Do you have a link to the full text? I'd like to find it sometime. :)
Yeah, I have the impression that one who really gets Buddhism is pretty light-hearted at times, not the dour kind of Buddhist. A colleague I spoke to online told me her tale of going to one Zen center where everything was tense and serious, and not friendly to people who made mistakes. She felt that if she farted, she'd make everyone mad.
I'm sure people farted quite a bit in the old Ariyan Sangha, so I can't see why they can't relax now.
Oh well. Speaking of flatulents, I wrote on the subject a while back, relating to a certain Chinese Chan story:
Great article, Jayarava. It doesn't surprise me that the Buddha used humour occasionally, and why not? If used properly, it's a great way of teaching; a little levity is often a useful strategy to employ in an otherwise difficult or awkward situation (as you and I both know).
However, I'm sure the Buddha didn't really "poke fun at" people but "offered a teaching" by using (very subtle) humour (amongst other things).
Level8's link is great, I love those stories, pithy and to the point. Those Chinese really nailed it (IMHO).
To quote from that article (and go even further off-topic), "In Soto Zen they also teach that in meditation, one does not really “get” anything out of it. You are still the same person you were before and after. But in the act of sincere meditation for the sake of meditation, you are being yourself in the sense of “I am me, that’s all.”". That really sums up my meditation practice (and is a point that Shunryu Suzuki emphasised over and over again). Nice to see it so succinctly explained.
Finally, your link, Jayarava, to What the Buddha thought is broken: it has an extraneous bit of URL at the start. The book looks interesting, I'll keep an eye out for that next year.
I think he did poke fun at people, but that could be a personal interpretation - he savagely satirises Brahmins at times.
I've fixed that link - not sure what happened there. The books not published for a while, but I think it will be a cracker. I was at the lectures it is based on and I found it revelatory!
I'm not a great fan of Soto Zen in that guise. I like to think that I can, and will, and do change on the basis of my practice. This seems to have been the Buddha's message anyway. But each to their own, eh.
Might be interesting to have a reading group for the Gombrich book - though it would have to be in Cambridge ;-)
Mmmm, the Soto Zen attitude to meditation (zazen) is quite a tricky one and I think, a lot deeper than the quote actually implies. Clearly, if there was no point meditating, nobody would meditate! My take on it is that it takes right effort to sit on the cushion and devote 5 minutes, 35 minutes or whatever to meditation, but without seeking anything as a result (the results will come naturally). Case in point, I was talking to someone at the Letchworth group last week who is quite new to meditation and he said that he often gets frustrated when he meditates and doesn't feel any benefit (he gets distracted, his mind wanders etc). I told him that just by making the effort, there will be a positive result and not to worry about distractions and stuff, that's part of it. Just notice the distractions and let go of them. Anyway, what do I know (substantially less than you, I'll wager) and apologies for taking these comments so far OT!
If you're serious about a reading group for the book, I reckon I'll be up for that, even if it is Cambridge.
I would also remind someone that the state of their mind when they stop doing stuff reflects their state of mind generally. If what you notice is distraction and difficulty concentrating then that is useful information I would have thought. I think ones meditation reflects one's lifestyle quite accurately... hence ethics meditation wisdom in that order.
I also recall Sangharakshita's comment: you don't meditate to have good meditations; you meditate to transform yourself.
OT or OTT or TOT I'm happy to hear from you. We'll have to see about the reading group - the book is a year away.
108 shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be 108. 109 shalt thou not count, nor either count thou 107, excepting that thou then proceed to 108.
"the state of their mind when they stop doing stuff reflects their state of mind generally". This is really good advice. If the subject arises again (and I'm sure it will) I'll be sure to pass the on too.
J.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
[Image]Sometimes Buddhism and Buddhists can seem a bit dour - a half smile is permissible, but a belly laugh might be out of place - which can be problematic for me! And yet there are some definite examples of the Buddha displaying his quick wit and sense of humour in the Pāli texts. One of my favourites - partly because I discovered it for myself, and partly because it really is witty - occurs in the Sutta Nipātta.
In the Pūraḷāsa Sutta the Brahmin Sundarika-Bhāradvāja is wandering about with the leftovers from his ritual sacrifice to the gods looking for someone to give them to. He is concerned to give the offering to a Brahmin and thereby make the maximum amount of merit from his generosity. If this sounds a bit venial recall that this is exactly what modern lay Buddhists do except their offerings are to bhikkhus not Brahmins.
Sundarika-Bhāradvāja meets the Buddha, who as an ascetic is a likely recipient of the offering, however he is cautious and enquires what caste the Buddha is, or more specifically: "is he a brahmin?" The Buddha answers that caste is irrelevant to a renunciant, but Sundarika-Bhāradvāja insists that it isn’t, and that Brahmins always enquire about caste. The Buddha is not playing that game however, and he says: Brāhmaṇo hi ce tvaṃ brūsi, mañca brūsi abrāhmaṇaṃ; Taṃ taṃ sāvittiṃ pucchāmi, tipadaṃ catuvīsatakkharaṃ. If you call yourself a Brahmin, and say that I am not a Brahmin; I ask about that Sāvitrī (mantra, of) three lines and twenty-four syllables? (1) I use the Anglicized 'Brahmin' for brāhamaṃa because there are also texts called brāhmaṇa and because it is more familiar. The Sāvitrī (Pāli Sāvitti) mantra is also called Gāyatrī because it is in the gāyatrī metre which has three lines and twenty-four syllables. It comes from the Ṛgveda, and in Sanskrit goes: Tat savitur vareṭyam bhargo devasya dhīmahi dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt (2) Which Saddhatissa translates as: May we attain that excellent glory of Sāvitrī the god, that he may stimulate our thoughts. (3) The Sāvitrī mantra is pronounced at dawn and dusk in daily Brahminical rituals - and this is as true today as it was in the Buddha's day when it was a centuries old practice!
Fausböll comments in the introduction to his translation that “The commentator understands by Sâvatti the Buddhistic [going for refuge] formula, which like the Sâvitti, contains twenty-four syllables”. (4) This seems an unlikely interpretation. For a start the refuge formula is definitely prose and not verse, (5) but the Buddha is talking here to someone who has not gone for refuge to the Three Jewels. The Buddhist refuge formula may have had little or no meaning to him. He was a Brahmin, practising Brahminical rituals, and the reference to the Sāvatrī mantra would be completely in context, whereas the going for refuge formula would not. By mentioning the number of lines and syllables the Buddha may well be emphasising that though he is not a hereditary Brahmin he knows a lot about the practices of the Brahmins.
Actually it seems as though the Buddha is gently ribbing the Brahmin by saying that if he thinks that he is superior because he was born a Brahmin then his thoughts need ‘stimulating’ (pracud). "Brahmin” was one of the words that the Buddha tried, but ultimately failed, to adopt and reform. He equated the terms 'Brahmin' and 'Arahant', and told people that one became a Brahmin through striving for Awakening, not through birth.(6)
Now this joke was probably quite quickly lost on later Buddhists as they seem to disconnect from the culture around them, and to be unaware of Brahminical practice - you have to know what the Sāvitrī mantra says for it to be funny. But the Buddha himself is well versed in Brahminical ideas and he uses this knowledge to poke fun at and parody not only Brahmins, but Jains, and other sects. Interesting that these things were preserved even though the sense of them was lost. There will be a chapter on this in Richard Gombrich's forthcoming book What the Buddha Thought (Equinox Publications, due Spring 2009).
So the answer is yes, the Buddha did have a sense of humour! He was a great satirist!
Notes: Saddhatissa translates: “if you can say that you are a Brahmin and that I am not / then I must remind you of Sāvitrī’s mantra of three lines and twenty-four letters”. Saddhatissa, H. 1985. The Sutta-Nipātta. Surrey : Curzon Press, p.51 (Sn 457; 459 in the VRI version). However the verb is pucchāmi "I ask", and akkhara are syllables rather than letters. Sanskrit text from Padoux, A. 2003. Mantra. in Flood, G. (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Malden, M.A. : Blackwell Publishing. p.481 Saddhatissa ibid. p.55, note 2 (my emphasis) Fausböll, V. 1881 The Sutta-nipâtta : a collection of discourses, being one of the canonical books of the Buddhists. Delhi, Motilal Barnadidass, 1968. (Sacred Books of the East Vol. 10). p.xiii, note 2. Richard Gombrich, personal communication. see Sutta Nipātta 650, and the Tevijjā Sutta (DN 13) for instance image: Maitreya/Laughing Buddha
8 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formHi Jayavara,
Do you have a link to the full text? I'd like to find it sometime. :)
Yeah, I have the impression that one who really gets Buddhism is pretty light-hearted at times, not the dour kind of Buddhist. A colleague I spoke to online told me her tale of going to one Zen center where everything was tense and serious, and not friendly to people who made mistakes. She felt that if she farted, she'd make everyone mad.
I'm sure people farted quite a bit in the old Ariyan Sangha, so I can't see why they can't relax now.
Oh well. Speaking of flatulents, I wrote on the subject a while back, relating to a certain Chinese Chan story:
http://level8.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/fart-fart/
Enjoy!
Friday, November 21, 2008
I don't see an online full text. However Bhikkhu Bodhi has given a lecture on it here: http://www.bodhimonastery.net/courses/Sn/Sn_course.html
Cheers
Jayarava
Friday, November 21, 2008
Great article, Jayarava. It doesn't surprise me that the Buddha used humour occasionally, and why not? If used properly, it's a great way of teaching; a little levity is often a useful strategy to employ in an otherwise difficult or awkward situation (as you and I both know).
However, I'm sure the Buddha didn't really "poke fun at" people but "offered a teaching" by using (very subtle) humour (amongst other things).
Level8's link is great, I love those stories, pithy and to the point. Those Chinese really nailed it (IMHO).
To quote from that article (and go even further off-topic), "In Soto Zen they also teach that in meditation, one does not really “get” anything out of it. You are still the same person you were before and after. But in the act of sincere meditation for the sake of meditation, you are being yourself in the sense of “I am me, that’s all.”". That really sums up my meditation practice (and is a point that Shunryu Suzuki emphasised over and over again). Nice to see it so succinctly explained.
Finally, your link, Jayarava, to What the Buddha thought is broken: it has an extraneous bit of URL at the start. The book looks interesting, I'll keep an eye out for that next year.
Enough waffle, back to work!
Jason.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Hi Jason,
I think he did poke fun at people, but that could be a personal interpretation - he savagely satirises Brahmins at times.
I've fixed that link - not sure what happened there. The books not published for a while, but I think it will be a cracker. I was at the lectures it is based on and I found it revelatory!
I'm not a great fan of Soto Zen in that guise. I like to think that I can, and will, and do change on the basis of my practice. This seems to have been the Buddha's message anyway. But each to their own, eh.
Might be interesting to have a reading group for the Gombrich book - though it would have to be in Cambridge ;-)
Love
Jayarava
Monday, November 24, 2008
Mmmm, the Soto Zen attitude to meditation (zazen) is quite a tricky one and I think, a lot deeper than the quote actually implies. Clearly, if there was no point meditating, nobody would meditate! My take on it is that it takes right effort to sit on the cushion and devote 5 minutes, 35 minutes or whatever to meditation, but without seeking anything as a result (the results will come naturally). Case in point, I was talking to someone at the Letchworth group last week who is quite new to meditation and he said that he often gets frustrated when he meditates and doesn't feel any benefit (he gets distracted, his mind wanders etc). I told him that just by making the effort, there will be a positive result and not to worry about distractions and stuff, that's part of it. Just notice the distractions and let go of them. Anyway, what do I know (substantially less than you, I'll wager) and apologies for taking these comments so far OT!
If you're serious about a reading group for the book, I reckon I'll be up for that, even if it is Cambridge.
Take care,
Jason.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Hi Jason,
I would also remind someone that the state of their mind when they stop doing stuff reflects their state of mind generally. If what you notice is distraction and difficulty concentrating then that is useful information I would have thought. I think ones meditation reflects one's lifestyle quite accurately... hence ethics meditation wisdom in that order.
I also recall Sangharakshita's comment: you don't meditate to have good meditations; you meditate to transform yourself.
OT or OTT or TOT I'm happy to hear from you. We'll have to see about the reading group - the book is a year away.
Love
Jayarava
Monday, November 24, 2008
Just noticed that this is post no. 108. For what it's worth...
Monday, November 24, 2008
108 shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be 108. 109 shalt thou not count, nor either count thou 107, excepting that thou then proceed to 108.
"the state of their mind when they stop doing stuff reflects their state of mind generally". This is really good advice. If the subject arises again (and I'm sure it will) I'll be sure to pass the on too.
J.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008