Too Big For Any Sticks or Stones to Hurt Us
Sticks and stones may break my bones but
words can never hurt me!
What child growing up in America
But what does it mean, anyway, to
be big enough that no such words can ever
harm us? Perhaps it means we’re big enough to know that, when considered along
with our multitude of other qualities, the so-called bad quality of wearing
thick glasses or having freckles all over our face is but a trifle. Or perhaps
it means we’re bigger still and have come to realize that wearing thick glasses
or having a freckly face is merely what is – neither good nor bad – despite
what anyone else might say. Perhaps it means we’ve got so many real friends
that being accosted by one who is not amounts to only so much noise out on the
playground. Or perhaps we’re even bigger than that and have arrived at the
conclusion that nobody would purposely try to hurt another unless they were
already feeling a lot of hurt of their own.
 |
| The Buddha being pursued by Angulimala |
But what about those sticks and
stones? They really do break our
bones; and in this day and age, with people hurting all over the world, there doesn’t
seem to be any shortage of people who are willing to make others hurt as well. Can
we ever be big enough that not even the sticks and stones of the most violent
aggressor can hurt us? The Buddha apparently thought so. Not surprisingly, however,
the bigness that the Buddha advocated was not that of a football linebacker or
a mixed martial arts practitioner; it was the bigness of seeing the self in an
entirely different way. For instance, in the Kakacupama Sutta: The Simile of the Saw, the Buddha states:
Monks, even if bandits were
to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you
who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even
then you should train yourselves: ‘Our minds will be unaffected and we will say
no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with
no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued
with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the all-encompassing
world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive,
immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.’ That's how you should
train yourselves. (Majjhima Nikaya 21)
Wow, that’s pretty big! Is it even
possible for us to live up to such a standard? Could the Buddha himself have lived
up to it, for that matter? I do tend
to be a pretty critical reader, after all. Actually, I’m very much inclined to
believe that he could have lived up to it – and that we all can, for that
matter – even as I sympathize with those readers who might wonder whether the
saintly or superhuman state of mind described above could ever truly be
realized given the deeply ingrained nature of our instinct for self-preservation.
Perhaps this must remain a matter of faith for us – until such time as we might
verify it for ourselves, that is – for the Buddha actually lived a fairly long
life ++, skillfully avoiding threats of violence along the way.
The painting above, for instance,
depicts the Buddha using “psychic powers” to remain just out of reach of the murderous
bandit, Angulimala, shown here wearing his infamous necklace strung with the severed
fingers of his many victims. So depraved was Angulimala that he was purportedly
contemplating the murder of his own mother when the Buddha fortuitously happened
along and presented himself as a potential victim in her stead. By the way,
Angulimala’s mother is the one who can be seen escaping into the forest as her
son pursues the Buddha. The story ends with Angulimala renouncing his murderous
ways after becoming transformed by the depth of the Buddha’s teaching. This is
a powerful story of redemption, to say the least. Nonetheless, the Buddha’s
reliance on those mysterious “psychic powers” in order to remain just out of harm’s
way strikes me as a rather odd element in this story. After all, if we all just
cultivated a few “psychic powers” of our own we might never find ourselves in
the unenviable position of being savagely carved up, limb by limb! But that
doesn’t quite strike me as what the Buddha’s teaching is all about.
There is another story, however,
this one contained in the Jatakas, “birth stories” – tales of the previous
lives of the Buddha, his followers, and his foes – that tells of the future
Buddha feeling such great compassion for a starving tigress and her cubs that
he allows himself to be eaten so that the mother and her offspring might
survive (Schuhmacher & Woerner, 1994, p. 160). Ah, but isn’t it convenient,
the critical reader might be thinking, that a story would be contrived related to
some incredibly magnanimous deed performed in a previous lifetime! Tell me a story where it actually happened, you might be thinking. Tell me a
story in which such compassion and loving-kindness was actually put into
practice during the most extreme of circumstances and witnessed by those who
lived to speak of it. I hear you. I told you I was a critical reader, didn’t I?
Well, the Buddha’s life is the
Buddha’s life. Thankfully it was such that he was able to live and teach for
many years. Please allow me, then, to borrow an example from an altogether
different wisdom tradition. Perhaps you remember a great teacher saying: “Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Of course, these are the words that
Jesus is reported to have said on behalf of those who were in the process of torturing
and murdering him. Clearly, the mind that Jesus revealed as he uttered these
words is the same mind that the Buddha urged his disciples to have in such
circumstances.
Now, the unrepentant skeptics
reading this might not let me off so easily – or the Buddha or Jesus, for that
matter. Sure, you might be thinking, if you were to somehow convince yourself
that heaven awaits after your crucifixion, if you were to somehow make yourself
believe that you’d be reborn into a better life after being hacked to death or
eaten by tigers as long as you proved yourself worthy by maintaining compassionate
equanimity throughout the ordeal, then, yes, perhaps you could do it. But there
is no heaven at the end of this road, you might have already decided; there is
no next life after this one is over. This is it. It is to
you, dear unrepentant skeptic, that I address the remainder of this post:
So, this is it. Or at least this is
as much as we can count on now that we’ve let our wishful thinking fall away. We’ve
reconciled ourselves to greeting the end as we might yield to deep and
dreamless sleep – sleep from which we’ll not awaken. But deep and dreamless
sleep is not so very bad. Sure enough, none of those enticing ideas of heavenly
realms or souls reborn has any place in dreamless sleep, but neither do the nightmares
or torment or anguish that visit from time to time. And so we vow to live each
day to the fullest – working our way through our very own “bucket list” of things
to do and places to see – accumulating memories as we might accumulate fine
collectibles to be kept on a shelf in our memory somewhere. And when the end is
near we’ll dust them off and admire them one by one – smiling with self-satisfaction
as we peacefully drift off to sleep.
What? Does such a life sound rather
shallow? Does it seem but a small and meaningless concern when approached in such
an acquisitive way? As if we’re living out our days like some piece of high-tech
video recording equipment, making a movie that no one else will ever watch –
one that will be erased the very moment that it’s a wrap. Besides, filming
might not go according to script. Perhaps instead of gorgeous cinematography capturing
excitement and adventure amidst fantastically beautiful settings our movie will
end up being a documentary of sickness and struggle, loneliness and despair,
set against a backdrop of utter meaningless and hopelessness. Yes, a life so
small is fraught with danger.
And so we strive for a life that’s
bigger – deeper and more meaningful. We fall in love and we raise families; we
cultivate friendships and community. Our self is mirrored back at us in larger
and larger circles and that which is considered other becomes diminished – if only
marginally. In doing so our sense of self expands; and in so doing we hope deep
down that our actions will long outlive us, rippling outward after we’re gone –
amongst family and friends, and throughout the communities and institutions that
we’ve helped nurture throughout our lives.
Ah, but still we know full well
that the simple passage of time will temper both the happiness and sadness that
recollections of us might evoke, until such time as we are just a name recalled
one last time without emotion, and then no more. No, nothing that we can ever
claim as ours will stand the test of time. Nothing that we hold onto can remain
within our grasp for long. No matter how hard we might try to keep something safe
and sound and protected it will nonetheless grow old, grow sick, and die. This
is the truth of our existence that is more horrifying than any sticks or stones
that might be used to break our bones, more horrifying than being hacked apart
by bandits, even. For this truth is not that of some remote possibility that we
might be fortunate enough to avoid. It is the truth of every moment of every
day for everyone. Yes, it appears we must be bigger still. But how?
One way, of course, is to keep
expanding the circles of that which we might call the self – to keep pushing
further and further over the horizon that which is considered other. Does it
really make sense that we care so much for that which we have arbitrarily
identified as “self” and not at all for that which we consider “other”, even
though that “other” might live right next door? Certainly we can bear witness to
“our own” sense of unease that there is poverty in the neighborhood down the
road no matter how secure “our own” gated community might seem. Certainly we
can see that it does little to protect “our own” children if the children of “others”
grow up hungry, uncared for, uneducated, and more likely to resort to criminal
behavior to survive. Certainly we can see that as well amongst the nations of
the world. We simply can’t live in isolation, secure in our selfhood, as others
remain mired in poverty, war, and internal strife (or under our thumb, for that
matter). Certainly we can see it as well with respect to the environment. No
longer does it make sense for us to think that we can keep our own little
corner of the world pristine and healthful even as we turn the rest of the
world into our trash dump – and a warming trash dump at that.
It looks like I’ll need to continue
this exploration in a subsequent post. I think we’ve made enough progress,
however, to view with greater clarity the various wisdom stories retold above.
Any hatred or ill-well that we might feel toward our aggressor arises in
proportion to the strength of our view of self and other. The insane
strangeness that we attribute to one who might willingly give his own body to
feed some hungry tigers occurs because of our inability to fathom another way
to think about self and other. The ability of Jesus to forgive those who were
killing him relates to his ability to recognize the deluded thinking of his
aggressors – their inability to see beyond their hard and fast views of self
and other.
Thanks for reading! Have a great
Memorial Day weekend. I’ll continue with this topic next week.
+ I put quotes
around ‘inevitable’ because we adults seem to be making at least some progress with
respect to dealing effectively with bullying in the schools. Perhaps as we
learn to better model appropriate behavior such taunts and teasing will become
a thing of childhoods past.
++ The Buddha is
thought to have lived into his eighties before succumbing to what is generally
thought to have been some type of food poisoning. Mettanando (2000)
hypothesizes that the actual cause of death may have been mesenteric infarction.
References
Majjhima
Nikaya 21. Kakacupama sutta: The simile of the saw (Thanissaro Bhikkhu Tr.).
Access to Insight, 30 June 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.021x.than.html
Majjhima
Nikaya 86. Angulimala sutta: About Angulimala (Thanissaro Bhikkhu Tr.). Access
to Insight, 14 June 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.086.than.html
Mettanando
(2000). Did Buddha die of mesenteric infarction? http://www.lankalibrary.com/Bud/buddha_death.htm
Schuhmacher,
S., Woerner, G. (1994). The encyclopedia of Eastern philosophy and religion.
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Image Credits
Photograph
of a temple painting of Angulimala chasing after the calm Buddha by Tevaprapas
Makklay via:
Photograph
of a Thai monk with tigers by MichaelJanich via:
Copyright 2012 by Maku Mark Frank
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