Commentary on the Dhammapada–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
Each Man Must Make An Island
“By resolution and attention, by discipline and self-control, a clever [wise] man may build himself an island that no flood can overthrow.”
The factors listed in this verse–resolution, attention, discipline and self-control–have been analyzed already, so the new idea here is the nature of who we are and what we are doing.
Hopefully we are a medhaav, a wise man, as the Pali text indicates. So what does the wise do? He makes for himself an island that no flood, no tides or waves, can overwhelm and submerge–no, not even momentarily.
The sea of samsara
We are adrift in–not just upon–the sea of samsara, the cycle of repeated births and deaths, the whole process of earthly life. We flounder in its waves, rising and falling, alternately getting breath and nearly drowning. At the same time we are in the grip of fevered illusion and rarely have even a glimpse of the utter horror of our situation. It takes many lives for us to awaken to the awesome possibilities of either remaining tossed about in the waters or the rising out of them altogether and attaining peace. We must choose. The wise choose getting out of the waves, but the moment they make that choice they are confronted with the fact that they are going to have to build their own “island” of liberation, that all the talk of “the other shore” both is and is not true and that no one is going to “save” us and bring us “safe home” however appealing that nursery-tale may be.
Implications
Creating our island implies two major facts:
1) It is a matter of complete self-effort on our part; no outside help or moving toward association or “community.” (The Sanskrit word is kaivalya–total self-sufficiency and total self-containment.) This may daunt us at first hearing, but reflection reveals that it is a remarkable statement of our capacity to do all the needful for ourself. We can do it! Another facet of this is that there is just no such thing as making our island in conjunction with other people. Yes, we may labor on our island at the same time others do, and we may even encourage one another in the project, but the doing is ours alone. Looking outward is useless and even delusive; the inward orientation alone succeeds.
2) The idea is to get out of the water, to separate ourselves utterly from it, never again to experience even a drop of samsara. I think we all know people who complain about something or someone while clinging to them with thorough determination. This cannot be our way. Many want to be like those in the caucus race described in Alice in Wonderland. They run around in a circle on the beach and every so often waves wash over them and soak them through. The stated purpose of the race is to dry off, but it is impossible. Most people prefer that–to have their samsara and beat it, too. But it is a matter of either or: Wet or Dry. Complete separation is necessary, because that is the whole idea, not just a side effect. This is just not for weekenders and dabblers. Think of the scope: we aim to escape and transcend that which has kept numberless sentient beings in its thrall for numberless creation cycles–not just “ages.” We intend to move from relative being to absolute being–all on our own. AND WE CAN.
1) Dhammapada 25
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