals all who feel it.

At last the great concordance:
to live on the permanent plane of contentment,
to live on a fixed income of inexhaustible patience
with endless gratitude the constant outcome of each drama.

At last the great convergence:
the miracle of empty hands
that are raised in praise
and readiness to clasp others.

This is the day of armistice
the day when the division of humanity
into friend and foe, lion and lamb
dissolves forever.

Prejudice burns hotter than the sun.
Hatred smothers like lava.
Factionalism tears like acid.
Only peace keeps life purposeful and intact.

Craving is the fuel for all sorrow.
Great plans and grand schemes know only shipwreck.
Seeing things as they are
uncoils the chains that bind you.

Well-being is true riches.
Contentment is the deepest content
drawn from the deep well of being.
Trust that thrives in contentment
brings people you can trust.
Once mind is beyond arousal
the world is a bestowal
come of its own accord.

Drink from the deep well of well-being
and taste the sweetness of the wisdom it brings.
This tranquility books passage into open waters
where you sail with the wind at your back.

Freedom brings companionship with free men
and allows you to be the quenching company to others
you once craved for yourself.
You become the mother you never had.
You are a son of God and father to the man.

Childhood is over. Falstaff has fallen behind.
The mighty staff of selfishness
is snapped like a twig.
The hard seed coverings of mind and desire
are sundered in surrender
to the full bloom of your being.

At last the great concordance:
to live grounded in modesty and mindfulness,
to take on the sufferings of sentient beings so that their pain may lessen,
to take on the joy of wise men so that their bounty may increase.

At last the great convergence:
every breath a prayer carried this way
bringing rain to things that grow,
moistening dry throats with song.

At last the great concordance:
benevolence now the ruling matrix,
its teaching all that is known and needed
once seded from discord and disunion.

At last the great convergence:
tending the quiet fire of gnosis
around which you gather like a moon
that borrows light to burn as bright as any sun.

My Personal Dhammapada--Book Ten: "Violence"

The idea of rendering chapters of the Dhammapada into texts that speak to my own concerns with violence and addiction has inspired me to respond to two of this great scripture's books. I do not pretend to translation or even faithfulness to the original. I am simply using the words attributed to Buddha and as found in Glenn Wallis's new version as a template to guide my own reckonings with chronic spiritual and psychological pain. Book Ten, "Violence," is meant as a personal primer in non-violence and a gift to my dear friend, Susan Gelber Cannon, who seeks to teach peace in the classroom.

MY PERSONAL DHAMMAPADA
Book Ten: Violence
for Amira

Just the thought of violence terrifies us.
Ditto for death.
Knowing how disturbed the mere idea of harm makes us
should make us shrink from harming others.

Just the thought of violence terrifies us
and makes us aware that life is precious.
Knowing that life is precious
should make us shrink from harming others.

Whoever inflicts violence on fellow beings--
beings who desire nothing more than to be left in peace--
supposing that violence brings peace
will not know peace in life or death.

Whoever refrains from violence to fellow beings--
beings who desire nothing more than to be left in peace--
believing that non-violence brings peace
will know peace in life and death.

Speak with a temperate tongue.
Harsh words invite their like
from those to whom they are spoken.
The pain inflicted by wrongful words
spreads to those who utter them.

Be like dull metal that is kicked or pounded:
unclangorous, letting the matter end there.
When you know you are not the target,
there is nothing to provoke in you.

Like cattle being driven to market,
aging and death herd human life.

The childish do not know what is good for them.
The childish keep suffering consequences from their own actions.
Their gurus are obstinacy, anger and fear.

To inflict violence on the unsuspecting and innocent
is to risk immediate retribution of like and kind:
insult begets insult;
slander begets slander;
slap begets slap and slap curls into fist.
Soon the countryside is burning
and the cities are wastelands.
Degradation begets degradation;
destruction begets destruction;
slaughter begets slaughter.

Just as a raging fire consumes a building,
a man is consumed by violence
and all that remains after his death
are the ruins of rectitude
and a restless spirit wandering between worlds.

The seed of violence is harder than diamond.
It is made to survive in desert and drought
and thrive in the most meager of moistures.
This craving cannot be erased by self-mortification,
weakened by austerity,
quenched by prolonged absence from society
or strangled by contempt for worldly affairs.

A rich, daper man who is perfected in tolerance,
who practices patience and reserve
and makes the hunger of others his own
is more deserving to be called a righteous seeker
and a follower of the Way
than the poor, matted man in rags
whose renunciation is founded on intolerance
(of himself and others).

The man of non-violence
is not dead to pangs of remorse
but is prodded by them to self-correction
and greater kindness to others.

The man of non-violence
is as alert as a thoroughbred
to the whip-snap proddings of wisdom and virtue.
Using perserverance, patience and principle
based on long hours of prayer, praise and study,
his conduct is conduit for mercy and compassion
that brings relief and comfort
to his own pain and that of others.

Just as they gulley guides water
and acumen guides the hand of the craftsmen,
non-violence guides a wise man's life.

My Personal Dhammapada--Book 9

Since craving is the nexus of my life and the greatest obstacle to peaceful living that I know, I am studying one of the greatest manuals on the subject ever written, "The Dhammapada," which is to Buddhism what the Upanishads are to Hinduism. Although I have found some good translations of this scriptural classic, none have communicated the essence I am presently taking from this collection of teachings attributed to Buddha himself. So here is a rendering of Chapter 9, whose title I translate as "Harm," that attempts to capture its relevance to someone like me who is contemplating the first of the 12 steps--admission of powerlessness--on the way to recovery from a deified craving for books and music. For those of you on a similar rack, substitute booze, drugs, sex, postage stamps, religion, politics, French cuisine or any of a whole multitude of gratifying addictions to which you might genuflect daily, hourly or with even greater frequency.

HARM
(a 12 Step-inspired rendering of the 9th book of "The Dhammapada")

Never hesitate from good actions.
Always have second thoughts about harmful ones.
For a person who must endlessly dote on or rehearse their behavior,
know that the mind is a magnet for harmful actions.

If a person does something harmful,
he should not repeat it.
He must not cultivate that habit in himself.
That habit leads to a life of pain.

If a person does something beneficial,
he should repeat it.
He must cultivate that trait in himself.
That trait leads to a life of calm.

Yet even a person who engages in harmful behavior
can correct his conduct
if the behavior has not hardened into habit.
When bad behavior becomes a pattern,
there is suffering and misfortune.

Even a good-intentioned person meets misfortune
if his good intention has not matured into a trait.
But when the good intention has matured into a trait
then the good-intentioned person meets with good fortune.

Do not dismiss the thought of consequence,
saying, "It will not befall me."
Tiny drips of water
eventually fill a glass.
The unwise person accumulates
consequences day by day, day after day.

Do not dismiss the thought of virtue,
saying, "It is too hard to achieve."
Tiny drips of water
eventually fill a glass.
The wise person accumulates
virtue day by day, day after day.

Harmful action is to be avoided
just as a sensible man would avoid
dark streets and dire places
or a healthy man would avoid poison.

If there are no cuts or knicks in the hand,
a person can handle dangerous materials.
Poison does not penetrate where there are no wounds.
No harm comes to those for whom poison presents no danger.

Whoever wrongs a person who unknowingly puts himself in harm's way
by mistakenly trusting the wrongdoer, but is otherwise blameless,
will receive the full blow of the injury inflicted
like a stone that ricochets aginst the man who throws it.

Many get no farther than the womb in which they were born,
slaves to the needs they had as infants.
Those who break free of the self defined as need and appetite
transform impulse into virtue, servitude into service, and are unchained.

There is no refuge from harmful actions
in the heights of the sky or depths of the sea.
There is no escape from harmful actions
even in the most hidden mountain cave.
The world gives no respite whatsoever
from the impulse to harmful actions.

There is no refuge from the beckoning of harmful actions
in the heights of the sky or depths of the sea.
There is no escape from the call of habit
even in the most remote mountin cave.
Just as no place in the world is safe from death
no place in the world is safe from harmful action.