A taoist ISO an explanation of a verse from the Dhammapada

[Taomeow]

This is probably my first post in this section.  Hello, venerable Buddhists.   

 

Came across these lines by accident and thought, damn, I don't understand this at all...  but I better watch out for those brahmans.    And I thought taoists -- some of them -- can be callous.  But this is like something I would expect to give pause even to a Maoshan sorcerer.  Or to one of those "inhumane" sages who "regard humans as straw dogs."  Can someone explain what is meant by this passage -- I traced it down to Pakinnakavagga (alternative translation: Buddharakkhita), part of the Dhammapada:

 

294-295

 

Having killed mother and father,

two warrior kings,

the kingdom and its subjects —

the brahman, untroubled, travels on.

 

Having killed mother and father,

two learned kings,

and fifth, a tiger —

the brahman, untroubled, travels on.

 

 

 

 

 

[Piyadasi]

An explanation by an Ajahn (https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Dhp/endnotes.html#dhp-note294):

 

"294: This verse and the one following it use terms with ambiguous meanings to shock the listener. According to DhpA, mother = craving; father = conceit; two warrior kings = views of eternalism (that one has an identity remaining constant through all time) and of annihilationism (that one is totally annihilated at death); kingdom = the twelve sense spheres (the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling, and ideation, together with their respective objects); dependency = passions for the sense spheres.

295: DhpA: two learned kings = views of eternalism and annihilationism; a tiger = the path where the tiger goes for food, i.e., the hindrance of uncertainty, or else all five hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, torpor & lethargy, restlessness & anxiety, and uncertainty). However, in Sanskrit literature, “tiger” is a term for a powerful and eminent man; if that is what is meant here, the term may stand for anger."

 

Not quite literal  

[Taomeow]

32 minutes ago, Piyadasi said:

An explanation by an Ajahn (https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Dhp/endnotes.html#dhp-note294):

 

"294: This verse and the one following it use terms with ambiguous meanings to shock the listener. According to DhpA, mother = craving; father = conceit; two warrior kings = views of eternalism (that one has an identity remaining constant through all time) and of annihilationism (that one is totally annihilated at death); kingdom = the twelve sense spheres (the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling, and ideation, together with their respective objects); dependency = passions for the sense spheres.

295: DhpA: two learned kings = views of eternalism and annihilationism; a tiger = the path where the tiger goes for food, i.e., the hindrance of uncertainty, or else all five hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, torpor & lethargy, restlessness & anxiety, and uncertainty). However, in Sanskrit literature, “tiger” is a term for a powerful and eminent man; if that is what is meant here, the term may stand for anger."

 

Not quite literal  

 

Thank you. That was very helpful.

 

What's the purpose of using metaphorical names?  I could think of two -- one would be benign, the other, not.  Which one do you think applies here?

 

1. "Language twisting" is a very traditional (and ancient and apparently universal) method for approaching things indirectly -- as one shaman from the Amazon put it, "if you name things directly, straightforwardly, you run into them like into a wall, collide with them.  You need to circle around and around instead to get to them." 

Or

2. This is done in order to equate, in one's subconscious, actual live people with abstractions, insubstantial ideas and opinions, so that the word "mother" does not evoke the image of a live feeling human being who matters but, instead, is now associated with the concept of "craving" which is not something good and should be discarded, or even killed, quite nonchalantly.  Ditto "father" and the rest.  If live people are turned into abstract concepts and not seen as human beings anymore, human connections gets weakened.  People whose connections are weakened are disempowered, and consequently more open to manipulation.          

[Piyadasi]

To some extent it's 1. yes, I think, metaphors, images enrich understanding very much at times.

 

To another extent it is 2., but not how you think, in fact it's the reverse.

 

It's associated with these things that are powerful in people's minds (one's parents, kings, tigers, a whole kingdom), all especially alive in people's minds in ancient India (tigers were potentially an everyday encounter at some places) because you want these, maybe abstract sounding ideas, to have real meaning and weight since they are an even more powerful and fundamental aspect of your experience. So you take the outside world/experience you live in your everyday life and translate the structure of that to your inner world and fundamental activities. You use the outer as a reference guide to the inner, I suppose.

 

Parents are also extremely important in Buddhism, for lay people (and even monastics), they are to be revered and respected, in fact respect towards one's parents and the desire to pay back the kindness they did to one is one of the fundamental basic recommended attitudes/outlooks. Killing of one's parents if like one of the worst acts with the most grievous outcomes. So I don't think it's manipulation. Also back in that day I feel like this sort of manipulation would have been much more ineffective, since people weren't as much 'in their brains' dancing around with concepts and abstract ideas as we are today so I feel like this would have hardly had that effect on them. Also for any sort of manipulation like this to have a noticeable effect on the community you'd have to have many more of these style of teachings, mainly in the Suttas and Commentaries, and while there may be other 'shock value' verses in the Dhammapada, I can't recall any other teaching of this sort that's not just a short verse. That's just my guess.

 

Another factor is pure shock value. This shock would then be put to use when the meanings are explained in the context of a live tradition.

 

That's just my take on it.

[ion]

What I personally,  not as a Taoist think this means, is the psychological archetypes that develop surrounding these conceptualizations and their roles such as mother father , saint and vilian, need to be done away with along with lots of other cultural programming. 

 

When we form these archetypes we do it in ways that if we find ourselves fitting a general description of one of these roles Wwe might actually assume them into our identity. 

 

When a person gets married they often experience this as all these seeds sprouting because the conditions are right and suddenly they are like another person.  They are becoming what they programmed a husband is like and once they have children this happens again as they assume the new role that was stored as data in the form of preconceived ideas that they become when their child is born and suddenly they find themselves acting, and feeling like their dad and understanding their dads perception. 

 

Also holding onto these archetypes can draw you to situations where you might become them, by seeking out counterparts to interact them. 

 

This happens with people forming an image of the "drug addict" in mind.  How they are cut throat and desperate, and the sorts of levels they will sink to much of which is based on drug war propaganda,  but once a person starts doing drugs and can identify with being an addict this preconccieved role is assumed and be ones them. 

 

 

The dammapanda is pretty much about not painting a dark picture of reality because we live the reality by how we perceive it, so that said,  to simplify what I was saying above I believe it's about not holding onto or making images of roles in your mind, not stereotyping or interacting with stereotypes and not profiling or interacting with profiles.