bya ba nyams kyis mi lcogs na
gzhan gyis rbad kyang byar mi rung
rkyal mi shes na gzhan dag gis
bskul yang chu nang ci phyir mchong
An action is impossible to do, even if completed by others, if one has no ability to cope through experience. Although urged on by others, if one does not know how to swim, why jump into the water?
Alternatives:
. . . if one has no ability to cope through developmental practice.
Textual Notes:
In my version of the text there is a note included about nyams kyis mi lcogs - 'dir stobs kyis mi nus pa, or "no power through strength." Before this can be properly integrated, the word lcogs needs to be clarified. It's primary definition is "pronunciation," then "to be able to cope" or "to handle." So it's a word which, for a native speaker, seems to have a major association with speaking and being able to pronounce words properly. Taken with the verse itself this makes sense since experience is a consequence of doing an action much like speech is a consequence of saying a word - the two are inseparable from each other. It's a principle so obvious it's almost difficult to grasp (for me at least), and I think the subtlety lies in knowing that lcogs refers to how someone says a word - to proper pronunciation. In other words, a person might know what a word means, might have even heard it said before, but if they're not able to pronounce it themselves the process of learning is not complete. Take that forward into our metaphor, and we see that a person might technically know what swimming is, might even have seen another person swimming, but if they've never done it themselves they'll drown the first time they jump into deep water. So what does this mean in light of the note? I think it's simply stating the obvious again - if you don't have any muscles how could you lift something heavy? That's why I've included the alternate version where nyams is translated as "developmental practice." More on that in the cultural note. And again, taken in the context of the previous few verses which are all about the merits of gradual practice, this makes a lot of sense.
Another minor textual note pertains to rbad and bskul. Most contributors to the THDL dictionary translate rbad as "completely." I think it's clear that in the verse it is functioning as a verb and not an adverb, but more important is its relation to bskul in the metaphor. Only IW tentatively poses "to urge/send" as an alternate translation for rbad, which is more in keeping with the verse. However again I think the two are complementary, and that being urged on by others is tantamount to seeing others complete an action successfully - that is, a person can say a word correctly, urge you to say it like they did, and yet if it's never been formulated by your own mouth before it can be difficult to get it right.
Cultural Notes:
What is nyams exactly? It's most common translation is simply "experience," but it can also be "vision," "developmental practice," or even "experiential sign of the development of practice (in terms of meditative moods)." The most important part of this word is that it indicates something ephemeral (because nyams pa means "to get weaker," etc.).
In "Genre, Authorship, and Transmission" Janet Gyatso refers to nyams as "meditative absorption" and describes how visions appear as a sign of the completion of a meditative state. This was in the context of tertons and the tradition of treasure finding in Tibet. Just briefly, a terton is a person who is either a reincarnation of an important historical figure/deity, or a person in close, direct contact with important historical figures/deities. From this they are able to discover texts, objects, etc. that were hidden a long time ago. In "Genre, Authorship, and Transmission" she's talking specifically about meeting with deities through visions induced during meditation. Long story short, without these experiences (states of meditative absorption in which tertons meet with a deity) treasures could not be recovered. I doubt that Gung Thang is speaking of this practice specifically, but I think it's a great example of the general principle behind the verse.
Janet Gyatso, "Genre, Authorship, and Transmission in Visionary Buddhism: The Literary Traditions of Thang-stong rGyal-po", in Steven D. Goodman and Ronald M. Davidson (eds.) Tibetan Buddhism: Reason and Revelation (SUNY 1992)
Signing off in Cleveland, Miss A.
I really enjoyed reading this particular verse and going through the various contextual notes as well as thinking about my own personal interpretation. I've always had an issue with the concept of "Knowledge as a form of inherited wealth" where we get all of the things we know from a book, or from hear-say, but do little actual work to really achieve the same mindset as the originators of the knowledge.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the latter part of this verse really speaks to that, since we are often of the mindset that just because we CAN do something, we SHOULD do something (we -can- jump in the water and drown if we don't know how to swim, but should we?) I know that there is a lot more depth to this verse then what I've touched on so far, but still, to me there's a lot of ramifications from this realization.
Very well done, I especially appreciated all the extra textual and cultural notes for this verse.