Tr. Hilda Rosner
And Siddhartha said softly, as if speaking to himself: What is meditation? What is abandonment of the body? What is fasting? What is the holding of breath? It is a flight from the Self, it is a temporary escape from the torment of Self. It is a temporary palliative against the pain and folly of life. The driver of oxen makes this same flight, takes this temporary drug when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or cocoanut milk in the inn. He then no longer feels his Self, no longer feels the pain of life; he then experiences temporary escape. Falling asleep over his bowl of rice wine, he finds what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape from their bodies by long exercises and dwell in the non-Self.
He looked around him as if seeing the world for the first time. The world was beautiful, strange and mysterious. Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, sky and river, woods and mountains, all beautiful, all mysterious and enchanting, and in the midst of it, he, Siddhartha, the awakened one, on the way to himself. All this, all this yellow and blue, river and wood, passed for the first time across Siddhartha's eyes. It was no longer the magic of Mara, it was no more the veil of Maya, it was no longer meaningless and the chance diversities of the appearances of the world, despised by deep-thinking Brahmins, who scorned diversity, who sought unity. River was river, and if the One and Divine in Siddhartha secretly lived in blue and river, it was just the divine art and intention that there should be yellow and blue, there sky and wood--and here Siddhartha. Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them. How deaf and stupid I have been, he thought, walking on quickly. When anyone reads anything which he wishes to study, he does not despise the letters and punctuation marks, and call them illusion, chance and worthless shells, but he reads them, he studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, who wished to read the book of the world and the book of my own nature, did presume to despise the letters and signs. I called the world of appearances, illusion, I called my eyes and tongue, chance. Now it is over; I have awakened. I have indeed awakened and have only been born today.
And yet he envied them; the more he became like them, the more he envied them. He envied them the one thing that he lacked and that they had: the sense of importance with which they lived their lives, the depth of their pleasures and sorrows, the anxious but sweet happiness of their continual power to love. These people were always in love with themselves, with their children, with honor or money, with plans or hope. But these he did not learn from them, these child-like pleasures and follies; he only learned the unpleasant things from them which he despised.
The ferryman smiled again. He touched Siddhartha's arm gently and said: Ask the river about it, my friend! Listen to it, laugh about it! Do you then really think that you have committed your follies in order to spare your son them? Can you then protect your son from Samsara? How? Through instruction, through prayers, through exhortation? My dear friend, have you forgotten that instructive story about Siddhartha, the Brahmin's son, which you once told me here? Who protected Siddhartha the Samana from Samsara, from sin, greed and folly? Could his father's piety, his teacher's exhortations, his own knowledge, his own seeking, protect him? Which father, which teacher, could prevent him from living his own life, from soiling himself with life, from loading himself with sin, from swallowing the bitter drink himself, from finding his own path? Do you think, my dear friend, that anybody is spared this path? Perhaps your little son, because you would like to see him spared sorrow and pain and disillusionment? But if you were to die ten times for him, you would not alter his destiny in the slightest.
When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda. I have realized this repeatedly. And if time is not real, then the dividing line that seems to lie between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.
The story of the Buddha who the people flock to in order to learn wisdom and how to live the good life is almost a cliche. The story of the ancient philosopher who gathers those who are seeking around him and who teaches the good way permeates our culture. The guru on the top of the mountain has had ten million people climb up to him, all seeking enlightenment. We want to know so we can live the good life.
Although it is going out on a bit of a limb, I wonder if the reason most people seek after knowledge is to get at the good life. Many philosophers pursue understanding in order to discover this good life. I wonder if when it is sought at it's root, if the reason for all learning isn't to live the good life. People want to know so that they can live better.
How is it then, that our institutions of learning, Universities and colleges and schools, feel so different? Professors in schools are not interested in the good life. Or, if they are, the good life is apparently the academic life--which is to say, is not a life that everyone can live. When you look at our learned men and women you can't help feeling that there is quite a bit of difference between them and the guru's on the mountain's, the peaceful sage ferryman, and the great philosopher kings. Who among the professor's in our society is living the good life? An unfair question that asks you to judge and qualify things you couldn't really know, but all the same a question that gets at this root.
Most professors, the people who are learned, still submit to the institution of the academy which often times seems to be designed more by the flow of money than anything else. They teach classes and purvey their wisdom in the form of credits and class hours and assignments and letter grades and degrees. Is this learning? Is this wisdom? Credits and degrees may be good and wonderful, but it makes me feel like the learning we have is cropped and shallow.
What are we pursuing learning for in the United States? Is it to get rich? Is it to be healthy? To be happy? To be famous or powerful? To make a difference? Aren't all these things encompassed in the good life? Why else would you seek riches unless you thought they could make life good; why else try to be healthy or happy? Why would you want to be famous or powerful or make a difference? We pursue learning in order to find the path to the good life, but we won't admit it.
Where is the learned sage who gathers round those who are seeking and lives this good life, rather than isolating it in their writings and having nothing to do with it in their lifestyles? I realize that I am resorting to questions to argue a point, but I feel that our understanding of learning is far too narrow. I am restrained to questions because the varieties of academic experience I see available are so pinched. I do believe that wisdom and learning can be helpful to living a good life and I would like to see learning recognized in a broader sense.
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