Part 1: The Gift of Spring.
This past winter was one of the warmest experienced in the Northeast U.S. in my lifetime. It seems that almost each month for the last few years has been the warmest in history. Snow fall, ice storms, and other ‘usual’ weather events were not as severe. This has had an effect on the wildlife in our area.
A few days ago, as I was sitting at our kitchen table, a medium sized Black Bear casually walked over and ripped the tube bird feeder from the bracket. This was as I sat five feet away. He/she looked at me while removing the top of the feeder and gulped down the finch food. It seems this is a favorite of the bears. They go for that feeder first. I guess they like nyjer and thistle seeds.
To my surprise the bear walked around to the side of the house and with precision opened the suet basket, which had been filled that morning. Removing the suet block the bear sat down and ate the suet like a sandwich. Following the repast our fury friend walked back up the hill behind the hondo.
Usually, the bears don’t grab the bird feeders until April. This was an early encounter. In the past I considered the early sign of spring to be the flowering of daffodils and snow drops in March. But ‘real spring’ was in April with the appearance of swallows doing acrobatics around the hondo and bears grabbing the bird feeders.
The signs our planet is changing are numerous. That is cause for concern. However, an early spring is still a real gift to the spirit.
Part 2: Lexicology is Pertinent.
Studying Buddhism in the 21st century is exciting. When I started my informal Asian religious, cultural, historical, philosophic, studies, in the 1960s (while still in high school) most city and college library shelves had precious few titles. The translations and interpretations made – interesting – assumptions regarding word choice and language in general. Words such as Śūnyatā were translated as emptiness, end of story.
That began to change in the 1970s, and the offerings were like an avalanche of new titles by the 1980s. In the 1990s and 2000s, translations, commentary and well-developed theses were flowing regularly. There is scarcely a month that goes by without my acquiring one or four new titles and many more journal articles. These works are nuanced and informed by linguistic subtlety and contextual clarification.
We now have the advantage of both paper and digital formats. If they were all paper my study would scarcely have room for a desk.
Where was I going with this? That’s it. . . words.
When starting to study Buddhist and Asian studies more seriously, in the 1980’s, the nuance of translations was not only of greater concern, the translations of Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese words were often understood to be inadequate, if not misleading.
Duḥkha, is often translated as suffering, pain, and such. Thus, the First Noble Truth is often rendered as ‘life is filled with suffering’. A pretty dismal, if not nihilistic, philosophy.
There is a subtle range of meanings to duḥkha. Several terms we often now use are discontentedness and unease. Though a single word translation is inadequate because the word embodies a diverse aspect of adverse human experiences. It does not imply that life is filled with suffering, but rather we inevitably encounter unwanted experiences. Just as important, there are ways to mitigate, though not eliminate, these experiences.
Duḥkha is understood as the opposite of sukha, meaning ‘happiness,’ ‘comfort’ or ‘ease.’ In the Pali canon of the Theravada, sukha is an indispensable condition for attaining samādhi, or deep meditaton.
One of my favorite quotes is from Zhuangzi, “Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.” This leads to another question, what is happiness?
In Buddhism happiness is a sense of long-term well-being, peace of mind and satisfaction with our lives. People often confuse pleasure for happiness. Happiness is achieved when a person can perceive the true nature of reality, unmodified by the mental constructs we superimpose upon it.
The Eightfold Path is the key to cessation of duḥkha and achieving sukha. The Eightfold Path is composed of three elements, 1. ethics and morality, or moral virtue, 2. Meditation, or calm self-mastery, and 3. Wisdom, or insight into the nature of reality. Taken together all eight-guiding principles lead to the Middle way, which is moderation.
We bandy about the word happiness in so many ways. In contemporary usage,” we are conditioned to believe that happiness lies in attaining certain goals or possessions – be it a dream job, a loving relationship, or financial success . . . [Zhuangzi] implies that happiness is not something tangible or external but rather an inherent part of our being. By constantly seeking happiness outside ourselves, we perpetuate a cycle of dissatisfaction and yearning, always feeling incomplete or lacking.” (socratic-method.com)
Another use of happiness is one that we take for granted. It is foundational to American democracy. The Declaration of Independence identified “the pursuit of happiness” as one of our unalienable rights, along with life and liberty. This use of happiness in early America has more to do with Buddhist teachings than one might imagine.
Today ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ is interpreted in so many ways. Conservative writers have posited that it refers to property ownership, unlimited possession of handguns and automatic weapons, as well as libertarian values. Those on the other end of the political spectrum have associated it with universal health care, guaranteed income, and progressive values. In other words, it has become a phrase that can be manipulated in ways never intended by the writers of the Declaration.
It was with great interest that I recently read The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America (Jeffery Rosen (2024) Simon & Schuster). Rosen dedicated himself to finding the original meaning of what was the happiness the founders’ thought was an inalienable right?
Rosen read the classical Greek and Roman moral philosophers who inspired the Founders, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton—to show what pursuing happiness meant in their lives.
Citing from a review of the book, “In so doing [Rosen] shows us how they understood the pursuit of happiness as a quest for being good, not feeling good—the pursuit of lifelong virtue, not short-term pleasure. Among those virtues were the habits of industry, temperance, moderation, and sincerity, which the Founders viewed as part of a daily struggle for self-improvement, character development, and calm self-mastery. They believed that political self-government required personal self-government. For all six Founders, the pursuit of virtue was incompatible with enslavement of African Americans, although the Virginians betrayed their own principles.”
Franklin had concluded in one of his writings that “without virtue men can have no Happiness in this World.”
“At its core, the Founders viewed the pursuit of happiness as a lifelong quest for character improvement, where we use our powers of reason to moderate our unproductive emotions so that we can be our best selves and serve others.” (Rosen p. 6)
Reading the commentary in the book, quotes from the Founders, and passages from the moral philosophers they studied, gave me an appreciation of the convergence of philosophy between the giants of early Greece, Rome, Europe, and their Asian counterparts.
Happiness is not something one strives for, as Zhuangzi told us. It comes about through living a life of humility, virtue, the middle way, and calm self-mastery, as Lao Tsu, Xenophon, Zhuangzi, Socrates, Epictetus, Mho Tzu, Marcus Aurelius, Hillel, Seneca, Saicho, St. Francis, Cicero, Bolingbroke, Hume, Kaim and Śakyamuni Buddha, informed us.
With Love and Gassho . . . Monshin