BHASHYA: DHAMMAPADA (1/N)

 

It is very essential for you to chant it first. Consider it my orthodoxy towards Buddhism, but when aesthetics is not attached to truth, it becomes plain and human civilization, as high dopamine hungry it has become, is not ready for plain truths. 

It goes like this, Mano pubbaangama dhammaaa....! Mano Settha Manomayaaaa....! Mansa che padutthenaaaa..., Bhaasati waaa karoti waaa...! Tato nam Dukkham anveti...Chakkam va vahto padam! 

Let us now dive into the analysis. 

Actually, the structure of Dhammapada is very unique and interesting. First the Sutra, the Shloka comes, and then Buddha gives a story to explain it. The Sutra tells us the normative dimensions of the story, while the form of the story tells us two things, first a glimpse of the mind of Buddha, and A glimpse of the mind of the people he was telling these stories too. 

So, the interesting aspect of Dhammapada is that it is two-fold psychoanalytic. First, it preaches Psychoanalytic learning, about minds and its mysteries, So the content itself is Psychoanalytic. 

Second, is its form itself, it is as if, the course instructor is giving not stories but case studies about patients. A third but crucial Pyscho-synthetic angle comes when Buddha connects them to preach how to change the psychological fate. Psychological determinism is where Freud and later Psychoanalysts finish, at last, only the mind prevails is the message of great Psychoanalysts. But, with Freud, we had little hope, Hope of agency of correction, but with subsequent Psychoanalysis, People became determinists, No free will. No corrections possible. They accuse Freud, the honest man, of biological determinism. But, in turn, they are Mind obsessed people. Too much mind yet no solace. At least with pure biology, we see hope of change. Your body can fight back the conditioning. Your body can be seen struggling and winning. Your mind remains invisible and absurd mysteries are attached to it. Mind is only to be repaired in case of a disorder. It cannot expand its capabilities. Can't it lift itself from the valleys of sorrow, contempt, anger, jealousy, all those components of hell. But, here we have, Our first Psychoanalyst in 3rd century BC, coming up with simple principles of mind and its cultivation, how to tame the beast. 

Mind is the source of all religions. Dharma as it is said. what meaning to take of this word? I claim, take all meanings. Words historically accumulate the meanings throughout. Either you can be a purist and say, we need to find out the original meaning, which is untraceable, since the author's dead, or you can accept the historical accumulation as necessary and take all meanings of all times all at once. Tell me, if the word has been perverted, may be the word was meant to be perverted. 

One meaning of Dharma, comes from, Dhaarayate iti Dharma, something to hold on to. Which is not farther from the standard religion I claim. Institutionalized religion also gives you something to hold on to. It gives you Falsehood. Dharma claims to give it to you a doctrine of truth. But here comes the paradox. Truth cannot be indoctrinated. If it is truth, it must be automatically convincingly deductible and known to the seeker. So, here, the Dharma that is being talked about is whatever, it is man-made. All doctrines, all institutions are man-made. 

If someone is telling you to be present at the moment as the doctrine, It is precisely false. Since, what else would you do other than be? Is not being in option? Rather, retrospectively, it gave you an option to zone out from the present. Hence, All religions are reactionary. They were made when men left their original way of being. 

Mann, or Mind is the source of all Instincts. Mind is the source of all religions. What does this mean? Why this chronology? Instincts are animalistic. Religion is considered humanistic, cultured. Then why they both originate from a single source. That means, Animal Instincts and Human religions have something in common. 

Let me give you an example. Already in Religions, the way all religions treat sex is a great example. Ordinary animals do penetration and sex. Human animals observe themselves having sex. And that has made them make rules to have sex. Christianity says, Sex without love is sin. Why is that? Later Catholics added more to it. They said, Sex without giving birth to offspring is sin. They say, If you love someone, you love God. God comes out of you when a child is born. This, I claim, is perversion to the maximum. Rules are made to suppress pleasure. As if, to enjoy for human beings is automatically restricted. Human beings cannot bear themselves or any other human enjoying. They feel a need to regulate this pleasure. 

Biologically, orgasm is nature's reward to reproduce. Already nature is incentivizing, as if nature does not trust any living being with some responsibility, so it has to tempt Animals or humans into doing it. 

Then man, cannot bear himself enjoying, so he made rules to orgasm. Reproduce, only then are you allowed to orgasm. Hegel gives a wonderful reversal to this. Rather than obeying nature, actually having Sex for the sake of orgasm and not having children is the ultimate spiritual act, since It is the celebration of life. Pleasure is enjoying life today without producing someone later to suffer the atrocities of life. 

Here we see, Animal instincts and Human religions have something in common. What Humans lack, Animals have. Courage to enjoy. Humans lack the courage to enjoy without feeling guilty. All Human religion is a civilizational attempt to regulate pleasure. As if, Men fear pleasure. 

Good religions and bad religions. Whatever be your value judgement, realize it is your creation. No description of reality. Reality is odorless, colorless void. You fill colors in it. You fill it with meaning. Your mind sees logic in it. Your mind only can find it logicless. There is nothing. Similarly with instincts. In fact, religions are an expression of animal instincts. Men wanted to suppress enjoyment of others in sex, men made religions. 

So, if you understand this, understand this as well, that the feelings of good and bad, are feelings that you create through interactions with the world. And those interactions are not neutral. You jinx the outcome of that interaction. If you do something with good intent, good instincts activate. And good feelings come out regardless of the outcome. And similarly with bad deeds. It is you with the colors in your hand, coloring them in your mind. Your mind is a coloring book. reality is eventually colorless. 

Here, in the last line is interesting. Why this specific example, Sorrow follows the man who does deeds with a polluted mind as the bullock cart's wheel follows the Bull's feet. 

Now you see, this example might have routes in the socioeconomics of the time. Bull's and Bullock carts might be realities of those times. The example is interesting because it is development worthy.

Imagine the Bull is you. If the Bull has mentality of slavery, it will always bear the burden of the cart. Wherever the Bull goes, the Cartwheel comes. As if destined. But ha! Not so fast. The Bullock can free itself. It has enough strength to. It is not a week Bull. It has carried the cart for so long. If the Bull had not been strong, how is it possible? But the Bull is convinced that being attached to the Cart is its destiny. But that is the Dialectical dimension of the example. Bullock cart is name of slavery of the Bull. When he frees itself from the Cart, he remains not Bullock, but just Bull. It is no longer locked. 

Cart independent of the Bull has no existence. It feeds its meaning from the Bull itself. The essence of the Bullock cart is in the Bull. Without the Bull, the cart is nothing. As if Buddha gives a heads up to Marx who will give Labour theory of value, which will establish that in any material production of commodities, it is the labor which creates the value. Not the barren land, Not the non-living capital but the Labour. The effort. 

It is the destiny of the Bull to get freedom. It is in the destiny of the Bull to be able to lift nothing if it wishes, and lift whatever he wishes. And here we are talking about Mind. 

Finally, we come to the story associated with this Sermon. 

There was this old monk, Chakshu Paal. He was Blind. Here only, you should become interested. A man who is blind has a name, Chakshu paal or the Caretaker of the eyes. Is this just a meaningless Irony? 

Nope, only those who do not have eyes care for eyes. This is the normalized behavior of humankind. That's why a blind's name is Eye caretaker. 

When he used to move around in the Monastery, he used to unknowingly, kill insects through his feet. This catches the attention of other monks. They asked buddha, whose sin is this that unknowingly, Chaksu paal is killing insects. Insects? Or Chaksu paal's? 

Buddha gave a story of previous birth of Chaksu paal. In his past life, Chaksu Paal was a doctor. He was an eye surgeon. Now you see the essence of the name. It has past birth reference. So, did Buddha believe in Past lives? Of course not! This is even a bad question to ask. The good question to ask is, what Past life meant to Buddha. 

Past life meant some other incident of your life, when you were someone else, not the one you are right now. Past haunts us like it was a different life, isn't it? Mistakes committed in the past has the weird nature, you are forced to remember it, but you cannot do anything to change it. Isn't this the precise concept of hell? Hell is the concept of dwelling in past. 

So, the doctor was promised by a lady that she would become her slave if she cured her blindness. As the time came closer, and the lady's eyesight started to come back, she started lying to the doctor because she did not want to become a slave to him. The doctor knew that she was lying. So, he purposefully blinded her. 

Buddha says, that made him Blind in his current birth and that made him kill insects unknowingly. Now, let's see, what is happening? 

Now, who's sin? Sins have a multiplier effect it seems. Or as Buddha would have put it, Only the original sin exists, rest all are actions of lack of agency. For how a blind man can help seeing? But that blindness has roots in his earlier lives. Now beware, do not fall in the hermeneutic temptation of victim blaming. 

Let's go to the story within the story. Whose fault there's? Woman's? Doctor's? Or the system of slavery itself? Some loyalists to men would say, that it was woman's fault. Why she broke her promise? But may be the desperation of getting cured made her say that? Was this doctor's fault? Partially yes. because, he had agency. To blind the person for a broken promise is a sin. Partially yes to the society who allows slavery of one individual to other. But the impact remained the same. the mind of the doctor became corrupted because it overreacted to the woman's broken promise. A polluted mind can do this. He can do opposite to what he is supposed to. To not perform the duty of the doctor but rather he became a patient to his angst and frustration. 

People who feel lack of agency should know that this lack comes from them only. When you had agency, you chose to act in a way that made you lose your agency. Loss of agency can be called unfreedom or slavery. But who caused this slavery? You. Yourself. so, ultimately the message is, there is always agency. Not contextually but universally. may be you cannot help with blindness, but you can develop the mind's eye. Use agency where you still have it and make the lack irrelevant. Helen Keller is an example. 

We experience what we think we will experience. Then what about the first experience? I claim, with First experience only, we experience less. There exists an experience-lessness. The moment we touch a hot substance; a reflex makes us take our hand off. As if, nature does not want us to witness the truth fully. Now, fear creeps in and from next time, we self-restrict. We never experience anything fully without bias. From the second experience onwards, we started thinking in place of experiencing. We are going to take a bath. Instantly, mind imagines how is it like to have cold chilling water on your body. But then when you do it, Is the experience same as the imagination? NO! Never! However, many times you experience the same thing, imagination seems to be inefficient to be able to capture the experience. Certain surplus remains inaccessible. It will remain inaccessible till your thoughts keep polluting your experiences. Your mind is polluted due to natural reasons and polluted mind pollutes the experiences through polluted thoughts. 

Seems melancholic, isn't it? Next sutra has solutions. Stay with me for the next blog to find out!