Dhammapada Studies

By Sylvia Swain

Introduction

For those who know little of Buddhism or who find it obscure, the Dhammapada^† is an ideal book to begin with. For those who know and love Buddhism it is likely already to be a constant companion and a reminder, just like having the gentle hand of Gautama on the reins of the unruly heart.

It consists of a collection of verses taken from a section of the Buddhist Pali Canon known as the Khuddaka, the shorter discourses. It is considered to embody the essence of the teachings. Juan Mascaro, the translator of the Bhagavad Gītā and the Upaniṣads as well as the Dhammapada, said of it “This gospel of light and of love is amongst the greatest spiritual works of man. Each verse is like a small star, and the whole has the radiance of eternity”. The verses represent a condensed description of the Way of the Buddha, the Way of the Brahma-Farer, the Way of the human mind as it grows and flowers into enlightenment. In it we will find all those themes which inspired the work of Phiroz, and so I feel that it makes an excellent basis for our study and discussions.

The main theme of Buddhism is that of awakening from the darkness of the sleep of ignorance, and in this collection of wise advices we will be given all the same admonishments, instruction and inspiration which guided those of the ancient world who followed in the Buddha’s footsteps, to become in their lives the wise and holy ones who carried on that great tradition which has survived to this day. Empires have come and gone, and societies arisen and been overthrown or outmoded, but the human heart-mind (only in the West have we created a division between heart and mind) has not changed — human folly is as it ever was, and holiness remains constant.

When we penetrate the deep psyche and the profound religious teachings we could be in any era. Thus the opening thesis of this book — the mind and the thoughts of the mind — needs to make no concessions to modern man, nor he to it.

Chapter 1

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind.

Dhammapada verse 1

This first line is appropriately the bottom line of all Buddhist teaching as it sets out its fundamental premise of mindfulness. In Buddhism, mind is chief; we live through and in mind by virtue of our human condition long before we learn to contemplate its nature, its structure and what we need to be doing in relation to it. Before we come to the study of religion, we tend to take the mind for granted, using it in an un-critical way; believing this, rejecting that, without being able to take into account our own unconscious mental conditioning, of which of course we are unaware. In verse 2 we are told:

If a man speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows him as the wheel of the cart follows the beast that draws the cart. If a man speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows him as his own shadow.

Already from these few extracted lines we learn that, if and when the mind is left in an unexamined state, it becomes conditioned, open to penetration by impurities such as anger, craving and delusion, and it is these, not the virtues, that will come to determine the fate of the individual and of the world. Without consideration there is no action in this life, but only reaction to the power of the temptations that bind us to “the wheel of the cart”. The mind can be likened to a garden which untended will surely become a wilderness trapping its owner in its thickets. In order to create a garden of beauty and benefit to all, it is necessary first to examine the wilderness, to understand the nature of the plants, and then to decide after due consideration which to cultivate and which to uproot.

If we see our thoughts as plants in our garden, what kinds of thoughts does the unaware person think? In verses 3 and 4 the example is given: “He insulted me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me”. All who think such thoughts will not be free from hate. Without awareness these thoughts, having entered the mind, remain, are harboured, making that person the victim of his own thoughts, adding to the weight he has to carry.

“Those who harbour no such thoughts are free from hatred.” When the same thoughts are occasioned in the mind of one who is aware, he allows them to arise and pass away. Not taking root, they leave no traces, and the mind remains pure and free. The process is not easy, the power of our victim emotions is very strong and quite compulsive, but to give in to them after awareness has arisen is a further injury, this time a self-inflicted mental injury. Knowing all about such difficulties, the Buddha explains in the next two verses 4 and 6: “Hatreds never cease by hatred in this world; by love alone they cease. This is an ancient law.” Law here can be taken to mean a law of nature, a psychological fact, not a rule invented by the Buddha but one discovered by him in his “ancient city”. ”The others (unaware, who are overcome by their emotions) know not that in this quarrel we perish; those of them who realize it have their quarrels calmed thereby.”

It is true that what does not become rooted in the mind as obsession does no lasting harm; the mind regains its purity. The nature of mind is, also according to Buddhism, like a clean clear mirror reflecting the events of life and letting them pass on. Clinging to the impure thoughts is tantamount to smearing the mirror and distorting the images, and thus affecting our whole outlook on life. This clear mirror mind is very hard to achieve. In Holistic Consciousness Phiroz Mehta writes:

In about a score of years after birth, nature completes her task of maturing the body. The maturing of the psyche, on the other hand, is each person’s own responsibility, assisted during childhood and adolescence by parents and educators.

The most necessary foundation needed for the mind’s maturity in formal education systems, and also in the religions too, is to teach the importance of the mind in itself, and its functioning in the organization of the mind as a whole as the organ of consciousness.

Until the last century, with the coming of depth psychology and the defining of conscious/unconscious dichotomy, only the religions gave instruction about what one might call “the hygiene of the mind”, otherwise it was taken for granted that the small self with its will and its desires was the possessor and master of a person’s fate, and also that maturity of the body implied maturity of the mind. This was believed to justify the toughest punishments. It is still embodied in our laws that on the eve of the 18th birthday we are children, and on the morning of the 18th birthday we have to take on responsibility for our actions. Furthermore it is assumed that academic capability confers responsibility on those who achieve high enough standards. We are shocked when people of standing in the community are caught out in forms of behaviour that prove that the mind behind the authoritarian facade was lewd, impure and irresponsible. Recently what are seen to be the “causes of crime” are being taken into account.

No one can or should be responsible for others who has not developed responsibility for themselves. This statement seems so obvious and yet, to find effective forms of mind training, we still have not improved on the ancient wisdom of the holy ones. The generality still recognize the law of stick and carrot, but this law can only achieve conditioned responses since it comes only from the outside. This is the tragedy of the extroverted society.

Although the modern body matures in 20 years, it took millions of years for that modern brain and body to evolve. No one can calculate the cost in animal and human suffering of this wonderful body and brain which we now take for granted. We now have the best conditions for health and length of life that humanity has ever enjoyed, but further work is still needed for the completion of, in the words of Phiroz Mehta, “fully-fledged human-ness” (ibid. p. 65).

Sadly our thoughts and ambitions as a society for the most part are still directed away even from the idea of that completion, that development of the mind. Instead we are looking ever further from that greatest of goals, the healing of consciousness. Some of us are even looking to outer space for solutions to our self-made problems.

Too many have yet to realise that wherever mankind goes he takes his mind with him, his evil as well as his good. Verses 116 and 117 advise:

Let a man strive to do good and cease to do evil. If a man is slow to do good he easily comes to do evil.

As in everything, good and evil enter the world through the human heart. Verses 121 and 122:

Let no man think lightly of evil, “It will not touch me”. Drop by drop is the pitcher filled, and little by little the fool becomes filled with evil. Let no man think lightly of good, “It cannot be for me.” Drop by drop is the pitcher filled, and little by little the wise man is filled with merit.

Good and evil are relative to man, unlike the animals he has choice, but a generalized lip service to do good is not enough. Good must be actively chosen as a way of life, and that is the value of this book.

† There are many versions of the Dhammapada — there is an attractive one available from the Buddhist Society.

Continued in part 2 and part 3

Comments