DT-Dhammapada-chapter 2-Vigilance 08-31-2020
The theme of the second chapter of the Dhammapada is vigilance. Before discussing the verses, let’s listen to a translation by Eknath Easwaran as if we were hearing these teachings in the Buddha’s era:
Be vigilant and go beyond death.
If you lack vigilance, you cannot escape death.
Those who strive earnestly will go beyond death;
Those who do not can never come to life.
The wise understand this and rejoice in the wisdom of the noble ones.
Meditating earnestly and striving for nirvana,
they attain the highest joy and freedom.
If you meditate earnestly, pure in mind and kind in deeds, leading a disciplined life in harmony with the dharma, you will grow in glory.
If you meditate earnestly, through spiritual disciplines you can make an island for yourself that no flood can overwhelm.
The immature lose their vigilance, but the wise guard it as their greatest treasure.
Do not fall into the ways of sloth and lust.
Those who meditate earnestly attain the highest happiness.
Overcoming sloth through earnestness,
The wise climb beyond suffering to the peaks of wisdom.
They look upon the suffering multitudes
As one from a mountain looks on the plains below.
Earnest among those who are indolent,
Awake among those who slumber,
The wise advance like a racehorse,
Leaving others behind.
It was through earnest effort that Indra became lord of the gods.
The earnest are always respected, the indolent never.
The earnest spiritual aspirant, fearing sloth,
Advances like a fire, burning all fetters.
Such seekers will never fall back; they are nearing Nirvana.
In his commentaries about these verses, Gil Fronsdal calls those who are vigilant enough to go beyond death “the Deathless” because they have achieved enlightenment, transcending samsara or cycles of death and rebirth. In the Buddha’s era, most people in ancient India were familiar with Hindu mythology and with Indra, the powerful god of the thunderbolt. As a skillful teacher, the Buddha evoked this lord of the gods to inspire disciples to practice earnestly. “Noble ones” refer to meditators in one of four traditional stages of awakening: stream enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arahant. Unlike immature or foolish ones who lack awareness and discipline, these wise ones merit glory or recognition for vigilantly freeing themselves from fetters—attachments or forces of greed, ill will and delusion.
Arahants, who are fully awakened and liberated from all fetters, are not reborn. A non-returner is free from enough attachments to be reborn in a heavenly realm to complete the process of liberation. A once-returner retains enough attachments to be reborn in human form one last time before awakening. And a stream enterer needs no more than seven human lifetimes to be free of fetters. Whether or not we adopt this traditional Buddhist view of rebirth, we can recognize the high degree of vigilance required for liberation.
Tonight, my remarks draw from a dharma talk by Berget Jelane, who leads a sangha in San José, CA. She refers to vigilance as heedfulness and continuous mindfulness. It is an attitude or an intention to sustain wakefulness and to be present for our lives.
Such an intention requires wise effort—to practice diligently and ardently without hypervigilance, neither straining nor striving. Zen masters teach, “Be aware of the Great Matter of Birth and Death. Life passes swiftly. Wake up! Wake up! Do not waste this life.” Gil Fronsdal notes that the second chapter of the Dhammapada conveys the importance of energetic effort (viriya) in actively cultivating self-mastery. It takes purpose, self-control, and courage to be vigilant.
One of Rumi’s poems captures the energetic quality of vigilance:
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the threshold
Where the two worlds meet.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Many of us are attracted to the idea of being mindful without embracing a strong commitment to sustain awareness throughout the day. Although we may apply ourselves while sitting in meditation, as soon as the closing bell rings, we can become lost in distractions. There is a Sufi story about a man who carefully locks his front door before he leaves home in the morning. He resolves, “I’m going to be mindful all day.” Returning home eight hours later, he unlocks the door, and recalls, “Oh, that’s right! I was going to be mindful today.”
How can we practice seriously and yet not push ourselves in a tight, constricted way? Our challenge is to relax into attentiveness, noticing nonjudgmentally when the mind is wandering and enjoying moments of wakefulness. During meditation, we may take some pleasure in reveries about future plans. But the experience of waking up and noting, “planning, planning” brings deeper satisfaction. We have a glimmer of the Buddha’s delight in recognizing tempting distractions, “I see you, Mara!” Jack Kornfield says, “If your path doesn’t have joy, it’s not the right path.”
Recently, as I was washing dishes, I caught my mind planning what I would do once the last dish was clean. At that moment, I looked out the kitchen window at a carved stone statue of the Buddha that stands in our back garden. His equanimous image with palms together in Namaste pose reminded me to be mindful of my present task. I reconnected with the pleasant sensation of rinsing warm, soapy water off the hard surface of a hand-painted, blue and white Talavera china bowl, which I noticed with renewed appreciation. That instance of vigilance transformed a rushed routine into a ritual in which my senses awakened.
Berget reminds us that the dharma path is not for the faint-hearted; it is like swimming up-stream against the currents of habitual conditioning and social norms. Yet, at any moment when we are deadened by sleepwalking habitually through life, we can wake up. With sustained attention, we learn that desires are endless. Then we are no longer easily fooled by what cannot bring lasting happiness. As we become mature in our practice, we develop restraint to forgo short-term gratification to attain a higher goal of awakening.
Vigilance entails mindfulness of ethics. When we practice the five precepts—protecting life, taking only what is freely offered, using speech and sexual energy wisely, and cultivating a clear mind—we experience the bliss of blamelessness.
Watchful mindfulness helps us to stay peaceful in thoughts, words and deeds. With vigilance, we can protect ourselves from the passions of greed, hatred and delusion that disrupt inner peace.
Now that we have more understanding about the meaning of vigilance and other key words in the verses, let’s listen again to Easwaran’s translation of the second chapter of the Dhammapada:
Be vigilant and go beyond death.
If you lack vigilance, you cannot escape death.
Those who strive earnestly will go beyond death;
Those who do not can never come to life.
The wise understand this and rejoice in the wisdom of the noble ones.
Meditating earnestly and striving for nirvana,
they attain the highest joy and freedom.
If you meditate earnestly, pure in mind and kind in deeds, leading a disciplined life in harmony with the dharma, you will grow in glory.
If you meditate earnestly, through spiritual disciplines you can make an island for yourself that no flood can overwhelm.
The immature lose their vigilance, but the wise guard it as their greatest treasure.
Do not fall into the ways of sloth and lust.
Those who meditate earnestly attain the highest happiness.
Overcoming sloth through earnestness,
The wise climb beyond suffering to the peaks of wisdom.
They look upon the suffering multitudes
As one from a mountain looks on the plains below.
Earnest among those who are indolent,
Awake among those who slumber,
The wise advance like a racehorse,
Leaving others behind.
It was through earnest effort that Indra became lord of the gods.
The earnest are always respected, the indolent never.
The earnest spiritual aspirant, fearing sloth,
Advances like a fire, burning all fetters.
Such seekers will never fall back; they are nearing Nirvana.
Now we have time for questions or comments about the theme of vigilance.