MEDITATIONS: THE DHAMMAPADA, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Corruption

It’s easy to see the faults of others
But hard to see one’s own.
One sifts out the faults of others like chaff
But conceals one’s own,
As a cheat conceals a bad throw of the dice (Buddha 61)

The first and most difficult step of self-transformation is self-knowledge—that is, the elevation of consciousness; viz, becoming more self-conscious. This is because we desire ourselves to be more than we are. We are, as being who exist across the dimension of time, disunified in this way: internal conflict pits our past and current selves against what potential self we might one day attain. This discrepancy causes pain, a kind of self-imposed suffering for which we are eager to blame some external source. But no matter how much we project the causes of our suffering, they do not vacate us. They remain, spreading rot, festering:

If one focuses on others’ faults
And constantly takes offense.
One’s own toxins flourish
And one is far from their destruction. (61)

Why, then, do we refuse to acknowledge ourselves as the sources of our suffering? Because it is easier in the moment to sacrifice our future selves. Rather than bear the burden now, we accrue psychological debt to be paid later by “someone else.” We think—or rather, we act as though we thought:

Easy is life
For someone without conscience,
Bold as a crow,
Obtrusive, deceitful, reckless, and corrupt.

Difficult is life
For someone with conscience,
Always searching for what’s pure,
Discerning, sincere, cautious, and clean-living. (60)

But this is self-deception. We cannot successfully and continually pass off the burdens of existence onto our future selves. Eventually, the costs we are avoiding will become too massive to move. They will become too voluminous to contain and will spill over like a sloshing, full bucket. We will drench ourselves trying to avoid getting wet. Worse, we will splash others in the process, the chaos of our own lives spilling out onto theirs. Thus will we win their ire. Thus does karma turn against us when we continually reject our duties in favor of pursuing vice.

As rust corrupts
The very iron that formed it,
So transgressions lead
Their doer to states of woe.

Oral teachings become corrupted when not recited,
Homes are corrupted by inactivity,
Sloth corrupts physical beauty,
Negligence corrupts a guardian. (59)

One digs up one’s own root
Here in this very world
If one kills, lies, steals,
Goes to another’s spouse,
Or gives oneself up to drink and intoxicants.

Good person, know this:
Evil traits are reckless!
Don’t let greed and wrongdoing
Oppress you with long-term suffering. (60)

The past self is gone. The present self is continually passing-on. Only the imminent future-self is truly extant. That is to say that each moment of being is really a moment of becoming. It is as Tsunetomo Yamamoto described in the Hagakure, “At that time is right now.” Like a piece of iron, if efforts to maintain it are neglected, it will decay. Mere inactivity is destructive to the becoming-self. Lessons not remembered cannot be utilized; relationships allowed to waste away cannot be relied on; an atrophied body is unable to labor even to sustain itself; and willful blindness makes a vigilant accustomed to overlooking threats—after all, then he doesn’t have to work to purge them.

An all the above are merely the lesser vices. Beyond negligence lies active engagement, immersion of ourselves in corroding substance. It is a disconnection with the earth—a metaphor meaning that we are disjoining our conscious and instinctive selves. Disunified, we disintegrate, literally and figuratively. Internal conflict leads to self-betrayal and blaming others, which turns those others against us as well. Thus spreads the rust. Thus does lying, theft, addiction, infidelity, and murder bring about great and endless suffering for everyone involved.

That is why,

As a smith does with silver,
The wise person
Gradually,
Bit by bit,
Moment by moment,
Removes impurities from herself. (59)

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama. The Dhammapada; Teachings of the Buddha, translated by Gil Fronsdal, Shambala Publications Inc, 2008.