It was a long overdue task I always wanted to do, but that's how things work. When the need comes, the divine does work through you. I am starting this project knowing not if I will be able to finish it.
To be able to write a commentary on Buddhist text? I ask myself am I even eligible to write it? A sudden sense of fear creeps in my mind whether I will be able to do justice to it. But probably it is not about justice now. It is not an attempt to teach Buddha to the 21st Century anxiety driven century, who counts Buddhism also in the standard realm of definition of religion. This is the same generation who has a highly lonesome life, who lives only on weekends, the same generation who has lost hope in all religiosities and even if some have, they have hopes on false gods and false religions. The reason why I claim this, is because of reason itself. Modernity and post-modernity and centuries of reason and anti-reason respectively. These generations are reason obsessed generations and either some are running away from it, trying to indulge in something that relieves them from the anxiety of unreasonableness of existence, or they are fully immersed into it and have become cynical which has led them to be bitter in their personal lives, they cannot take themselves lightly. And how can someone who thinks of himself so reasonable and so sorted, will he be able to comprehend the contradiction of selflessness as the truth? He cannot.
For the anxiety driven generation, I promise nothing. Nobody can, and at least not me. I am not on a civilization mission. I know I cannot help people come out of the hell that they take pleasure in being.
It is my expression of love towards my master. Buddha, who is the epitome of everything that humanity has ever hoped for. Bertrand Russel says, I was born in the wrong religion, My reason tells me the most reasonable religion on this planet is Buddhas. Nietzsche's Übermensch, who is? Buddha. Buddha and his rational religion might be the answer the world always wanted.
But, then, why wouldn't the world already find it? Because the world is ridden with the ideology of cynicism today. They find Carvaka more convincing because it does not take a toll on their bodies, their minds. They can indulge in material pleasure without thinking about how it is affecting them. Most mentally unhealthy people are found in good earning business owning alienated rich people. Rich people who, if not for accumulation of more capital and then subsequent consumption, will vanish, cease to exist.
This is my ode to one of the most soft and reasonable masters the world ever seen, the light of Asia, Buddha. It is said that reason, if it does not bring with it devotion, is not reason, it is irrationality from core. This is what has happened with the people I see around me. Rationality to be practiced as a ritual but not applying reason to the innermost corners of their minds. Where their blind spots lie. When their ego hurts them regularly. One comment, One attack, even verbal, even gestural and even emotional, and they are on their heights of rage and then they struggle, they break relations, they break their lives even. They seem to be as "Martyrs without a cause". They die daily for their ego.
My Attempt is an attempt to poetry. My attempt is to just be able to pen down what I have gotten from Dhamma. I have been practicing Vipassana at home since 10th grade and introduced to Dhamma in my graduation. Then with the help of a new age master, Osho, I learned the depths of Dhamma. And then, it made me lighter. How heavy was the load of my ego, my journey became so easy. Life is already hard for people who learn very late about attachments and its inherent contradictions and the Dukkha it generates. And then, when at last, the person realizes, he already has invested so much to his ego, it seems impossible for him to do things which go against his ego.
I was like that. I am no longer. It was easier for me. It is usually easier for those who are ready to lose. How contradictory is the game of Maya, or MAAR, the name given in Pali to Maya, that the loser wins, the winner loses.
I see people burning in the fires of anger, lust, ego, contempt, revenge etc. Even social justice fighters, people who are fighting for the righteous, are today fighting not because they know that they are fighting for truth, but because now it is an ego fight for them, it is fight for identity for them, what they call Identity politics.
Good people do bad things because the system forces them too. This system of Maya has snatched away from them truth, the only sword they had, the only armor they had, and gave them a useless weapon, called ego. This ego is a sword with no handle. It constantly hurts the owner, probably it might hurt the other as well, but it wouldn't even touch the knower of truth. Since the knower holds the armor of truth.
Enough talk, let's possibly dive in. Dhamma is the name given by Buddha to the eternal law. Beware it is nowhere physical or natural. Of course it is man made; Intelligent Buddhists will never argue about it as natural law. It is of course man made. But not all man-made things are bad, and not all natural things are necessarily good.
In fact, Mother nature is probably the worst mother in the history of mankind. It is so patriarchal. It has only one concern, the best of his sons and daughters survive. The best genes live. The animal eats, reproduces and then his body starts to decay. As if the nature's message is loud and clear, No need of infertile or post-fertile species. Old people live a pathetic life. Their bodies do not move; ache and they suffer before dying.
Nature is evil. That's why Dhamma, or any spiritual discipline does not make a big deal out of nature. It certainly respects but does not fetishize. Religions, otherwise, and elsewhere, have an oedipal relation with nature. That's why so exploitation, and that's why Climate change.
Man made some things: Equality, Justice, Freedom. aren't these good things? So, the first prejudice to remove is to stop fetishizing nature. Nature is not sacrosanct.
Secondly, Dhamma tells you how to improve your quality of life. It is not a motivational or self-help book. It has nothing to do with whether you achieve the material success you wanted. It has to do with whatever situation you are in, how to improve your being in that situation. To indulge freely without any bias.
Imagine, you are being given an injection by a doctor. You close your eyes in fear. Dhamma will teach you to face the sensation of pain with your eyes open. It will make you aware about the uniqueness of the experience of the pain. To be able to witness pain is already a privilege, is a motto of dhamma. Rocks cannot witness them being eroded. They cannot experience them being weathered by chemical agents.
You can. But you choose not to. Because of your bias towards pain as bad. Who told you that pain should be treated as a taboo? Who told you to avoid pain and chase pleasure? Who told you to avoid death and choose life? And how contradictory, you wish to live, you choose life over death only to close your eyes t half of your life experiences?
Dhamma is a silent whisper of the doctor, open your eyes. It is a natural procedure to get hurt. Witness it. Witness the unique pleasure of pain. The more open your eyes become, the lighter the self, the easier it becomes.
Do you know, when you dive in from 2nd floor, one reason why you are prone to death is because in fear, your reflex muscles become stiff, the harder the muscles the brittle they become, they break, the bones break because the cushions called muscles contracted to become rock hard in fear. If you relax, you probably won't die. But you don't. You give arguments why you deserve to be scared. Remember these are the arguments you are giving yourself and even you are not convinced from inside about them.
Dhamma is for those who either wish to live their contradictions and hence solve them. It is not for those who either do not even understand that there is a contradiction, or they do not care, or they care but they only care about the argument and not the reality. They are not comfortable to live the contradiction.
Dhammapada is a guide to how to live the contradiction called life. As in 3 Idiots, Rancho says, "I do not teach Engineering, I teach how to teach!".
There are two parts of Dhammapada. One is poetry. The sermons of Buddha. And then the stories, the examples that he gave.
I am interested in both. The simplicity of the poetry of the sermons is marvelous. It is for the aesthetic enjoyer. Simple yet beautiful, rather simple hence beautiful. The stories are for the argumentative. This is the subject of psychoanalytic enquiry. I find them fascinating. Intellectually stimulating, they are called Gathas.
So, formally starting it.
Buddha is the light of yourself, the guide who always tells you what truth at every instance is, He is the Father of Christ. The God.
Dhamma is the creation of Buddha. It is the guide to create your own authentic light. It is the son of God. Christ himself.
Sangha is the collective energy of truth within you. However latent, there is always agency in you to pursue the truth. It is the holy spirit of Christianity.
Hence, Father, son and the holy spirit. May the spirit help me complete the magnum opus.
Or...
Buddham Sharanam Gacchami
Dhamman Sharanam Gacchami
Sangham Sharanam Gacchami!
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