Khuddaka Nikaya - Theragatha 15

Khuddaka Nikaya - Theragatha 15

Thag 15.1
Annakondanna Thera
Annakondanna
(excerpt)
Translated from the Pali by
Andrew OlendzkiPTS: v. 675



Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.



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...

Just as a rain-cloud would settle
The dust that's been raised by the wind,
So all conceptions come to rest
— When one sees clearly with wisdom.

...


Thag 15.2
Udayin Thera
The Blooming Lotus
(excerpt)

As the flower of a lotus,
Arisen in water, blossoms,
Pure-scented and pleasing the mind,
Yet is not drenched by the water,

In the same way, born in the world,
The Buddha abides in the world;
And like the lotus by water,
He does not get drenched by the world.



Translator's note
This poem by the Elder Udayin evokes one of the most famous of Buddhist images,
and is laced with meaning on many levels. In one sense — emerging from the
psychological ethos of early Buddhist teaching — it can be taken to describe the
ability of the awakened person to thrive in the world of sensory experience
without clinging or attachment. Though the human condition is rooted in the
desires that give rise to all life and selfhood, one can learn to live in this
world without being bound by the impulse to crave pleasure and avoid pain. One
gets "drenched by the world" when one succumbs to to the range of grasping
behaviors which inevitably bring about suffering — the mind clings to an object
like water that permeates something and drenches it. Here we see a Buddha that
does not transcend the world, but lives in it for forty-five years with a mind
free of all attachments.
As the tradition evolved, the question of just what sort of being the Buddha was
became of growing importance. The image of the lotus emerging from the mud and
blooming above the world became a popular way of expressing the Buddha's
transcendence. In the canonical passage upon which Udayin builds his verse
(Samyutta Nikaya 22:94) the phrase "having passed beyond the world" (lokam
abhibhuyya) is added, and this becomes the basis for the Vetulyaka assertion
that the Buddha was essentially a transcendent being. This interpretation had
profound implications for later Buddhism, and set the stage for, among other
ideas, the Three Bodies of the Buddha doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism. In this way
of looking at things, Awakening (represented by the lotus blossom) is something
that happens again and again in all different places and times, and is not
limited to a single occurrence of it among the Sakya's of ancient India.
The tantric Buddhists of the Vajrayana were drawn to the contrast in this image
between the ordinary, defiling mud in which the plant is rooted and the sublime
loveliness of the blossom. Relentless in their non-attachment to dichotomies and
their demolition of opposites, the tantric approach is to be capable of
embracing both extremes without clinging to either. Though the emphasis changes,
we can see that the essential teaching of non-attachment or non-clinging
(nopalippati) — to the objects of sense-perception, to a particular mode of
teaching, or to conventional dualities — remains carried through the ages by
this simple image of a lotus growing out of the water.