Well, everything up until here is now at the printers and for a few days I have felt like there is just nothing left to say. Much like sometimes with my library of books. Some days I look through the titles, the subjects, and would love to read them and absorb them, all at once. Then, another time, looking through, just a feeling of utter boredom - nothing there of interest.
 |
| Just can't find anything to read |
But now an interest stirs. I seem to remember back in this blog writing of my days of holy books being in the past. Even as I waffled I was dipping into the Suttanipata, one of the most very ancient Buddhist texts of the Theravada Tradition and long a favorite of mine. So, reflecting, I was seeing "holy books" as being those that some would claim are the product of a transcendent Being - essentially I was rejecting any such claim, however understood. (I have to admit that the various ways such a claim is "understood" becomes highly sophisticated at times) Well, enough of that. The Suttanipata I will leave aside at the moment - just to say that therein, when the Blessed One is asked to explain his very own "sowing and reaping" he begins with the words:- "Faith is the seed", which, at least for me, says it all. All that is then needed is to have a healthy respect for the difference between "belief" and "faith".
 |
| Faith is the seed |
But leaving aside the Suttanipata, I will move on to another favorite, the Bodhicharyavatara, otherwise known as the "Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life". It's subject is Bodhichitta, which is simply selfless love; of how to know it, how to be it - so as to join those, whose very nature is compassion (as the Bodhicharyavatara says). Which is quite a calling, quite a task. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.
 |
| Perhaps the basic message |
The text was written around the 8th Century CE by an Indian scholar/monk known as Shantideva. Various legends surround the origins of its words, one such that Shantideva began to float at one point, this when he began to expound upon emptiness and suchlike. All good stuff for those who like that sort of thing.
 |
| Shantideva begins to expound on the subtleties of emptiness |
Coming back down to earth, the Bodhicharyavatara is in fact a favorite text of the Dalai Lama, and within that text his favorite verse comes very near the end:-
And now so long as space endures,
As long as there are beings to be found,
May I continue likewise to remain
To drive away the sorrows of the world.
A noble aspiration, and quite a daunting one. ("As long as space endures" can take on various hues within a non-linear perspective, but I would drift and wander from my current theme.)
Well, onto my own favorite bits and pieces. This will not be a commentary as such, more a few thoughts on one or two words and verses from the text as they have caught my eye while reading.
The text begins by paying homage to all bodhisattvas. Well, I think we can all be bodhisattvas at times. In only looking for prime examples, the Albert Schweitzers and the Mother Teresa's, in pouring over the various stories of long gone saints, we can miss those closer to hand. I remember when my mother died. She had left the street where she had lived for 30 years or more a few years before her death. At the funeral no one from that street attended. All that appeared was a small, inexpensive bunch of flowers from a housebound lady who had lived down the street a bit. That little bunch of flowers meant the world to me. It often comes to mind and creates a butterfly effect.
 |
| They could have been daisies. It would not have mattered. |
So, all bodhisattvas. Did Shantideva have any such thing in mind when composing the text? Does it matter? While reading the introduction to my copy of the Bodhicharyavatara I came across the words attributed to the translators of the King James Bible:-
Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we eat of the kernal; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most Holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water.
I was quite taken by these words. There is the word and the Living Word.
 |
| The Living Word |
So, just thinking upon this I shall continue with what I find in the words of the text.
Shantideva next claims that he will say nothing that has not been said before, that he has no skill in "prosody" (floating or not), but speaks "only to habituate my own mind". If others profit from his words, so be it. So as I see it Shantideva and myself are much on the same wavelength.
No comments:
Post a Comment