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Upajāti (Indravajrā)
dharmārthibhir-bhūta-gaṇaiś-ca
divyais-tad-darśanārthaṁ vanam āpupūre |
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kautūhalenaiva
ca pāda-pebhyaḥ puṣpāny akāle 'pi [nipātitāni]
|| 1.24
1.24
Hosts
of divine, dharma-needy beings,
Being
motivated to meet him, filled up the forest.
And
such indeed was the zealous absorption,
That
blossoms, even out of season,
were
caused to fall from trees.
COMMENT:
The old Nepalese manuscript on which
EHJ based his Sanskrit text ends with the 10th syllable of
the 3rd pāda (-pe), but EHJ felt confident enough working
back from the Tibetan to include in his devanagari text -pebhyaḥ
puṣpāny akāle 'pi. The
final five syllables of the verse, however, EHJ left blank, stating
that the last word is a verb compounded with ni,
equivalent to sraṁs
(to drop) or vyadh
(to pelt) – possibly nipātitāni.
The 1st and 2nd
pāda of today's verse each centre on words from the root arth:
to strive to obtain, desire, wish, request.
The 1st pāda as I read it
is an expression of the truth of suffering, the essence of suffering
being desire for an end one lacks (as heavenly beings inevitably
lack) the practical means to gain. A divine or religious state of
being desirous of dharma or needy for dharma (dharmārthin)
is a state of suffering, in which the suffering subject is right
here, separated from the desired object over there.
The 2nd pāda represents
progress into a more real, concrete or material sphere, in which
desire manifests itself in purposeful movement of subject towards
desired object. Thus the purpose of seeing him (tad-darśanārtham)
causes the material forest to fill up.
In
the 3rd
pāda as I read it intense interest or zealous absorption (kautūhala) takes
the discussion of subjective volition onto the next level, in which
subject is no longer separated from object, but subject is rather absorbed
in object, or object and subject are absorped into each other.
It
is this kind of zealous absorption, or obsessive interest – the
virtue of which others are liable to question – that tends to
precipitate change in the world, as described in the 4th
pāda.
The phrase akāle
'pi “even
out of season,” means in other words “not at the expected time.”
Reality
changes unexpectedly, but because of the power of his zealous
absorption into his sitting practice, without worrying about good and
bad, a Zen practitioner is able to cope skilfully with the unexpected change.
That
is one view.
But
today's verse as I read it points to another kind of situation
altogether; namely, that because of his zealous absorption, a Zen
practitioner in his blind stupidity unexpectedly changes reality.
Finding
myself in such a situation, as seems to happen several times a day, I
typically respond by thinking “Oh fuck! Now what have I gone and
done?”
Today's translation and comment really is the product of 30 years of making one continuous mistake. That being so, I wrote a couple of paragraphs yesterday to illustrate the meaning of the first two lines from personal experience. But on re-reading this morning what I wrote yesterday, the content was too embarrassing even for me to make public. So I decided to suppress the awful truth.
VOCABULARY
dharmārthibhiḥ
= inst. pl. m. dharmārthin: being desirous of dharma
arthin:
one who wants or desires anything (instr. or in comp); longing for ,
libidinous
bhūta-gaṇaiḥ
(inst. pl.): m. the host of living beings ; a multitude of spirits
or ghosts
bhūta:
n. that which is or exists , any living being (divine , human ,
animal , and even vegetable) ; n. a spirit (good or evil)
gaṇa:
m. a flock , troop , multitude , number ,
ca:
and
divyaiḥ
(inst. pl.): mfn. divine , heavenly , celestial
tad-darśanārtham
(ind.): with the aim/purpose of seeing/visiting him
tad:
him
darśana:
n. seeing , observing , looking; n. visiting ; n. audience , meeting
artha:
aim, purpose; cause, motive, reason
vanam
(acc. sg.): n. forest, wood, grove
āpupūre
= 3rd
pers. pl. perf: ā- √ pṝ : to fill up, fill
kautūhalena
(inst. sg.): n. curiosity , interest in anything , vehement desire
for
eva:
(emphatic)
ca:
and
pāda-pebhyaḥ
= abl. pl. pāda-pa: m. “drinking at foot or root " , a tree
, plant
puṣpāni
(acc. pl.): n. flower, blossom
akāle
(loc. sg.): m. a wrong or bad time; (ind.) unseasonably
kāla:
m. a fixed or right point of time
kāle:
ind. loc. in time , seasonably
api
: even
nipātitāni
(acc. pl. n.): made to fly down
ni-
√pat : to fly down , settle down
pātita:
mfn. (fr. Caus. √pat) made to fall , felled , struck down , lowered
, depressed , overthrown
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