Brahma Iii
Brahma III
The frivolous life lives vainly
looking at a phantom, chasing after illusion;
men accuse one another thinking their life is real,
fight each other thinking they are existing. Today as well,
I wander in the valley of maya(1) upholding a banner of avidya.(2)
When I see blooms
dance joyfully in the air with butterfly.
When I see flowers wilted
I lament drooping my shoulders.
When I hear the shrill chirrup of a cicada
I ponder over a meaning of misery
while carrying the scorching sun on my back.
Hanging on the wind
that took the color of moonlight
while stepping on the fallen leaves in the decaying plain,
I was stood in the midst of immaculate snow covered field
before I was aware of it, and that’s why I was struck with reverence;
it may be an indication that the soles of my feet may have stepped
onto pure ground. Anyhow, while thawing the frozen heart
with my breath, the breath freezes before my heart is thawed,
I found I am standing in the colorless empty field.
Since all are nil, the weight of life is nothing
more than the weight of a shadow. And the trail
leading to a tunnel of darkness I must grope through
entrusting my karma(3) from former life.
Still, I must overcome former life’s karma
arousing my consciousness looking up to dharma,(4)
walking with samcita(5) karma, by means of meritorious deeds
and virtuous conduct. Still, laying problems before me is
no way to get rid of the rusts of the flesh. Anguish comes from
the bottom of the deepest sea, keeps tormenting me.
Although, I may not able to step on the faramita(6) the pure land,
who knows agami(7) karma’s knot maybe loosen if I swam
through the sea of anguish. Alas, it would be another illusion
in the cycle of reincarnation because sabha(8) is nothing but the nothing.
If it’s not the nirvana(9) able to avoid naraka(10)
and it’s the way to flee from the cycle of reincarnation
which is the beginning and end of the life. It would be better
to die on a roadside no one knows while traveling
to an unknown destination, because life wheels around
fettered to eternity that would connect to dust forever
is a furthered karma, the detestable life’s linkage
and it’s the samsara,(11) which overcomes nil with nil,
it’s the means to win anguish, to attain
a stage of asasrava(12) through moksha,(13)
to unite the world of Brahma
the beginning and end of the straying soul.
1.Maya: error and illusion; the evil covering reality. 2. Avidya: ignorance 3. Karma: effect of actions for individual’s successive life’s cycle 4. Dharma: social and cosmic law, i.e., right, virtue, duty, order, etc. 5. Samcita: effects able to expiate or neglect through jnana—cogitation, knowledge, wisdom, insight which is to effect mokusha. 6. Faramita: the other side of the world attainable through nirvana 7.Agami: effects currently generated and determining future.
8. Sabha: secular world. 9. Nirvana: the complete extinction of individuality, the state of united to brahma. 10. Naraka: bottomless pit, hell. 11. Samsara: the passage of the soul in the cycle of births and deaths 12. Asasrava: the state of no longer troubled by anxiety
13.. Mokusha: liberation from the effects of karma thereby resulting samsara
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Su Ben
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