The Swans

Commentary on the Dhammapada–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

In India from time immemorial swans have been symbols of the liberated spirits. They fly easily through the boundless sky, and upon earth they can extract milk from a mixture of milk and water. They do this by means of an acid in their mouths which they expel into the water. The acid makes the milk coagulate, and the swans eat the solidified milk, leaving the water behind. Both the jivatman and the Paramatman are referred to as “Hansa”–swan–in the scriptures. This was well known to Buddha, so he said:

“The recollected go forth to lives of renunciation. They take no pleasure in a fixed abode. Like wild swans abandoning a pool, they leave one resting place after another” (Dhammapada 91).

Translators render this verse in differing ways. Two of the most authoritative, and which we should keep in mind are:

“The mindful [satimanto] exert themselves. To no abode are they attached. Like swans that quit their pools, home after home they abandon [and go].” (Venerable Narada Thera)

“The mindful keep active, don’t delight in settling back. They renounce every home, every home, like swans taking off from a lake.” (Thannissaro Bhikkhu)

* The recollected go forth to lives of renunciation.

Those who are inwardly perceptive are the most capable of understanding what is happening around them and the nature of the world in general. Consequently they know that without a total, life-consuming endeavor it will be impossible for them to attain any significant or lasting spiritual progress. Therefore they “go forth to lives of renunciation.” This is not a mere formal taking up of an external ascetic life, but, as Narada Thera puts it, they “exert themselves” continually, like good soldiers intending to fight on until the last breath. As Thanissaro renders it: “The mindful keep active, don’t delight in settling back.” A lot of people experience some kind of awakening or opening, and then settle right back into the spot where they were before. A tremendous amount of people do this, even if they keep a few external marks accumulated during their awake period: they still have some trappings of dharma–maybe even a seldom-entered meditation room or area–and they may still retain some kind of affiliation to a spiritually-oriented group (some even become fervent and life-long cult members as a substitute for real progress). But inwardly they are right where they were before it all began.

* They take no pleasure in a fixed abode.

On the obvious level this means they no longer want a personal, ego-expressive environment, and leave such for an ashram-type situation. But a person can “go to seed” spiritually as easily in an ashram as in a private home. What is needed is to not “settle down” in any spiritual outlook or condition, but to keep moving onward, developing, expanding their horizons. They should be always ready to revise, overhaul, and completely change their outlook and approach to the ways of dharma, for their understanding should continual expand and their spiritual vision should continually attain new horizons.

* Like wild swans abandoning a pool, they leave one resting place after another.

This is because true spiritual life is a matter of continual growth, and growth means CHANGE. If a person is seen to remain the same year after year he is not stable or established in spiritual life, he is sterile and static–he is dead, and very likely artificial. You cannot keep going forward and not be moving at the same time, passing from one place to another. “Home after home they abandon,” as Narada Thera translates it. “They renounce every home, every home,” in the version of Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

“Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). At first glance this just seems to mean that Jesus had no fixed abode, but was a wanderer–as was the case. But there is a much deeper meaning here. The awakened human being can rest his “head” nowhere upon earth–nor in inner ideas and “contentments.” Only in God-realization can he truly find rest. Those of lesser evolution easily and happily dwell in “holes” and “nests,” but it is not so with those who have attained true human status–self-awareness and insight into the necessity for continual traversing of the path from relative to Absolute, but finite to Infinite.

The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) hired himself out to a pig farmer, and was so hungry he wanted to eat the garbage fed to the pigs, but he could not. It is the same with the awakened; they can no longer eat the swill in which those of low evolution revel, but must find other sustenance. And just as the developing human being continually outgrows one status for another, so does the worthy aspirant. People often cluck their tongues and wag their heads over those who keep changing, moving from point to point in their spiritual search, but Buddha commends them, likening them to “swans taking off from a lake”–ever growing, ever moving, ever free.

“Those for whom there is no more acquisition, who are fully aware of the nature of food, whose dwelling place is an empty and imageless release–the way of such people is hard to follow, like the path of birds through the sky” (Dhammapada 92).

* Those for whom there is no more acquisition.

Having attained the Absolute, nothing remains to be attained.

* Who are fully aware of the nature of food.

No matter how much you eat, after a while you will need to eat again or you will die. Buddha is speaking here of the awareness of the impermanence of all material things–an impermanence that reveals their fundamental non-existence. So the wise have ceased to find anything real in material objects.

* Whose dwelling place is an empty and imageless release.

They dwell in that Being which is beyond all “thingness”–not “nothing” but No Thing. Such a condition beyond name and form and all objective consciousness is Release–Nirvana.

* The way of such people is hard to follow, like the path of birds through the sky.

The liberated pass through this world without leaving a mark. It is the ignorant who build up institutions around their memory and create a “path” and a “teaching” that was supposedly followed or taught by them. In contrast to the free ways of the masters, the “disciples” are hidebound, superstitious, and determinedly narrow-minded. (They call it “focus,” “loyalty,” and “stability.”) The masters sought and found the Infinite, but their followers “attain the feet of Sri N.” upon their death–or at least the others say they do. It is all delusion. As Jesus said: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

“He whose inflowing thoughts are dried up, who is unattached to food, whose dwelling place is an empty and imageless release–the way of such a person is hard to follow, like the path of birds through the sky” (Dhammapada 93).

This is very like the previous verse. The two additional points are important.

* He whose inflowing thoughts are dried up.

“Impressions” is a better translation than “thoughts,” for thoughts proceed outward, not inward. From all sides impressions originating outside of us flow into our minds like breezes blowing over a lake causing ripples and thus disturbing the surface and distorting its reflecting power. These are the waves in the chitta whose cessation Patanjali defines as Yoga. The liberated yogi is not unaware of external phenomena, but they do not “touch” him–they make no impression whatsoever on his consciousness in the form of evoking a response. He sees and knows, but is unaffected and unconditioned by those experiences. “Water flows continually into the ocean but the ocean is never disturbed,” says the Gita (2:70).

* Unattached to food

–freed from all involvement or desire for externalities of any kind upon which the ego-mind can “feed.”