On the Way

I’m taking another journey through the Buddha’s lessons on the path of the Dharma (one way you could translate the title Dhammapada). A few years ago, I wrote posts on a handful of chapters, but I didn’t go over every chapter. This time, I’m challenging myself to post on every chapter and share them here.

This chapter provides a long list of comparisons to make clear what our valued pursuits should be, in contrast to those of the time (and to our time as well). Here’s the list I compiled — simplified bullets even strengthen the message (plus, I did the math to make the numbers clearer):

• 1 meaningful word > 1000 meaningless statements
• 1 meaningful verse > 1000 meaningless verses
• 1 line of Dharma > 100 meaningless verses
• Self-conqueror > conqueror of 1,000,000 people
• 1 moment of homage to a self-cultivated person > 1,200,000 rituals
• 1 moment of homage to a self-cultivated person > 100 years tending ritual fire
• Expressing respect to the upright > 4 times any sacrifice
• 1 day of meditation > 100 years of unsettled mind
• 1 day of meditation > 100 years of insightless life
• 1 day of exertion > 100 years without effort
• 1 day of insight into temporality > 100 years without insight
• 1 day seeing Nirvana > 100 years without seeing Nirvana
• 1 day seeing ultimate Dharma > 100 years without seeing ultimate Dharma

What are we to make out of this list? What does it teach us other than the Dharma is great and the value of meditation, exertion, insight, and wisdom and that one should cultivate oneself and honor those who have already done so? We’ve heard all of this so far.

I take three things from this list of “thousands”:

1. How powerful these values are, and how much they truly empower through cultivation
   • Ask yourself: if 1 word is so valuable, how much more so then cultivating as many as possible?
2. These passages are radically subversive
   • The lines about 1 moment being greater than 1,200,000 rituals and 100 years of tending a ritual fire
     • If one correct moment is worth more than all the effort in these far greater numbers, they are virtually worthless
     • Same goes for greater value of respect over sacrifice: respecting the Buddha is 4 times more valuable than any Hindu sacrifice
   • These are extreme attacks against the existing spiritual order of his day
3. These lines are inspirational
   • When practice has seemed impossible to do well for me, these lines have shown that even 1 moment of presence in meditation is worth more than the rest of my day distracted in monkey mind

I will close this commentary on the chapter with two of my favorite lines from it:

Greater in combat
Than a person who conquers
A thousand times a thousand people
Is the person who conquers herself.
-Trans. Fronsdal (103)

Better than a thousand meaningless statements
Is one meaningful word,
Which, having been heard,
Brings peace.
-Trans. Fronsdal (100)

May these words on the value of the correctly done and focused over the mass of thousands bring peace.

Gassho!