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ON THE DHAMMAPADA Conjugate Verses (a)
Every Friday I shall read out to you a few verses of the Dhammapada, then we shall meditate on that text. This is to teach you mental control. If I think it necessary I shall give you an explanation. The Dhammapada begins with conjugate verses; here is the first one:
In all things the primordial element is mind. Mind predominates. Everything proceeds from mind.
Naturally, this concerns the physical life, there is no question of the universe.
If a man speaks or acts with an evil mind, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the bullock that pulls the cart.
That is to say, ordinary human life, such as it is in the present world, is ruled by the mind; therefore the most important thing is to control one’s mind; so we shall follow a graded or “conjugate” discipline, to use the Dhammapada’s expression, in order to develop and control our minds. There are four movements which are usually consecutive, but which in the end may be simultaneous: to observe one’s thoughts is the first, to watch over one’s thoughts is the second, to control one’s thoughts is the third and to master one’s thoughts is the fourth. To observe, to watch over, to control, to master. All that to get rid of an evil mind, for we are told that the man who acts or speaks with an evil mind is followed by suffering as closely as the wheel follows the hoof of a bullock that ploughs or draws the cart. This is our first meditation. 30 August 1957 Page – 183 Mind predominates. Everything proceeds from mind. In all things the primordial element is mind. If a man speaks or acts with a purified mind, happiness accompanies him as closely as his inseparable shadow.
This is the counterpart of what we read last time. The Dhammapada contrasts a purified mind with an evil mind. We have already said that there are four successive stages for the purification of the mind. A purified mind is naturally a mind that does not admit any wrong thought, and we have seen that the complete mastery of thought which is required to gain this result is the last achievement in the four stages I have spoken of. The first is: to observe one’s mind. Do not believe that it is such an easy thing, for to observe your thoughts, you must first of all separate yourself from them. In the ordinary state, the ordinary man does not distinguish himself from his thoughts. He does not even know that he thinks. He thinks by habit. And if he is asked all of a sudden, “What are you thinking of?”, he knows nothing about it. That is to say, ninety-five times out of a hundred he will answer, “I do not know.” There is a complete identification between the movement of thought and the consciousness of the being. To observe the thought, the first movement then is to step back and look at it, to separate yourself from your thoughts so that the movement of the consciousness and that of thought may not be confused. Thus when we say that one must observe one’s thoughts, do not believe that it is so simple; it is the first step. I suggest that this evening in our meditation we take up this first exercise which consists in standing back from one’s thought and looking at it. 6 September 1957 185
“He has insulted me, he has beaten me, he has humiliated me, he has robbed me.” Those who nourish Page – 184 thoughts such as these never appease their hatred.
The Dhammapada tells us first of all that bad thoughts bring about suffering and good thoughts bring about happiness. Now it gives examples of what bad thoughts are and tells us how to avoid suffering. Here is the first example, I repeat: “He has insulted me, he has beaten me, he has humiliated me, he has robbed me”; and it adds: “Those who nourish thoughts such as these never appease their hatred.” We have begun our mental discipline, basing ourselves on the successive stages of mental development and we have seen that this discipline consists of four consecutive movements, which we have described in this way, as you surely remember: to observe, to watch over, to control and to master; and in the course of the last lesson we have learnt – I hope – to separate ourselves from our thoughts so as to be able to observe them as an attentive spectator. Today we have to learn how to watch over these thoughts. First you look at them and then you watch over them. Learn to look at them as an enlightened judge so that you may distinguish between the good and the bad, between thoughts that are useful and those that are harmful, between constructive thoughts that lead to victory and defeatist thoughts which turn us away from it. It is this power of discernment that we must acquire now; that will be the subject of our meditation tonight. As I have told you, the Dhammapada will give us examples, but examples are only examples. We must ourselves learn how to distinguish thoughts that are good from those that are not, and for that you must observe, as I have said, like an enlightened judge that is to say, as impartially as possible; it is one of the most indispensable conditions. 13 September 1957
“He has insulted me, he has beaten me, he has Page – 185 humiliated me, he has robbed me.” Those who do not nourish thoughts such as these foster no hatred.
This is the counterpart of what we read the other day. But note that this concerns only thoughts that generate resentment. It is because rancour, along with jealousy, is one of the most widespread causes of human misery. But how to avoid having rancour? A large and generous heart is certainly the best means, but that is not within the reach of all. Controlling one’s thought may be of more general use. Thought-control is the third step of our mental discipline. Once the enlightened judge of our consciousness has distinguished between useful and harmful thoughts, the inner guard will come and allow to pass only approved thoughts, strictly refusing admission to all undesirable elements. With a commanding gesture the guard will refuse entry to every bad thought and push it back as far as possible. It is this movement of admission and refusal that we call thought-control and this will be the subject of our meditation tonight. 20 September 1957
For, in truth, in this world hatred is not appeased by hatred; hatred is appeased by love alone. This is the eternal law.
This is one of the most celebrated verses of the Dhammapada, one of those most often cited – I would have liked to be able to say, “one of the most obeyed in the world”; unfortunately that would not be true. For people speak much of this teaching but do not follow it. Yet, there is one aspect of the problem which is less spoken of but which seems perhaps more urgent still if you want things to change in the world, something to which people give very Page – 186 little thought. I am going to surprise you. It is this: if love must be returned for hatred in order that the world may change, would it not be even more natural that love should be returned for Love? If one considers the life and action and heart of men as they are, one would have every right to be surprised at all the hatred, contempt, or at best, the indifference which are returned for this immensity of Love which the divine Grace pours upon the world, for this immensity of Love which acts upon the world at every second to lead it towards the divine delight and which finds so poor a response in the human heart. But people have compassion only for the wicked, the deficient, the misshapen, for the unsuccessful ones and the failures truly it is an encouragement to wickedness and failure. If one thought a little more of this aspect of the problem, perhaps one would have less need to insist on the necessity of returning love for hatred, because if the human heart responded in all sincerity to the Love that is being poured into it with the spontaneous gratitude of a love which understands and appreciates, then things would change quickly in the world. 27 September 1957
Many are those who are not aware that one day we all must die. And those who are aware of it appease their quarrels.
When you think you may die the next moment, immediately, automatically, there occurs in you a detachment from all material things; it is logical that from then on you think only of what does not depend upon this physical life and which is the only thing that will still belong to you once you have left this body, that is to say, the eternal existence. The Buddha did not use the word “Divine”, but it is essentially the same thing. To think that one might die the next moment was formerly, Page – 187 in the ancient initiations, a discipline that one had to follow for a certain time, for the reason I have just mentioned and also in order to overcome all fear of death and to accustom oneself to it. In that age and at the time when the Dhammapada was spoken by the Buddha, the possibility of an earthly immortality was never mentioned because this possibility belonged to such a far-off future that there would have been no point in speaking of it. Today Sri Aurobindo tells us that this possibility is near at hand and that we have only to prepare for it. But the essential condition even to prepare for it is to completely abolish all fear of death. You must neither fear it nor desire it. Stand above it, in an absolute tranquillity, neither fear it nor desire it. 4 October 1957
Just as the strong wind uproots a feeble tree, so Mara overwhelms the man who lives only in pursuit of pleasure, who does not control his senses, who knows not how to moderate his appetite, who is lazy and wastes his energies.
In Buddhist literature, Mara represents the Spirit of Evil, all that is contrary or opposed to the spiritual life; in certain cases he represents death not so much physical death as death to truth, to the spiritual being. Here, it means that so long as one does not control one’s senses and desires, and concerns oneself with external material satisfactions as the most important thing, one has not the will necessary to resist the attack of hostile forces and all that pulls us down and leads us away from the spiritual reality. The Dhammapada does not take its stand so much on the Page – 188 moral point of view; it is not evil as men understand it with their blind justice and their arbitrary sense of good and bad. Evil, from the spiritual point of view, is truly that which leads us away from the goal, which sometimes even tears us away from the deepest purpose of our existence, from the truth of our being and prevents us from realising it. This is the way in which it should be understood. 11 October 1957
Just as the strong wind has no hold upon a mighty rock, so Mara has no hold upon a man who does not live in pursuit of pleasure, who has good control of his senses, who knows how to moderate his appetite, who is endowed with unshakable faith and who wastes not his energies.
What the Dhammapada means when it speaks of faith is not at all the belief in a dogma or a religion, it is not even faith in the teaching of the Master; it is faith in one’s own possibilities, the certitude that whatever the difficulties, whatever the obstacles, whatever the imperfections, even the negations in the being, one is born for the realisation and one will realise. The will must never falter, the effort must be persevering and the faith unshakable. Then instead of spending years to realise what one has to realise, one can do it in a few months, sometimes even in a few days and, if there is sufficient intensity, in a few hours. That is to say, you can take a position within yourself and no bad will that attacks the realisation will have any more power over you than the storm has over a rock. After that, the way is no longer difficult; it becomes extraordinarily interesting. 18 October 1957 Page – 189 He who puts on the yellow robe while he is yet impure, lacking in self-control and lacking in loyalty, truly he is unworthy to wear the yellow robe of the monk.
Of course, the yellow robe, in the literal sense, is the robe of the Buddhist monks; it became the robe of all who practised asceticism. But this is not what the Dhammapada truly means to say, because there is no lack of men who wear the yellow robe but are not purified of their taints. The yellow robe is taken as the symbol of consecration to the spiritual life, the external sign of renunciation of all that is not an exclusive concentration upon the spiritual life. What Buddhism means by “impurities” is chiefly egoism and ignorance; because, from the Buddhist standpoint, the greatest of all taints is ignorance, not ignorance of external things, of the laws of Nature and of all that you learn at school, but the ignorance of the deepest truth of things, of the law of the being, of the Dharma. It is noteworthy that the two defects insisted upon here are lack of self-control and lack of loyalty. Loyalty means here sincerity, honesty; what the Dhammapada censures most severely is hypocrisy: to pretend that you want to live the spiritual life and not to do it, to pretend that you want to seek the truth and not to do it, to display the external signs of consecration to the divine life – here symbolised by the yellow robe – but within to be concerned only with oneself, one’s selfishness and one’s own needs. It is interesting to note the insistence of the Dhammapada on self-control, for according to the Buddhist teaching, excess in all things is bad. The Buddha always insisted on the Middle Path. You must not be too much on one side nor too much on the other, exaggerate one thing or the other. You must have measure, balance in all things, the balance of moderation. Therefore the qualities that make you worthy of leading the spiritual life are to have an inner balance, a balance in your Page – 190 action, and to be moderate in everything, to be sincere, honest, loyal. Balance, moderation, loyalty, honesty: this is the subject of our meditation. 8 November 1957
But he who has discarded all impurity, who is firmly attached to the precepts of morality, who knows how to moderate his appetite and who is loyal, he, truly, is worthy to wear the yellow robe.
I would not like you to take this text as a moral catechism. It certainly has a much deeper and truer meaning, because in all truly spiritual teachings, morality as it is mentally conceived is out of place. So too the word “impurity”. Pure, as it is understood morally, has not at all the meaning it is given in a truly spiritual teaching; and particularly from the Buddhist standpoint, purity is absence of ignorance, as I have already told you last time, and ignorance means ignoring the inner law, the truth of the being. And loyalty means not to take the illusion for the reality, the changing and fluctuating appearances for the inner and real permanence of the being. We can say then that self-control and self-mastery, measure, absence of desire, the search for the inner truth of the being and the law of its self-manifestation are very necessary preoccupations for those who want to practise the spiritual life. To be true to oneself, to one’s goal, not to let oneself be moved by disorderly impulses, not to take the changing appearances for the Reality, these are the virtues that one must have in order to progress on the way of spirituality. 15 November 1957 Page – 191 Those who take error for truth, and the truth for error, will never attain the supreme goal, for they are led astray by vain desires and false views.
A comment could be added; for, if one were satisfied with taking error for truth and truth for error, it should be logically very easy to make one’s choice as soon as one found for some reason or other or with some help, what is truly the truth and what is truly the error; one adopts the truth and rejects the error. But unfortunately one loves one’s error, somewhere in the being there is an unwillingness to recognise what is true. My experience is like this: whenever you sincerely want to know the truth, you do know it. There is always something to point out the error to you, to make you recognise the truth. And if you observe yourself attentively you find out that it is because you prefer error that you do not find the truth. Even in small details, the very smallest – not to speak of the big things of life, the big decisions that one has to take – even in the smallest things, whenever the aspiration for the truth and the will to be true are wholly sincere, the indication always comes. And precisely, with the method of the Buddhist discipline, if you follow up within yourself the causes of your way of being, you always find out that persistence in error comes from desire. It is because you have the preference, the desire to feel, to act, to think in a particular way, that you make the mistake. It is not simply because you do not know what is true. You do not know it precisely because you say in a vague, general, imprecise way, “Oh, I want the truth.” In fact, if you take a detail, each detail, and put your finger on it, you discover that you are playing the ostrich in order not to see. You put up something uncertain, something vague, a veil, in order not to see behind it. Whenever there is sincerity, you find that the help, the guidance, the grace are always there to give you the answer and you are not mistaken for long. Page – 192 It is this sincerity in the aspiration for progress, in the will for truth, in the need to be truly pure–pure as it is understood in the spiritual life–is this sincerity which is the key to all progress. With it you know–and you can. There is always, somewhere in the being, something which prefers to deceive itself, otherwise the light is there, always ready to guide, but you shut your eyes in order not to see it. 22 November 1957
Those who know the true to be true and the false to be false, they attain the supreme goal, for they pursue right desires and correct views.
We saw last time that it is not sufficient to be able to distinguish what is right from what is wrong. At first sight this seems to be the most difficult point. It is quite obvious that if everyone had to find it out for himself, it would be a very long work; you can pass your whole life going through innumerable experiences which little by little will enlighten you as to what is right and what is not. Therefore it is easier to rely on someone who has done the work before you and whom you have simply to ask, “Is this true? Is that false?” Evidently, that offers a great advantage, but unfortunately it is not always sufficient; for if you have the desire that things should be in a certain way and that what you prefer should be right, then you are not always ready to listen to good advice. The last sentence, “for they pursue right desires”, which seems to be a commonplace, is perhaps the most difficult part of the problem. In this book, in this teaching, there are short sentences that appear so simple. If you read without sufficient reflection, you tell yourself, “But it is self-evident, you recognise as true what is true and as false what is false, what does that mean then?” Page – 193 |