This poem is all the more remarkable when you know the story behind it. The Elder Gotamī is the very same KisaGotamī who was at the heart of the mustard seed tragedy. As a young woman she was married into an abusive family, who scorned her for being so skinny (kisa) and for not bearing children. She finally did give birth to a fine healthy son, and was then treated well by her relatives. Alas the child had some sort of terrible accident as a toddler and was killed. This drove Gotamī mad with … [Read more...]
News - Poem
Kama Sutta
September 1, 2015This is the Pali version of the better-known Sanskrit work, Kāma Sutra. Discerning readers may notice that the two texts are somewhat different (this one is shorter, for example). I’m translating the word "kāma" here as "pleasure," but it really refers to the wanting of pleasure, the grasping after gratification through sensory objects, and thus denotes an emotional response rather than a feeling tone. It is easy to underestimate the subtlety of the Buddha's teaching here, and to thus … [Read more...]
Words Well Said
August 25, 2015These verses were offered by Vangīsa, a monk renowned in his time for his poetic skill, after hearing the Buddha talk about the qualities of good speech. No less than seventy-two stanzas of Vangisa’s have been preserved in the anthology of monks’ verse known as the Theragāthā, more than any other monk, including Sāriputta, Ānanda, Mahā Kassapa and Moggallāna. He tells of formerly being “drunk with skill in composing poetry” (Thag 1253) as he wandered from town to town, presumably earning a … [Read more...]
Keeping the Wheel Rolling
July 18, 2015Sāriputta (also known by the name Upatissa) was the Buddha’s leading follower, particularly praised for his wisdom. These verses, containing eight syllables per line, have been extracted from a longer poem of thirty seven verses preserved in the Theragāthā. They describe man who continues to spend his time in solitary meditation in the forest, even after having attained the full awakening of the arahant. The elder keeps the dharma wheel of the Buddha’s teaching rolling by such dedication to … [Read more...]
A Mother’s Blessing
July 14, 2015The woman who is said to have composed this poem was Pajapati, the Buddha's step-mother and a Queen of the Sakyas. Her younger sister was Maya, married to King Suddhodana only after Pajapati herself was unable to conceive an heir. Queen Maya died in childbirth, and it was Pajapati who raised Gotama as her own son. After his enlightenment, Pajapati also left the palace and became the first of the bhikkhuis, the order of nuns. The third stanza suggests that her attainments included the … [Read more...]
The Lonely Forest Dweller
July 14, 2015These lovely verses are attributed to Tissa Kumāra, the youngest brother of King Ashoka, and if this is true it demonstrates how some of the poetry of the Theragāthā entered into the Pali Canon relatively late—at the time of the Third Council (c. 250 B.C.E.). Prince Tissa was made Vice Regent when Ashoka was first consecrated King. But within only a few years, inspired by the example of a forest-dwelling monk he encountered while hunting, he renounced worldly life to live as a simple Buddhist … [Read more...]
Beaten Like A Thief
July 13, 2015These powerful words echo through twenty-five centuries of humanity to reach our ears today. It makes one's spine tingle to think how many voices—now long silent—have uttered these words in each of the one hundred generations that have come and gone since Sirimanda first composed them. How many have heeded their message? How many can hear it today? This is the kind of literature that leads some to view Buddhism as holding a pessimistic outlook on the world. But in fact it is merely expressing … [Read more...]
The Soothing of Grief
July 13, 2015This tender poem of loss and recovery was (probably) composed by Patacara, one of the leading women of the Buddha's order of nuns. Born the daughter of a wealthy banker, Patacara fell in love with one of her father’s servants and ran off to live happily with him in a forest hamlet. Then, through a series of tragic accidents, she lost first her husband, then two sons, and finally her parents and brother. Wandering destitute, naked and mad with grief, she in time met the Buddha face to face, who … [Read more...]
The Call of the Peacocks
June 22, 2015Theragatha 211-12 This highly alliterated poem, attributed to the elder monk Culaka, plays with the prefix su-, which occurs no less than 14 times in these two short stanzas. It has three primary meanings, covered successively through the poem: 1) lovely or well-formed, 2) good, thorough, or well done, and 3) it is often used as a simple intensive prefix, meaning very- or most-. The plaintive call of the peacock, commonplace during the 3 month rainy season retreats undertaken by the … [Read more...]
A Wish of Lovingkindness
June 22, 2015Cullavagga V.6 This less-well-known mettā verse has its origins in an ancient, probably pre-Buddhist, snake charm. It is taught by the Buddha in the Vinaya in response to his hearing of a monk who perished after being bitten by a snake. The first stanza, not translated here, extends loving kindness to the four main groups of snake deities. The Buddha tells the monks that if they adequately develop loving kindness to these snake deities, they will be free of harm from snake … [Read more...]