Drawing on the work of poet, naturalist, translator David Hinton, Sam guided our reflections on the role of the body as a key stage for the first Noble Truth (dukkha), and for the fourth Noble Truth, the Path to liberation, as well.
In addition to Hinton’s translations from the great Daoist Chuang Tzu, Sam shared excerpts from several dharma talks that bear on the subject of embodiment.
https://dharmaseed.org/talks/player/69732.html
Mindfulness Directed to the Body; Greg Scharf, 2/29/2016
https://dharmaseed.org/talks/player/26004.html
Embodiment of Insight; Christina Feldman, 11/10/2014
https://dharmaseed.org/talks/player/47554.html
Towards Embodiment; Christina Feldman, 9/27/2017
I read from:
“Hunger Mountain” by David Hinton, (2012), (Chapter titled “Unborn”) p.110:
[Chuang Tzu] describes a little band of crazy sages who are celebrating their friend’s death as a return to his true form. They have mastered the unborn, and he describes them as “cultivating __,” that originary dance of Absence, as “wandering the one ch’i that breathes through all heaven and earth.” Then he continues:
“On loan from everything else, they’ll soon be entrusted back to the one body. Forgetting liver and gallbladder, abandoning ears and eyes — they’ll continue on again, tumbling and twirling through a blur of endings and beginnings. They roam at ease beyond the tawdry dust of this world, wander without themselves, boundless and free through the selfless unfolding of things.”
Another version, from “The complete works of Chuang Tzu” translated by Burton Watson (1968). Ch. 6., p. 86ff.
After some time had passed without event, Master Sang-hu died. He had not yet been buried when Confucius, hearing of his death, sent Tzu-kung to assist at the funeral. When Tzu-kung arrived, he found one of the dead man’s friends weaving frames for silkworms, while the other strummed a lute. Joining their voices they sang this song:
Ah, Sang hu!
Ah, Sang hu!
You have gone back to your true form
While we remain as men, O!
Tzu-kung hastened forward and said, “May I be so bold as to ask what sort of ceremony this is — singing in the very presence of the corpse?”
The two men looked at each other and laughed. “What does this man know of the meaning of ceremony?” they said.
Tzu-kung returned and reported to Confucius what had happened. “What sort of men are they anyway?” he asked. “they pay no attention to proper behavior, disregard their personal appearance and, without so much as changing the expression on their faces, sing in the very presence of the corpse! I can think of no name for them ! What sort of men are they?”
“Such men as they,” said Confucius, “wander beyond the realm; men like me wander within it. Beyond and within can never meet. It was stupid of me to send you to offer condolences. even now they have joined with the Creator as men to wander in the single breath of heaven and earth. They look upon life as a swelling tumor, a protruding wen, and upon death as the draining of a sore or the bursting of a boil. To men such as these, how could there be any question of putting life first or death last? They borrow the forms of different creatures and house them in the same body. They forget liver and gall, cast aside ears and eyes, turning and revolving, ending and beginning again, unaware of where they start or finish. Idly they roam beyond the dust and dirt; they wander free and easy in the service of inaction. Why should they fret and fuss about the ceremonies of the vulgar world and make a display for the ears and eyes of the common herd?”
And another version, from “The Wisdom of China and India” Lin Yutang, ed. (1942). p. 663.
These men,” replied Confucius, “play about beyond the material things; I play about within them. Consequently, our paths do not meet, and I was stupid to have sent you to mourn. They consider themselves as companions of the Creator, and play about within the One Spirit of the universe. They look upon life as a huge goiter or excrescence, and upon death as the breaking of a tumor. How could such people be concerned about the coming of life and death or their sequence? They borrow their forms from the different elements, and take temporary abode in the common forms, unconscious of their internal organs and oblivious of their senses of hearing and vision. They go through life backwards and forwards as in a circle and without beginning or end, strolling forgetfully beyond the dust and dirt of mortality, and playing about with the affairs of inaction. How should such men bustle about the conventionalities of this world, for the people to look at?”
I read, from part of the Rohitassa Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya 4:45), a quote of the Buddha:
The end of the world can never
Be reached by walking. However,
Without having reached the world’s end
There is no release from suffering.I declare that it is in this fathom—
long carcass, with its perceptions
and thoughts, that there is the world, the
origin of the world, the cessation of the
world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world.
