MEDITATIONS: THE DHAMMAPADA, CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Buddha

There are no greater human fears than those of long suffering followed by death; and yet, there is no greater guarantee in life than that one will suffer throughout one’s mortal life which is in fact doomed to come to an end. What the Buddha achieved most fundamentally is a method of overcoming this life-long anxiety. Note: overcoming, not obliterating. Nirvana is not an existence without pain and death, though it is often couched in language which suggests that it is. However, the “bliss” of enlightenment is better described as an acceptance, a “yea” saying, and a reorientation of the will to incorporate both suffering and mortality.

It is then that the following passage becomes undeniable:

The Buddha’s victory cannot be undone;
No one in the world can approach it.
By what path would you guide him,
Who has no path,
Whose field is endless? (Buddha 45)

From the perspective of the infinite universe, no single thing can stand with any significance. Therefore, what matter is an individual human’s pain or even his demise? What matter is one’s own? Taking on this perspective is what is actually meant by “becoming one with everything”. It is, in a real sense, becoming nothing. It is admittedly nihilistic in its orientation, albeit restrictively so.

Buddhism is like a universal solvent contained within a kintsugi vase: the outer vessel is solid and made most beautiful, desirable, and valuable through being broken and reconstituted. Inside that vessel, the essencelessness of transcendence resides, contained, let out only when the vase is poured over that which must be razed so that something new can be built in its place.

This is why Buddha’s victory is unassailable—because it is not one victory, but a means of infinite revision of victorious conditions. This is what is meant by him having no Path. There is no single Path, for if his Way becomes blocked, he makes for himself a different Way by making the former insignificant in view of a grander scheme. Thus a Road becomes a field open with possibility.

But such is much easier said than done:

It is difficult to be born a human;
Difficult is the life of mortals;
It is difficult to hear the true Dharma;
Difficult is the arising of buddhas.

Doing no evil,
Engaging in what’s skillful,
And purifying one’s mind:
This is the teaching of the buddhas. . . .

Not disparaging other, not causing injury,
Practicing restraint by the monastic rules,
Knowing moderation in food,
Dwelling in solitude,
And pursuing the higher states of mind,
This is the teaching of the buddhas. . . .

It’s hard to find a noble person;
Such a person is not born everywhere. (45-7)

It is counter-intuitive, that one can become unassailable by ceasing to defend his position or that one can gain freedom via self-imposed constraints. However, it is no different than the skillful martial artist whose most superior form of defense is to not be present in the time and place of his opponents attack, whose abilities to so evade are founded not in perfect freedom, but in rigorous training and discipline.

Perhaps this explains the rarity nobility—it is painful and thereby difficult to hear the Truth about oneself and one’s duties, one’s Dharma. That immediate pain overwhelms the many and turns them toward evil, corruption, and decadence. They do not develop discipline and therefore cultivate neither the strength nor endurance of body or of will necessary as a foundation to build the skills through which one might purify one’s mind—to purge it of the precious, rotting, dead sentiments to which it is wont to cling.

In place of cultivating their characters, the many prefer to flee:

People threatened by fear
Go to many refuges:
To mountains, forests,
Parks, trees, and shrines.
None of these is a secure refuge;
None is a supreme refuge.
Not by going to such a refuge
Is one released from all suffering.

There is no escape from being within being. No amount of running nor distraction nor destructive activity can successfully deny reality for what it is. One can only slowly decay or else rapidly facilitate the entropy of oneself and others. The only place to rest is on top of the suffering itself, and for this, one cannot deny it but must instead learn to say “yes.”

He who can renounce his own desires can reconstitute them in accord with what is in and in front of him. This is the enlightenment of the Buddha. This is the skill which human beings can practice and cultivate. It is not a sudden and eternal transcendence, nor a perfect peaceful, blissful state. It is the art—the artifice: human act of conscious intention—of letting go in a single moment. It is, to the higher man, the necessary resting and recovering of strength by which one dances freely about his field.

A field—even the Buddha came back out from his cave.

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