On absent friends

A few days ago, a good friend remarked that 'you don't realise how much you love someone until they're not there anymore.' It's a familiar phrase to many of us and it is one that I hear just about every time somebody close to a friend dies. It seems reasonable, really because it is reasonable. It is very, very easy to take people for granted and it appears to me that people do it throughout every stage of their life: the young child (necessarily) takes their parents for granted, always expecting that they will be there to see to their needs; an adult might take their best friend for granted, thinking that they will always be around to deal with the aftermath of a breakup, and so it goes on. We all know that taking people for granted isn't the best way to be, but it's a trap we are all guilty of falling into at one time or another.

Nevertheless, my first response upon reading that 'you don't realise how much you love someone until they're not there anymore' was twofold. First, I thought 'this is really sad, my friend is struggling with the loss of a (mutual, as it happens) friend and this is the resulting realisation that perhaps he might have appreciated this friend a little more. Something that I am sure we can all  relate to. Second, though, I thought 'that doesn't need to be true'. Over the past three months or so, I have seen the deaths of two friends and my Nan. Of all the emotions and thought processes that accompany grief - loss, anger, bewilderment, regret, sorrow and so forth - I can honestly say that this thought that I somehow hadn't appreciated my friends or my Nan in life never entered into my head. This is not because I am some emotionless droid, or because I am a benevolent all-loving hippy. It is rather down to a more simple fact: I knew how much I loved them, and so did they. Importantly, I think that this loving awareness can be cultivated, and more to the point, I think that it is an integral facet of the Buddhist path.

Seasoned scholars/students of Buddhism will be aware of mindfulness as a means by which we continually evaluate our thoughts, motivations and their manifestations in behaviour. This is the part that interests me. There is something to be said for being aware of yourself, the people around you and your interactions with them. If a result of being mindful when in the company of other people is that we respect the other person and are directly aware of/open about our own feelings toward them - and I think that it is - then it is obvious that this openness needs to start with ourselves. The first thing we should recognise is that it is ok to love people, in fact, it's better than ok. There are all sorts of love, but let's try to sum up a type recognisable in Buddhist contexts (I think it is probably the most important and fundamental means of loving that we can aspire to, in any case): a deep respect for, affection for and concern for other people and their interests.

It's not fashionable to say this out loud. I fear that we live in a society that is increasingly isolationist, if not in practice, then at the very least in rhetoric. I touched on this in an earlier post and I stand by the general thrust of my point therein. We are told to be selfish, taught to help ourselves first and worry about what's left for others later. We kowtow to governmental 'I'm all right, Jack' mentalities and enforce them in our communities with minimal protest. A love for others that drifts along the lines of a deep respect for, affection for and concern for other people and their interests is anathema to these sorts of worldviews... And that's ok. People shouldn't be shamed for holding this view, they should be celebrated. If we are mindful of this principle in our day-to-day dealings with people, it cultivates a change in our disposition. It changes our character. If you genuinely try to hold this concern close to your heart in your day-to-day encounters then eventually it becomes habitual and you do it without thinking. Why is this important? Because the change allows us to be more honest about how we feel about people; both with ourselves, and with the people in question.

In turn, this will mean that you will tell people that you love them and appreciate them. We should all do this, it's a good, worthwhile thing to say, and it injects a bit of happiness into both our lives and the life of the person we are engaging with. Be aware of the affection you have for your best mate, and bloody well tell them. Tell your Mum, your Nan, your cousins. Tell the postie that you appreciate their toil. It need not be difficult. There is a bit of a machismo thing with males and this sort of openness (not with every male, I hasten to add - but we all know this exists), it limits us because we let it. Machismo is a wasted effort, it's not important. Do not miss out on telling your friends that you love them because it's 'not what men do', or it's 'girly' or because it is whatever other silly, archaic reason a lot of lads come up with when faced with anything remotely emotional or 'nice'. 

Be aware of what your friendship means to you the next time you get a text asking you out for a drink and you can't really be bothered to pull yourself away from the X Factor. Keep in mind the love you have for a friend who is awkwardly mithering you when you're trying to watch your favourite Arnie flick. Every now and again it is important to get off your backside, realise what is important to you, act on it, let people know they are significant and that you appreciate their presence. When you do this, you have no regrets. You will realise how much you love someone, and it won't take their absence - through death or otherwise - to enlighten you. You will know, they will know, and what could possibly be better than that?

नरः सुखं धनेन न विन्दति (nor, surprisingly, through Shabba Ranks records).

नरः सुखं धनेन न विन्दति
'Man does not find happiness through wealth.'

In the time since my last post I have largely been working through a different Sanskrit textbook (Maurer 'The Sanskrit Language' ) to the one I was previously using, and I have to say, the switch has made a world of difference. When I first started out in October/December, the Coulson 'Teach Yourself Sanskrit' book terrified me. That terror did not really subside the more time I spent with the book, I think in part because Coulson assumes that his readers already speak either Latin or (ancient) Greek - an assumption which, I am reliably informed, was a step too far even at the original date of publication in the Seventies! The end result of this is a propensity to gloss over the finer details of things such as the grammatical cases on the assumption that the reader will already be familiar with them via their studies of Latin and Greek. I wasn't, and subsequently I struggled a little more than I needed to have. Add to this the tiny typeface that makes reading the Devanagari very difficult once you get past chapter 6, plus his obtuse and inaccessible writing style, and you have a dense, difficult textbook.

In any case, this does not mean that the book is not useful. The one thing that the Coulson book does do very well is the stringent grammatical detail in terms of sentential construction and a hugely helpful declension glossary and (sort-of) dictionary. It also helps that he writes out the Devanagari (for the most part) in Roman script, too; of particular use when you come across a strange conjunct consonant symbol or you have forgotten what a given Devanagari symbol stands for. The Maurer book that I have switched to has no such comfort blanket, but the simple solution for budding Sanskritists is to just use both books in conjunction! Maurer provides more of a step-by-step logical progression through the language and gives helpful shortcuts to determining things such as the subject, object, active verb and gerunds in a sentence. Obviously, this allows for a more rapid progression with reading and writing even if it scrimps on the 'understanding' part in the earlier lessons. Perhaps the single best feature of the Maurer textbook is that the exercises are not random sentences plucked willy-nilly from a plethora of Sanskrit sources (seemingly to demonstrate the author's own mastery and knowledge rather than to provide a consistent thread for the student to follow), but that they are instead whole passages from Sanskrit texts. Each sentence relates to the last and to the next, there's a story to follow, even if it is as banal as Lesson 3's tale about a King riding around in his chariot. It makes it more interesting, less of an effort and as such, much more productive.

It was in lesson 2 of the Maurer book that I came across the quote that adorns the top of this post:

नरः सुखं धनेन न विन्दति

Transliterated, it amounts to 'naraḥ sukhaṃ dhanena na vindati' (for those remotely interested). I include it because aside from it being a mainstay of my own personal philosophy (I, of course, remain eternally grateful to the AHRC for providing me with a substantial grant that allows me to sit in a university philosophy department making such grand statements!), I think it is painfully apt in relation to our recent election results which places money - some say realistically and necessarily - at the top of both the public and private agenda. The government wants to spend less, make more and fill their coffers. The government also wants us to spend more, pay more VAT and fill their coffers. They want big business to make more because we spend more, and despite the cynic in me thinking that part of this is to swell their individual wealth (how many politicians have their fingers in big business?), the pragmatic side of me says that in a capitalist system, there is a need for businesses to make money in order that they might employ us proles so that we can spend lots of money on really important things like Samsung Smart TVs, iPhones and Land Rover Evoques. In this system then, happiness seems to be inextricably bound to money, and the more of it you have, the happier you are (or should be, at the very least!).

From the Buddhist perspective, the problem here is both obvious and yet profound: we have an attachment to money. A fetish for capital. We are deluded. I don't want to be the guy that tries to teach his grannie to suck eggs (I don't know who is reading this, maybe you already know the Buddhist line on attachment to objects, maybe you don't!), but for the sake of clarity, let's break down why attachment to cash (even if this cash brings us enjoyment!) is invariably a source of profound suffering. 

Pleasant  experiences  are  only  pleasant  fleetingly;  they  are finite, short in length and do not satisfy us for any real period of time. However, these pleasurable experiences do cultivate at least one lasting result: attachment. So what can we say about cash/capital in this instance? Well, cash can provide us with opportunities to do or acquire more pleasurable things. I could buy every Shabba Ranks single in existence twice over if I only had ten million pounds in the bank! Whilst buying these records and listening to these records would make me happy for the ten to fifteen minutes or so that it takes to hear two radio edits and an extended cut (maybe a bonus track if I am lucky!), we'd be loathe to say that the records give me any lasting contentment or 'real' happiness. I doubt that I'd be sat in a monastery arguing that my life felt complete because I knew that I had in my CD rack every single Shabba single to exist. Instead, what I would find myself experiencing is a finite, fleeting, shallow sort of happiness that disappears very quickly. Nevertheless, upon buying and listening to my newly-acquired Shabba Ranks singles collection, I have cultivated attachment on a number of levels. Let's have a little look.

First, I have invested money into these physical objects. I am attached to them in virtue of perceiving them as 'mine': I worry about their being damaged, I worry about their theft, and I find myself wondering what I would do should the worst happen. A trivial sort of anxiety, but an anxiety nonetheless. Apply this same logic to your car - suddenly the anxiety seems a lot more credible, right? That's not all. Second, I am attached to how the records make me feel, both when I play them and merely in virtue of owning them. Perhaps when I can't  play them, I feel a bit down, a bit sad - let's face it, who wouldn't be a tiny bit gutted at not being able to play 'Mr Loverman' on loop for the entire day? So I feel anxiety/frustration on not being able to replicate the circumstances under which I felt content (playing the records), and when I am able to replicate the circumstances and play my Shabba CDs, I am content only for a short period of time until the cycle begins anew. 

It is very easy to see how this translates in terms of capital and being in the rat race chasing the acquisition of more capital. Additionally, we have all the anxieties illustrated above manifesting for near on every item we purchase as a result of our capital. The Buddhist solution then is not to simply get rid of capital (although that does happen should you enter the monastic life), but to get rid of attachments full stop (see my Academia.edu page for further reading on this; there is little space to thrash out every detail here). A radical solution, and one that I - being a philosophical sort - can advocate whilst (usually!) keeping a straight face. But it is hardly practical on a national level.

Obviously the entire nation is not going to become Buddhist overnight, and even if it did, we would still need an economy to function en mass. Even Buddhists need to eat, have somewhere to live and  keep themselves in clothes. Buddhists need a functional NHS. But my hope here is to show that touting the acquisition of capital and money as an inextricable facet of happiness is not only false, but it is dangerous. We risk - should we buy into this rhetoric - becoming obsessed with the acquisition of material wealth, convinced that it is the highest good to be attained. It is not. It brings a host of anxieties and it breeds callousness in the face of poverty. An 'I'm all right, Jack' mentality is precisely what the Bodhisattvas dedicate their lives to eradicating! The mahāyāna method is dedicated to the alleviation of suffering and eventual liberation all beings, not a few rich ones - not even just the poor ones! The compassionate human clearly cannot hold the acquisition of wealth as their highest good, for it corrupts and brings anxiety; attributes that necessarily curtail compassion: how can one be compassionate to all beings if one is always trying to gain more than one's neighbour? How can compassion flourish in an atmosphere of proud individualism, where 'greed is good'?

Aristotle famously argued that whilst wealth does not bring happiness in and of itself, it allows one to pursue goals that do bring happiness. Aristotle presumably mean that some wealth allows you to pursue noble goals without the worry of making yourself destitute or wondering where the next meal is coming from. How sobering then, that under a government that ostensibly supports such a sentiment, the UK is seeing a rise in destitution, a rise in food bank usage, a rise in people unable to live their lives with the dignity that every person deserves. It certainly looks to me that man on the whole really does not find happiness through wealth; only some do. And that just isn't good enough.

My first ever post (and why Dharmapāla was a snide)

I had the misfortune to be placed on a library training course last week (Effective Information Management, for those interested), evidently my negative karma is not yet fully exhausted, because I must have been a right swine in a previous life to have this day inflicted upon me. In any case, I am sure that anybody enduring a PhD will have had to face the same tedium at some point in their first year, and decidedly tedious though it was in the main, I did glean a few (potentially) useful nuggets from it (maybe).

One of those nuggets was that it might be a good idea for PhD sorts to start up a little blog so that our research interests, research papers, in-progress papers and names in general can be put out into the world with immediate effect - the plus sides to this are, I suppose, to do with open access and wide readership potential. We are all familiar with the relatively small readership of journals and the even smaller access rights that often come as part and parcel of publishing in them! So here I am, starting a blog. Admittedly, it all feels very narcissistic and it is true that generally, this puts me off doing things such as this. 'Why would anyone be interested in anything I have to say?' is the question that tumbles around my mind even now, but there are possibilities. Maybe I write something and I get another philosophy type's feedback on it. Maybe I write something that spurs a conversation that informs future research. Maybe I write something and someone even agrees - that'd be nice! Maybe I write something and it gets read by nobody at all, but is instead lost to the aether of the internet, never to be read again. Any manifestation of any of these outcomes is fine, because as I write this, I realise that just being back to writing something after six months of endless reading and battling with Sanskrit is completely bloody lovely, and that works well enough for me.

Now to the good stuff (if you're an Indian Philosophy nerd like me, at least). I've been reading some translations of Dharmapāla's work lately, in particular Tom Tilleman's excellent translations in 'Materials for the Study of Āryadeva, Dharmapāla and Candrakīrti'. This was never going to be a chore for me in part because Tom Tillemans is quite brilliant, and in part because I love all things Buddhist (apart from the guys in Burma going around murdering Muslims - what's that about?). One thing that screams out from the translation of Dharmapāla's commentary to Āryadeva's Catuḥśatikā (Four Hundred Verses) in Tillman's work is that Dharmapāla was... Well, kind of a nark! We've all taken on writers with whom we disagree, but I hazard a guess that the academic principle of refraining from ad hominem attacks ('against the man' for non-philosophy people - basically insults) has prevented us from getting too nasty (at least, I hope this is the case!).

No such problem for Dharmapāla, however:

The ancient Brahmins, in their shrewdness, secretly invented the Vedas and then said that they existed naturally, that they just came to be incanted of themselves and were not acknowledged as dependent on anything else. The Brahmins were commended as being the most worthy of veneration, while the Kṣatriyas and the rest were all [said to be] inferior; if [the latter] provided [the Brahmins] with the necessities of life, then they would obtain immeasurable merit. Fools, who lack intelligence, do not fathom [the Brahmins' various deceptions]; they wait upon [the Brahmins] with trust and respect, saying that they are a true field of merit.

It's quite clear then that Dharmapāla thinks of Brahmins as little more than charlatans out to manipulate those 'inferior' to them via a sacred system of their own manufacture. The benefits to this are, of course, obvious! It's also pretty clear that he holds a disdain for any 'fools' that do not see through the Brahmins' games - presumably this applies to any non-Buddhist! I know that merely holding such a sentiment as 'all non-Buddhists are fools' is anathema to many practising Buddhists today, never mind freely expressing it! It was put to me by a friend that 'fool' might simply mean 'deluded person' and in this instance, the tone of the passage would change significantly. This is true, it would. However, I don't think that Dharmapāla did mean 'deluded person', I think he meant precisely what he said.  Here's why.

 Even if we are generous with our attribution and say that Dharmapāla is using 'fool' to mean 'deluded person' (and any unenlightened person is deluded, even if they are Buddhist), we stumble into tricky grounds. It would seem more of a jump to say that 'lacks intelligence' amounts to 'lacks ultimate insight' (into the nature of things; the key Buddhist objective) or 'is deluded': it does look as though Dharmapāla is simply calling every Hindu stupid. Why do I think this? Because even Buddhists are deluded up until the point of enlightenment - the point of Buddhist praxis is to dispel delusion and provide insight (though there is much disagreement around exactly how this is achieved and what it must entail). If 'fool' were being used in this peculiar way, then the Buddhists who do see that the Brahmins are deceiving their adherents would be on the same intellectual level as the Hindus who do not see that they are being conned. This would presumably include Dharmapāla himself, but if not, it would almost certainly include his entire readership (monks, from master to novice) - the standout issue being that if this was the case, none of these Buddhist adherents would be able to see that the Hindus were being conned by the Brahmins either! 

Further to this, Dharmapāla continually states elsewhere in his commentary that one of the criteria for following the Buddhadharma is intelligence - it is clear that 'intelligence' here can't mean 'not being deluded', viz. 'enlightened'. If this was the case, then the Buddhist would not require intelligence to follow the Buddha's teachings, for their very possessing intelligence would already mean that they are enlightened! In light of this, it would be very strange indeed if 'lacking intelligence' was synonymous with 'being deluded'. The intelligence Dharmapāla refers to is required to understand some of the Buddha's teachings (not even all of them, illustrating that intelligence is not a final destination, but a tool for the path) and to allow the practitioner to begin to make correct determinations on their interactions with the world; it is not synonymous with enlightenment, but is rather a prerequisite to it.

So... Dharmapāla seems to have had little time for anybody that was not already following the Buddhist path - so much for universal compassion! What a nark. I leave you with a smaller excerpt. Here Dharmapāla even seems to have had it in for lepers - we are now all familiar with the cruelty of making a marginalised group the butt of a joke or derogatory comparison. I appreciate that this was not the case 100 years ago, never mind 1000 years ago, and I am aware that people were, to a degree, scared of things they did not understand (such as leprosy). Still, I am a little disappointed:

...And the Brahmin caste is not in fact worthy of veneration, nor are they a true field of merit, for they continuously engage in asking for more alms all the while that they support a wife and children, just as do greedy lepers. So the intelligent should not take refuge [in such false teachers].

Lovely(!)