Bob Schwartz

Tag: Dhammapada

May 19, 2025

Random Buddhism (or any tradition)

Randomness is one of the most helpful and illuminating elements of life. Gregory Bateson commented that within the holy of holies is a random number table.

The I Ching is one example. It is a book that offers thoughts based on numbers generated in various ways, and additional thoughts on those numbers changing their character. The system is viewed different ways. It may be that the numbers are reflections of the moment and the situation. It may be that the numbers are random, and it is that randomness that makes the thoughts most valuable, given that whatever path is taken, it is changing as we plan and step. Those plans and steps are good but temporary. As physics finds with quanta, or as Shunryu Suzuki said, “It is so, but it is not always so.”

Randomness can be used with any text, not just the I Ching. A cousin of random numbers is bibliomancy, in which a page and passage on that page in a book are randomly selected for advice.

I have used random numbers to explore texts from many traditions; the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible contains 929 chapters, for example. Today I applied it to the Dhammapada, considered the most accessible and most widely-read summary of the Buddha’s teachings. It contains 423 verses. The number generated was 3:

“He abused me, attacked me,
Defeated me, robbed me!”
For those carrying on like this,
Hatred does not end.

“She abused me, attacked me,
Defeated me, robbed me!”
For those not carrying on like this,
Hatred ends.

Dhammapada, Chapter 1 – Dichotomies, translated by Gil Fronsdal

© 2025 by Bob Schwartz

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December 5, 2024

Some simple books to know

I worked to find a fitting title for this post. I know what I want to include or not include, but I don’t know how to digest that into a description. So I settled on “Some simple books to know” without explaining what I mean by “simple”. Maybe you’ll figure it out.

Anyway, this is a list, without much else. All are found in multiple English translations and commentaries, which I need, and maybe you need, since I am not capable in Pali, Chinese, biblical Hebrew, or Coptic.

At some later time, I hope to detail each of these books individually, and why it is essential to read and study different translations and commentaries. For now, just peruse the list, investigate if you like.

Dhammapada

There are millions of words attributed to the Buddha, written about the Buddha and Buddhism. This is the most concise collection of the Buddha’s sayings. It is the first book I ever read about Buddhism, and there is no time, all these books later, I do not turn to it.

Tao Te Ching

The foundational text of Taoism. Lao Tzu was likely not a real person. This wisdom is simple, compelling, everlasting, and very real.

Chuang Tzu (the title of the text and the name of the person)

Chuang Tzu was more likely than Lao Tzu to have been a real person, though words attributed to him are likely not all his. Doesn’t matter. Few figures in wisdom history are as earnestly wild and fun as this guy. His reach among contemporary creators and thinkers is extensive. If any work on this list can be described as mind-blowing, he/this is it. (He is the originator of the well-known story in which he wakes up not knowing whether he is a man who dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly who dreamt he was a man.)

Book of Job

One of the truly transgressive books of the Hebrew Bible. If read as “God knows best and who are you to question. Trust Me.”, which is what the added coda and much teaching indicate, it is piously conforming. If read as “this is a mystery, none of us knows what is going on, and things do get bad and good fast (in other words, WTF!)” you are closer to a truth.

Ecclesiastes/Kohelet

The first mystery of Kohelet is how it ever ended up in the Hebrew Bible, given that it reflects so much human agency and freedom in the face of an everchanging impermanent life and world, a world where everything is wind and vapor (a better translation of hevel, which in the KJV is “vanity”). Kohelet is not a license to do whatever you want because we are all going to die anyway. It is a navigational guide to days, seasons and years that are seemingly orderly but actually chaotic, even absurd. It’s a wonderful life.

Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas is sometimes referred to as the Fifth Gospel. As with the words of Jesus in the other four, scholars have worked tirelessly to determine as best as possible which are actually his and which are added in the spirit of his teaching. Thomas is entirely sayings, no narrative, some of which ended up in the other gospels, some of which are found only in this text. Among the sayings, the one that for me stands above all is this: “Be [or become] passersby.” (Saying 42) If you know that, you know (almost) everything.

© 2024 by Bob Schwartz

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November 20, 2018

Thinksgiving

Dhammapada. One of the most popular and best-loved Buddhist texts. It consists of 423 verses divided into 26 sections arranged according to subject matter. In practice it is a sort of anthology of verses from various books of the canon.
A Dictionary of Buddhism

3. MIND

As the fletcher whittles
And makes straight his arrows,
So the master directs
His straying thoughts.

Like a fish out of water,
Stranded on the shore,
Thoughts thrash and quiver.
For how can they shake off desire?

They tremble, they are unsteady,
They wander at their will.
It is good to control them,
And to master them brings happiness.

But how subtle they are,
How elusive!
The task is to quieten them,
And by ruling them to find happiness.

With single-mindedness
The master quells his thoughts.
He ends their wandering.
Seated in the cave of the heart,
He finds freedom.

How can a troubled mind
Understand the way?
If a man is disturbed
He will never be filled with knowledge.

An untroubled mind,
No longer seeking to consider
What is right and what is wrong,
A mind beyond judgments,
Watches and understands.

Know that the body is a fragile jar,
And make a castle of your mind.
In every trial
Let understanding fight for you
To defend what you have won.

For soon the body is discarded.
Then what does it feel?
A useless log of wood, it lies on the ground.
Then what does it know?

Your worst enemy cannot harm you
As much as your own thoughts, unguarded.
But once mastered,
No one can help you as much,
Not even your father or your mother.

The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha
A Rendering by Thomas Byrom

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August 30, 2016

Laughing at Swallowing a Flaming Iron Ball

Dhammapada - Juan Mascaro

This morning I laughed at a few translated lines from a great and serious spiritual classic. The Dhammapada is a brief (423 verses in 26 chapters) collection of the sayings of the Buddha. For over two thousand years, there may have been no more succinct summary of the heart of Buddhism.

As with the Bible, there are many translations of the Dhammapada from Pali into English, each with its own character. I keep a number of different translations handy, and given that chapters are short, it is possible to easily compare.

I was reading Chapter 25, called variously The Monk, The Practitioner, The Seeker, The Bhikku. In the very loose and poetic translation by Thomas Byrom, the chapter begins:

Master your senses,
What you taste and smell,
What you see, what you hear.

In all things be a master
Of what you do and say and think.
Be free.

You are a seeker.
Delight in the mastery
Of your hands and your feet,
Of your words and your thoughts.

It is at verse 371 that I got my laugh. There the worthy translation by Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya reads:

Do not allow your heart to whirl in the pleasures of senses.
Do not swallow a flaming iron ball and then,
As you burn, cry out, “Oh, that hurts!”

I can’t explain, exactly, what is funny about that last line. It just is. Compared to the other translations of what you might say swallowing this hot iron ball (“This is woe!”, “This is pain!”, “This is suffering!”, “No more!”), “Oh, that hurts!” just tickled me.

Note: Some other translations of the Dhammapada worth looking at:

Juan Mascaro (The first I ever read, excellent, and an awesome bargain as an ebook: $.95 v. $6.38 for the paperback.)

Gil Fronsdal

Glenn Wallis

John Ross Carter

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February 29, 2016

How to Change Your Mind

Floral Chair

The phrase “how to change your mind” is, as are many English expressions, simple and complex:

“How to” as in which method.
“How to” as in which direction.
“Change your mind” as in making a different decision.
“Change your mind” as in transforming it.

Sorting through all that begins with an example.

There is a big colorful overstuffed chair. The fancy fabric is maybe striped or covered with big flowers or designs.

You look at it and think it is beautiful or ugly. You sit in it and think it is comfortable or uncomfortable.

Someone else looks at it and thinks it is beautiful or ugly. Sits in it and thinks it comfortable or uncomfortable.

You two discuss the chair, your thoughts and feelings about it. One may try and explain to the other why one view or experience is better or worse, right or wrong. You might talk about the construction and style relative to the current market for chairs or the historic evolution of chairs.

Yet there it just is. An object with four legs, to keep you sitting up from the floor. There it just is.

You might change your mind about the chair by engaging in the discussion about it, or by sitting in it a few more times.

Or you might realize that it is just that chair. About which your mind is fundamentally changed. Whether the chair is plain wood or elaborately upholstered. Whether you think about it or look at it or sit in it or not.

That is one way to change your mind.

MIND is the forerunner of all actions.
All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one speaks or acts with a corrupt mind, suffering follows,
As the wheel follows the hoof of an ox pulling a cart.

Mind is the forerunner of all actions.
All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one speaks or acts with a serene mind,
Happiness follows,
As surely as one’s shadow.

“He abused me, mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.”
Harboring such thoughts keeps hatred alive.
“He abused me, mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.”
Releasing such thoughts banishes hatred for all time.

From the Dhammapada, translated by Ananda Maitreya.

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October 15, 2015

Treasure Again

Dhammapada

How could I know
When I first read this treasure
How I would wander away
This way and that.
Make no mistake that others
Had value
Like other food that feeds well
Medicine that soothes ills.
But all along there it stood
Waiting for me to look again
And see its simplicity.
No time wasted
Here it is.

It is easier than we might think to lose track of things that once inspired us, the way a match is lost once we use it to light a fire.

This verse refers to my turning back to the Dhammapada. It is the brief, most basic, and most widely-read collection of wisdom from the Buddha, whose recollected discourses fill volumes. Depending on which Buddhist trails you follow, just as with Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc. trails, you will have read and heard plenty of excellent teaching from plenty of excellent teachers along the way. But there is something extraordinary about revisiting the first thing seen, the first coin from the treasure, which for many on the Buddhist way is The Dhammapada.

If you are curious to explore the Dhammapada, try this translation by Thomas Byrom or this one by Gil Fronsdal, both from Shambhala Publications.

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