MEDITATIONS: THE DHAMMAPADA, CHAPTER THIRTEEN

tHE wORLD

Rouse yourself! Don’t be negligent!
Life the Dharma, a life of good conduct. (Buddha 42)

. . . Do not follow a wrong view;
Don’t be engrossed in the world. (42)

It could be argued—I might make the argument—that negligence is a greater evil than malevolence. Doing nothing is easy. Not making changes is easy. Slowly backsliding, becoming nothing more than our baser instincts is as automatic as crystalizing one’s beliefs. In either case, one shields himself from the discomforts of being. In either case, a man tricks himself into believing that he is living a good life, a lie which sustains itself by way of willful blindness:

Blind is this world;
Few see clearly here.
As birds who escape from nets are few,
Few go to heaven. (43)

It is easier to close one’s eyes than to witness the Truth, for Truth is life, and life is suffering. Rather than acknowledge the suffering, the many seek after numbing salves—opiates, if you will. They occlude their eyes and ears, stop up the cogs and wheels of their rational faculties, anything to feel comfortable—superior—in their wrong view. Sometimes this amounts to a lie shouted in perpetuity to oneself to block out any other sounds. Other times, a wrong view is one of excuses: those who hold it want rationalization for their desire for vengeance for the suffering intrinsic to being in the world. Others still, the natural fools, slaves, and nihilists become engrossed in transient sensory pleasures. For a time, they revel; but over time, the pleasures of life become less and the pains more. In the end, these are the beings who find themselves in endless suffering knowing no Dharma—no way to make meaning of any of it.

Regardless which type of negligence manifests itself, the ultimate result over time and across lives is the same: lies and moral degeneration. It might require generations, but from one to the next, they who refuse to see the world beyond its illusions will ultimately succumb to negligent temptation. They will reject what is real in favor of their lies:

For people who speak falsely,
Who transgress in this one way,
And who reject the world beyond,
There is no evil they won’t do. (43)

However, even he who has transgressed—and there is not a person who hasn’t—is not doomed to be trapped within illusion. Every step in the right direction, every action which takes responsibility for what is one’s own—that is, the proper orientation of desires and aversions—strengthens one’s morale and spirit. Goodness requires that strength, and so strong, one benefits himself and thereby others who choose the same path.

With the power to dare see life for how she truly is, one’s bright vision becomes a shining beacon for others:

Whoever recovers from doing evil
By doing something wholesome
Illuminates the world
Like the moon set free from a cloud.

Whoever replaces an evil deed
With what is wholesome
Illuminates the world
Like the moon set free from a cloud.

Do not continue to be negligent insofar as you can help it. Take steps to replace your evil actions, beginning with those self-directed evils, then moving on to the evils done unto others. Stop lying to yourself, then stop lying to other people. Train your ego to bear the weight of suffering on its own—but in increments, just as if you were conditioning your muscles. Strength is power, and power is the ability to bring into accord one’s will and the world. Sometimes that means altering what is before you, often it means being strong enough to bring the self in accord with what is. In either case, self-generated power is necessary. So rouse yourself! Discover your Dharma and pursue it to the end! Do not backslide into evil by way of negligence.

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