Sunday Reflections
I have decided to test out a regular series, parallel to the main lessons. On Sundays, I will post words by people greater than I, along with a short and simple analysis. For myself, these posts should serve as a break from the hard analytical sciences of the core lessons. My hope is that we can learn more about ourselves through the words of those that have done much great reflection themselves. Perhaps we can become inspired by others, knowing they struggled with the very same existential issues we do today. Time permitting, I hope to make this a consistent, weekly series to enhance the main lessons.
Yourself
Attributed to The Buddha
Thomas Byron’s Translation
Love yourself and watch –
Today, tomorrow, always
First establish yourself in the way
Then teach,
And so defeat sorrow.
To straighten the crooked
You must first do a harder thing
Straighten yourself.
You are your only master.
Who else?
Subdue yourself,
And discover your master.
Willfully, you have fed
Your own mischief.
Soon it will crush you
As the diamond crushes stone.
By your own folly
You will be brought as low
As your worst enemy wishes.
So the creeper chokes the tree.
How hard is it to serve yourself,
How easy to lose yourself
In mischief and folly.
The kashta reed dies when it bears fruit.
So the fool,
Scorning the teachings of the awakened,
Spurning those who follow the law,
Perishes when his folly flowers.
Mischief is yours.
Sorrow is yours.
But virtue also is yours,
And purity.
You are the source
Of all purity and impurity.
No one purifies another.
Never neglect your work
For another’s,
However great his need.
Your work is to discover your work
And then with all your heart
To give yourself to it.
-Dhammapada, The Sayings of the Buddha
These words undoubtedly resonate with many who have suffered addiction or compulsive behaviors. We truly are our own masters, and yet we can so easily lend ourselves into neglect. The difficulty of mastering our own behaviors can oftentimes be too much to bear. What the Buddha reminds us is deeply important: we choose to feed our own flaws, in spite of being ashamed of the results. I will use myself as an example.
In my darkest days as an alcoholic, I became trapped in a cycle of wanting to become better yet not knowing how. I felt grave shame to face the people I loved. The pain became greater and greater, wherein the cycle would begin again. I would drown my sorrows in “mischief”, as it was far easier to seek succor rather than truly discipline myself. By mischief, we really mean any means of distraction. On those early sober days, I would smoke more cigarettes, masturbate more frequently, and consume more media just to ease that pain. To what did those behaviors avail me? Nothing, truly. I simply replaced one destructive mischief with others, never realizing that what I needed to do is difficult. To master one’s self is an incredibly arduous task, and a lifelong quest at that.
Perhaps, I expected someone awakened to appear, and give me the magic words to make the strenuous easy. Perhaps, I became dependent on the idea that someone would arrive in my life to cure me of the faults of my own making. What the Buddha so clearly wants to teach in this passage is that no one but Yourself can make a master of you. Your work is to discover your work means that only you can look at your life and understand exactly what it is that entraps you in your sorrow. You will need honesty to be able to strike at the heart of your problems, and being honest with yourself can be the most daunting.
Your turn for reflection: Do you find yourself dwelling on your flaws? Is it possible you spend more time suffering in the ideas of your impurities, rather than working to purify yourself?
The first lesson will be published on September, 24th 2021. We will be exploring our biochemical inner workings. It will likely be the most difficult lesson to understand. Although I will strive to simplify it, be prepared!