−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−− Upajāti
(Indravajrā)
yaṁ
kāma-devaṁ pravadanti loke citrāyudhaṁ puṣpa-śaraṁ
tathaiva |
−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
kāma-pracārādhipatiṁ
tam eva mokṣa-dviṣaṁ
māram udāharanti
|| 13.2
13.2
Kāma-deva, “God of Love,” they
call him in the world,
The bearer of the brightly-coloured bow
and, equally, of flower-arrows;
That same despot in his playground of
desire,
The hater of liberation, they call
Māra.
COMMENT:
My Zen teacher lived in the post-WWII
bubble of Japanese over-confidence, not to say arrogance.
That psychological bubble had its
economic counterpart in a capital investment bubble which reached its
peak in around 1990-91, accompanied by bubbles in Japanese equities
and real estate. The Japanese monetary authorities' reactions to the
bursting of those bubbles, ever since, have continued to be
instrumental in the inflation of a global money bubble, associated
with misallocation of resources – especially in favour of bloated and
parasitic financial sectors – and growing inequality.
For the past few years I have been
trying to get my head around the phenomenon of a declining gold price
in the face of unprecedented money printing around the world. Some,
like Jim Rogers, say that, since everything goes in waves, large
corrections in commodity prices are only natural. Others see all the markets as being more or less rigged. The truth probably
lies somewhere in the middle. But my intuition has been that a lot of
distortions – in the markets as in how the Buddha's teaching is
taught – originate in Japan. Japan, in many ways, continues to be a
very strange place, having been cut off as it was for so many
centuries from the outside world. That being so, I found this article by metals analyst Paul Mychreest truly eye-opening -- dot-joining and alarming in equal measure.
The article describes many ironies, the central one being how risky speculation and leverage seem to have been used to suppress the price of gold which, in principle, should rise when risks to the system rise. Mychreest also describes how Japan is "the cutting edge of the cutting edge" of the expanding global credit bubble.
His article begins by asking: Has the market completely missed a huge long/short trade which has helped to drive up the Nikkei and drive down the gold price for more than 2 years? One that puts risk-taking and leveraged speculation by our industry in an unfavourable light again?
His article begins by asking: Has the market completely missed a huge long/short trade which has helped to drive up the Nikkei and drive down the gold price for more than 2 years? One that puts risk-taking and leveraged speculation by our industry in an unfavourable light again?
I may seem to digress too much, but I
heed the warnings of commentators like Jim Rickards, who sees the
complex system of the global economy as being like an avalanche
waiting to engulf all of us -- the financially savvy and innocent alike. In view of at least a possibility of such a crash,
if not the inevitability of such a crash, Jim Rickards advocates
holding some portion of savings – maybe ten per cent – in
physical gold held outside the banking system.
If all the banks fail, and the rules of
the game are reset, as Jim Rickards predicts, gold will still be
gold. It was on Jim Rickards' recommendation, by the way, that I
recently read the book Lords of Finance, which helps to put
everything in its proper historical perspective. If everything goes
tits up in the financial markets and the global economy, it won't be the first time.
Coming back to Zen, I would say that
everything in Japanese Zen has already gone completely tits up. And
the Nishijima-Cross translation of Shobogenzo, which was supposed to
be part of the solution, like a Zen gold standard, has more likely
been part of the problem. That is because at the root of the whole
effort was a serious bit of ignorance.
Whereas other big beasts in the world
of Japanese Zen were scholars and priests who had undergone a period
of Zen brainwashing at some Buddhist university or temple, my
teacher had ploughed his own lonely furrow. He was enabled in this by
quite a privileged position, as a Law graduate of Tokyo University
who followed the royal road of top Japanese mandarins, into the
Ministry of Finance. So he hadn't wasted his time being taught rubbish by
clueless professors of Buddhist studies, or doing pointless rituals
in Japanese temples. Rather, he studied Shobogenzo by himself, and
translated it into modern Japanese; and focused his energies, in
practice, into Zazen itself, just sitting.
As a result of these efforts, my Zen
teacher used to speak – with no lack of confidence – of “two
enlightenments.” He spoke as if he knew whereof he spoke. And I for one
was a true believer in almost every word. Ironically, however, my teacher had never in fact seen
what he called “the second enlightenment,” even in a dream – at
least not as Aśvaghoṣa describes the Buddha's awakening in BC
Canto 14. The Buddha's awakening, at least as far as we can judge
from EHJ's translation of the Tibetan, was very much bound up with
the recognition that ignorance (avidyā; the first in the twelve
links) is the causal grounds for doings (saṁskārāḥ; the second
in the twelve links). But that recognition eluded my teacher. If he
had understood, then he wouldn't have taught his students, with voice
and with hand, to do this, that and the other, on the basis of a wrong
conception of right posture.
I have stated my case many times before
but, to sum up, my Zen teacher was a complete con artist. He convinced
yours truly that he had got “the second enlightenment,” that he
himself was an awakened Buddha, when in fact he was no such thing. He
was a kind of con-man, and I was one of the ones who was conned.
And yet – paradoxically – when it
came to teaching the first enlightenment, I could not have found a
truer teacher.
So, by a circuitous route, we come to
today's verse, which seems to describe Māra in terms of opposites.
On one side is kāma, love; on the other is dviṣa, hating.
Today's verse causes me to think that
Māra could have been a child of the 1960s, decade of flower-power
and “All you need is Love,” and decade of hate – decade of
hateful weapons like napalm and Agent Orange, and decade of the
Cultural Revolution in China.
So the link to the first enlightenment,
as my teacher taught it, is that the fundamental means for
transcending love and hate is simply just to sit there, naturally, like the
bodhisattva under the bodhi tree, not doing anything.
VOCABULARY
yam
(acc. sg. m.): [him] whom
kāma-devam
(acc. sg. m.): “God of Love”
pravadanti
= 3rd pers. pl. pra- √ vad: to speak out; to
pronounce, call, name
loke
(loc. sg. m.): in the world
citrāyudham
m. " having variegated weapons " , N. of a son of
dhṛta-rāṣṭra; N. of kāma-deva, Bcar.
citra:
mfn. conspicuous , excellent , distinguished ; bright , clear ,
bright-coloured ; variegated , spotted , speckled ; various ,
different , manifold ; strange , wonderful
āyudha:
n. a weapon
puṣpa-śaram
= púṣpa-bāṇa: m. " flower-arrowed " , the god of love
tathaiva:
ind. equally, likewise
kāma-pracārādhipatim
(acc. sg. m): the ruler of the playground of Love
pracāra:
m. roaming , wandering ; coming forth , showing one's self ,
manifestation , appearance , occurrence , existence ; employment, use
; conduct , behaviour ; a playground , place of exercise ;
pasture-ground , pasturage
adhipati:
m. a ruler , commander , regent , king.
tam
(acc. sg. m.): him
eva:
emphatic
mokṣa-dviṣam
(acc. sg. m.): the enemy of liberation
muc:
to loose , let loose , free , let go , slacken , release , liberate
dviṣa:
mfn. (ifc.) hostile , hating ; m. foe, enemy
māram
(acc. sg.): m. Māra
udāharanti
= 3rd pers. pl. ud-ā- √ hṛ : to set up , put up ;
to relate , declare , announce ; to quote , cite , illustrate ;
to name , call
ā- √
hṛ: to fetch , bring , bring near ; to manifest , utter , speak
五欲自在王 具諸戰鬥藝
憎嫉解脱者 故名爲波旬
憎嫉解脱者 故名爲波旬
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