Commentary on the Dhammapada–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
 The Two Ways of Life and Death
“There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways.” So opens the Didache–the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles–perhaps the only authentic document we possess authored by the apostles of Jesus assembled in Jerusalem a few years after his death and resurrection. They were no doubt echoing words spoken to them by Jesus, and he was no doubt recalling the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the Dhammapada which he would have either read or heard during the years he lived in the Buddhist monasteries of Northern India. In those verses Buddha set forth the two ways of life.
When Buddha first spoke to others the knowledge gained through his enlightenment, the first principle he gave was: “There is suffering.” This is the fundamental fact of relative existence. It is nonsense to accuse Buddha of being pessimistic or negative for saying this, for he continued with three other facts that give hope to anyone who ponders them: “Suffering has a cause. Suffering can be ended. There is a way to end suffering.” Everything else spoken by Buddha was the practical way to demonstrate the truth of these Four Noble Truths by attaining nirvana–the ending of all possibility of suffering. Now in the Dhammapada Buddha is going to put it very succinctly:
“Here and beyond he suffers. The wrong-doer suffers both ways. He suffers and is tormented to see his own depraved behavior. Here and beyond he is glad. The doer of good is glad both ways. He is glad and rejoices to see his own good deeds.” The “Big Catch”
Since duality is necessary for relative existence, there is no thing that does not have both advantages and drawbacks. Countless people in the West have hoped to escape the truth about their wrongdoing and its attendant guilt and retribution by seeking spiritual asylum in Oriental religions, notably Hinduism and Buddhism. “No hell here!” they exult, unaware that the popular scriptures of both Hinduism and Buddhism contain far more material on hell and threats of hell (often for incredibly petty offences) than the Bible. “No talk about sin!” they shrill, perhaps not so unaware that both religions contain virtual libraries of material on those unescaped bugaboos. “No guilt!” they shout, not realizing that their desperation proves just the opposite. It is definitely true that Hinduism and Buddhism have a far more accurate and optimistic definition and outlook regarding these things, but that is because they greatly emphasize the two things those refugees have most been seeking to escape: personal responsibility for wrongdoing and the inevitability of retribution for it. For those seeking a higher consciousness through the adoption of a higher (i.e., sin-free) life, hope and confidence are abundantly proffered:
“Though a man be soiled
With the sins of a lifetime,
Let him but love me,
Rightly resolved,
In utter devotion:
I see no sinner,
That man is holy.
Holiness soon
Shall refashion his nature
To peace eternal;
O son of Kunti,
Of this be certain:
The man that loves me,
He shall not perish.”
But there is no optimism for those who intend to stay in the hog-wallow mud of ignorance and evil:
“Men of demonic nature know neither what they ought to do, nor what they should refrain from doing. There is no truth in them, or purity, or right conduct. They maintain that the scriptures are a lie, and that the universe is not based upon a moral law, but godless, conceived in lust and created by copulation, without any other cause. Because they believe this in the darkness of their little minds, these degraded creatures do horrible deeds, attempting to destroy the world. They are enemies of mankind.
“Their lust can never be appeased. They are arrogant, and vain, and drunk with pride. They run blindly after what is evil. The ends they work for are unclean. They are sure that life has only one purpose: gratification of the senses. And so they are plagued by innumerable cares, from which death alone can release them. Anxiety binds them with a hundred chains, delivering them over to lust and wrath. They are ceaselessly busy, piling up dishonest gains to satisfy their cravings.
“‘I wanted this and today I got it. I want that: I shall get it tomorrow. All these riches are now mine: soon I shall have more. I have killed this enemy. I will kill all the rest. I am a ruler of men. I enjoy the things of this world. I am successful, strong and happy. Who is my equal? I am so wealthy and so nobly born. I will sacrifice to the gods. I will give alms. I will make merry.’ That is what they say to themselves, in the blindness of their ignorance.
“They are addicts of sensual pleasure, made restless by their many desires, and caught in the net of delusion. They fall into the filthy hell of their own evil minds. Conceited, haughty, foolishly proud, and intoxicated by their wealth, they offer sacrifice to God in name only, for outward show, without following the sacred rituals. These malignant creatures are full of egoism, vanity, lust, wrath, and consciousness of power. They loathe me, and deny my presence both in themselves and in others. They are enemies of all men and of myself; cruel, despicable and vile. I cast them back, again and again, into the wombs of degraded parents, subjecting them to the wheel of birth and death. And so they are constantly reborn, in degradation and delusion. They do not reach me, but sink down to the lowest possible condition of the soul.”
That is how Krishna put the matter before Buddha did; the sum of both are the same. “Wrong” and “right”
Suffering is the lot of the wrong-doers and happiness is the lot of the right-doers. But what is “wrong” and what is “right”? Here, too, a lot of moral slackers take up Buddhism and Hinduism with the idea that they will escape “Judeo-Christian morality.” And they do–being neither Buddhist nor Hindu in any viable sense. On the other hand, those who investigate either religion to any significant degree will encounter a moral code that extends far beyond the simplistic “good doggie, bad doggie” code of externalized Judaism or Christianity.
First of all, the concepts, of “sin,” “wrong,” “good,” “right,” and “virtue” are completely different from their seeming equivalents in Western religion.
In Western religion a thing is good because God commands it, and bad because God forbids it. The inherent nature of the thing is irrelevant. Do what God wants and you will be good and rewarded accordingly; do what God “hates” and you will be evil and punished accordingly. It is all a matter of “law.” The flaw in this should be obvious: everyone under the constraints of law seeks to get around it and yet be considered law-abiding. All kinds of stretches and concessions are sought–and obtained. (Just consider the Jesuitical contortions of Roman Catholic Moral Theology.) If one church will not make concessions, just go find one that will, or start your own. I knew a man who did just that. He belonged to a fundamentalist church that said those who divorced and remarried would go to hell–and so would those they married. He preached it fervently, and once when rebuking a man for having married a divorced woman, was astounded when the man countered that the preacher’s own sister had married a divorcee! He investigated and found that to be so. So “God” led him to start his own church that held to all his original principles, except for the allowance of divorce and remarriage.
In the East the criterion is very different. If a thing spiritually harms the individual then it is wrong; if something spiritually benefits the individual then it is right. What else need be said? Naturally addicts and ignoramuses loudly insist that harmful things are not harmful and protest that beneficial things are burdensome and hurtful. But that does not matter to Eastern religion, because unlike Western religion there is no compulsion to coerce people into doing the good and avoiding the bad. If someone wants to harm himself, calling it good, that is his business. For such a person religion is irrelevant anyway–and he is irrelevant to religion.
Here again we see a profound difference between East and West. In the Western religions God as an almighty monarch is the center of attention, the adherents have no value or relevance except in relation to His ideas about them. In Eastern religions, the spiritual liberation of the individual is the center of concern, and the truth about his spiritual status is all-important whatever he or others may think about that truth–what is…is. Since liberation is the result of union with God, Eastern religions make Him truly the center of things, the center of life itself, in contrast to the basically political centrism of Western religions that insistently maintains an infinite gulf between God and us. In the West the question is: “Are you obeying and pleasing God?” and in the East it is: “Are you moving toward union with God?” As I say, it is politics versus states of being. One reduces us to nothing, the other makes spirit–both finite and Infinite–everything. Here and beyond
Everywhere we may find ourselves we experience the effect of our deeds, whether we are physically incarnate in the material plane of existence or out of the body in (usually) an astral world. Our presence in those worlds as well as our situation in them is determined solely by our own deeds. As the Buddhist sutra affirms, we have nothing but our own actions and we never shall have anything but our own actions in the form of their results. As Saint Paul wrote to Saint Timothy: “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.” But wherever we are, they are, either actualized or potential. “He suffers.…He is glad”
It is the results that reveal the character of our actions, not the excuse-making or rationalization of ourselves or others. Consequently: “The wrong-doer suffers both ways. He suffers and is tormented to see his own depraved behavior.…The doer of good is glad both ways. He is glad and rejoices to see his own good deeds.” Anyone who wants can try to weasel out of it by claiming that God favors and purifies us by making us suffer to make us more “pleasing” to Him and curses those He detests by damning them through prosperity and ease, and therefore misery is proof of virtue. Such a view makes God a fool and a monster, but reveals that the view-holder is the fool, the monster–and is suffering accordingly.
Why does Buddha not explain to us about those bad, even horribly evil people, who live in high style and seem to have all they want, and those good people who have hardship and misfortune? The answer is twofold, external and internal. Externally, the good fortune of the bad is the result of good deeds done in the past, and the misfortune of the good is the result of bad deeds done in the past. There is nothing more to it. Internally, the truth is that no matter what advantages a person may have, how easy their outer life may be, the evil suffer constantly in their hearts and minds–that is why they are so addicted to alcohol, drugs, and frantic pleasure, especially sex. Conversely, however unfortunate the external situation of the good may be, they experience peace and contentment and even rejoice in heart and mind. So there is no need to comment on them; Buddha is speaking of internal suffering and rejoicing–not prosperity, poverty, or other external conditions. The heart of the matter
“Here and beyond he is punished. The wrong-doer is punished both ways. He is punished by the thought, “I have done evil,” and is even more punished when he comes to a bad state. Here and beyond he rejoices. The doer of good rejoices both way. He rejoices at the thought, “I have done good,” and rejoices even more when he comes to a happy state.”
Now we come to the major message of these two Dhammapada verses in relation to both good and bad: “He suffers and is tormented to see his own depraved behavior.…He is glad and rejoices to see his own good deeds.” When we look at our life, both internal and external, and intelligently perceive it, we SEE the nature of our past (and often present) deeds. As I have pointed out in other articles, our external life reveals our inner life; our life as it unfolds before us is an objectification of our mind, and nothing else. Study your life and you will come to know your mind. When we suffer we are seeing our negativity, and when we rejoice we are seeing our positivity. Our life is a revelation/reflection of our inner life. The effect reveals the nature of the cause.
Actually, Buddha’s words apply mostly to the wise, for only the wise grieve or rejoice over their wrong or right behavior–others only grieve or rejoice over their results. The ignorant says: “How miserable I am: look at my poverty and illness.” The wise says: “How wrong have been my past actions: look at my poverty and illness.” It is the difference between the person who repents because he understands his deeds are evil and the one who repents because he is going to be caught and punished.
The ignorant only look at their outer condition, whereas the wise look at their inner condition as revealed by the outer. So, as is usual with the words of all the Wise, only the already substantially wise will understand and heed them, and the foolish will either not even see them or will disdain them altogether.
1) Dhammapada 15, 16 [Go back]
2) Bhagavad Gita 9:30, 31 [Go back]
3) Bhagavad Gita 16:7-20 [Go back]
4) I Timothy 5:24 [Go back]
5) Dhammapada 17, 18 [Go back]
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