by Jack Kerouac
“Adoration to all the Tathagatas, Sugatas, Buddhas, perfect in wisdom and compassion, who have accomplished, are accomplishing, and will accomplish all these words of mystery. So be it!
“Ananda, prepare quietly a quiet place, be not moved by others’ way of thinking, do not compromise to agree with the ignorance of others, go thou alone, make solitude thy paradise; the Brotherhood of the Gentle Eyes, the white-souled tranquil votaries of good, will support thee.
“The mind acquainted with the law of production, stability, and destruction, recognizes how again and once again things follow or succeed one another with no endurance. The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‘self.’
“The wise man had nothing to do with form before his birth, has nothing to do with form now, shall have nothing to do with form after he dies, free from anxious thoughts about relationships. And how will he die, knowing that being and not-being of his form are the same?
“Ananda, weep not. My purpose is to put an end to the repetition of birth of form. Unfixed, unprofitable, under the nailer, without the marks of long endurance, constantly blowing and changing and agonized with restraint and restlessness, all things are in a branch of torment because of form.
“Unconsoled, all things that are formed, come to ultimate decay.
“Receive the Law as it explains itself.”
To the Likkhavis of Vaisali who came with grievous faces after having heard of his decision to die, the Blessed One said:- “In ancient days the Rishi Kings, Vasishtha Rishi, Mandhatri, the Kakravartin monarchs, and the rest, these and all others like them, the former conquerors, who lived with strength like Isvara (God), these all have long ago perished, not one remains till now; the sun and moon, Sakra himself, and the great multitude of his attendants, will all, without exception, perish; there is not one that can for long endure; all the Buddhas of the past ages, numerous as the sands of the Ganges, by their wisdom enlightening the world, have all gone out as a lamp; all the Buddhas yet to come will also perish in the same way; why then should I alone be different?
“I too will pass into Nirvana; but as they prepared others for salvation, so now should you press forward in the path, Vaisali may be glad indeed, if you should find the way of rest!
“The world, in truth, is void of help, the ‘three worlds’ not enough for joy—stay then the course of sorrow, by engendering a heart without desire.
“Give up for good the long and straggling way of life, press onward on the northern track, step by step advance along the upward road, as the sun skirts along the western mountains.”
In his last preaching tour the Master came to the town of Pava, and there in the house of Chunda, the blacksmith, he had his last repast. The Blessed One understood that the pork offered by Chunda was not fit to eat and very bad; Sukaramaddava, it has been established, a kind of poisonous truffle; he advised his monks not to touch it and in conformity with the Buddhist rule of accepting all alms from the faithful no matter how poor and lowly, he ate it himself. After this he became mortally ill of dysentery and moved to Kusinagara in the eastern part of the Nepalese Terai.
To Ananda he said: “Between those twin Bala trees, sweeping and watering, make a clean space, and then arrange my sitting-mat. At midnight coming, I shall die.
“Go! tell the people, the time of my decease is come: they, the Mallas of this district, if they see me not, will ever grieve and suffer deep regret.”
He warned his disciples never to accuse Chunda, the blacksmith, of being responsible for his death but rather to praise him for bringing Nirvana nigh to the Leader of men.
To the Mallas who came in tears he said: “Grieve not! the time is one for joy. No call for sorrow or for anguish here; that which for ages I have aimed at, now am I just about to obtain; delivered now from the narrow bounds of sense, I leave these things, earth, water, fire, and air, to rest secure where neither birth or death can come.
“Eternally delivered there from grief, oh! tell me! why should I be sorrowful?
“Of yore on Sirsha’s mount, I longed to rid me of this body, but to fulfil my destiny I have remained till now with men in the world: I have kept this sickly, crumbling body, as dwelling with a poisonous snake; but now I am come to the great resting-place, all springs of sorrow now forever stopped.
“No more shall I receive a body, all future sorrow now forever done away; it is not meet for you, on my account, for evermore, to encourage any anxious fear.
A sick man depending on the healing power of medicine, gets rid of all his ailments easily without beholding the physician.
“He who does not do what I command sees me in vain, this brings no profit; whilst he who lives far off from where I am, and yet walks righteously, is ever near me!
“Keep your heart carefully—give not place to listlessness! earnestly practice every good work. Man born in this world is pressed by all the sorrows of the long career, ceaselessly troubled—without a moment’s rest, as any lamp blown by the wind!”
In his last moments the Blessed One received a monk Subhadra, a heretic, showed him that the world is cause-produced and that by destruction of the cause there is an end, a bowing-out, explained to him the Noble Eightfold Path, and converted him to the true faith of the Brotherhood of the Tender and Loving and Sad, announcing, “This my very last disciple has now attained Nirvana, cherish him properly.”
The Blessed One gave final instructions under the trees, sitting up to do so, as Ananda, out of his mind with despair, longed to place the frail sad head of his Lord in his lap to support and protect him from pain’s mindless indecency in this hour of death.
Said the Lord Buddha: “Keep the body temperate, eat at proper times; receive no mission as a go-between; compound no philteries; abhor dissimulation; follow right doctrine, and be kind to all that lives; receive in moderation what is given: receive but hoard not up; these are, in brief, my spoken precepts.
“Adore thy good-will, for they who do kind and hopeful good pay me most honor, and please me most.
“As in the last month of the autumn rains when the sky is clear and the clouds are gone, the great sun climbs the vault of heaven, pervading all space with his radiance, so good-will glows radiant above all other virtues; yea, it is as the morning-star.
“The black toad that dwells within his heart, the early waker disenchants and banishes.
“Give not way to anger or evil words towards men in power. Anger and hate destroy the true Law; and they destroy dignity and beauty of body.
“As the mongoose immune from the poison of the snake, even so the monk living amid hate and anger with tender heart.
“From the ‘desiring-little’ we find the way of true deliverance; desiring true freedom we ought to practice the contentment of ‘knowing-enough.’ For the rich and poor alike, having contentment, enjoy perpetual rest.
“Do not become insatiable in your requirements, and so through the long night of life gathering increasing sorrow. Many dependents are like the many bands that bind us; without this wisdom the mind is poor and insincere.
“Ever and ever have these pitiful, frightened selves gulped through to death, changing dreams miraculously, returning in ignorant new skin of babes; like trees,—arms, heaviness, blear peace.
“The poor wretches, deficient in wisdom and conduct, lapsed into the mundane whirl, retained in dismal places, plunged in affliction incessantly renewed. Fettered as they are by desire like the yak by its tail, continually blinded by sensual pleasure, they do not seek the Buddha, the mighty one; they do not seek the Law that leads to the end of pain.
“Hearing my words and not with care obeying them, this is not the fault of him who speaks.”
Near midnight in the silence of their brotherly woe the Blessed One said to his disciples: “Maybe it is from reverence to the Teacher that ye keep silence: let us rather speak as friend to friend.”
Anuruddha stepped forth and said: “O Blessed Lord, passed the sea of birth and death, without d
esire, with nothing to seek, we only know how much we love, and, grieving, ask why Buddha dies so quickly?”
And, “O my heart is joined to him!” cried Pingiya.
The Honored Elder Brother of Mankind said: “What think you, Brothers? Which is greater, the floods of tears which, weeping and wailing you have shed upon this long way, ever and ever again hastening towards new birth and new death, united to the undesired, separated from the desired, this, or the waters of the Four Great Seas?
“Long time, Brothers, have you suffered the death of a mother, for long the death of a father, for long the death of a son, for long the death of a daughter, for long the death of brothers and sisters, the loss of goods, the pangs of disease.
“There are some whose eyes are only a little darkened with dust, and they will perceive the truth.
“As a bird whom sailors loosed to discover land, came back when it failed to find it, so having failed to find the truth thou has returned to me.
“As thinking nothing of herself, a mother’s love enfolds and cherishes her only son, so now through the world let thy compassion move, and cover everyone.
“Even robbers will we permeate with stream of loving thought unfailing; and forth from them proceeding, enfold and permeate the whole wide world with constant thoughts of loving-kindness, ample, expanding, full of divine approval, joyously free from enmity, free from all suspicious fear. Yea, verily, thus, my disciples, thus must you school yourselves.
“Having arrived at the farther shore and reached Nirvana, do you not guide others to its safety?”
Ananda rose and sang his mournful song:-
“For five-and-twenty years on the
Exalted One
I waited, serving him with
loving thoughts
And like his shadow followed
after him.
When pacing up & down the
Buddha walked,
Behind his back I
kept the pace always;
And when the Law was being
taught,
In me knowledge grew, &
understanding.
But O he dies, now
he dies!
And I am one yet with
work to do,
A learner with a mind
not yet matured,
The flower of my pity has
not opened
And now the Master
breaks my heart & dies,
He, the Holy One, Awakened
Perfect in Wisdom & Compassion,
He, the Incomparable Trainer
of men,
He, the Morning-Star,
Love’s White Dove
and Suckling Lamb,
He, Milk of Rain and
Transcendental Pity,
the Chariot of Spotless
White, the Child, the Lotus King,
the Angel in Our Mind,
He dies, O now he dies
And leaves me mortal dimness
in the unimaginable brilliance
of the Void!”
Surrounding the Sala grove were younger monks and lay people who had realized that what this man taught was not only a verity, but the very hope of their salvation, because for the first time they had recognized in his words, which expressed the radiant confidence of his discovery, the truth that made of slaves free men, and of castes and classes brotherhood. But now because of the oncoming death of the temporary form of his body they were afraid, wise lambs affrighted by the assurance of the ignorant lion Death.
To them and to Ananda and to ease and purify their minds the Buddha said:- “In the beginning things were fixed, in the end again they separate; different combinations cause other substances, for there is no uniform and constant principle in nature. But when all mutual purposes be answered, what then shall chaos and creation do! the gods and men alike that should be saved, shall all have been completely saved! Ye then! my followers, who know so well the perfect law, remember! the end must come; give not way again to sorrow.
“Use diligently the appointed means; aim to reach the home where separation cannot come; I have lit the lamp of wisdom, its rays alone can drive away the gloom that shrouds the world. The world is not forever fixed! You should rejoice therefore! As when a friend, afflicted grievously, his sickness healed, escapes from pain. For I have put away this painful vessel, I have stemmed the flowing sea of birth and death, free forever now, from pain! For this you should exult with joy!
“Now guard yourselves aright, let there be no remissness! That which exists will all return to nothingness!
“And now I die.
“From this time forth my words are done, this is my very last instruction.”
Entering the Samadhi ecstasy of the first Dhyana meditation, he went successively through all the nine Dhyanas in a direct order; then inversely he returned throughout and entered on the first, and then from the first he raised himself and entered on the Fourth Dhyana, the Dhyana of Neither Joy nor Suffering, utterly pure and equal, the original and eternal perfect essence of Mind. Leaving the state of Samadhi ecstasy, his soul without a resting-place forthwith he reached Pari-Nirvana, complete extinction of the form after it has died.
The moon paled, the river sobbed, a mental breeze bowed down the trees.
Like the great elephant robbed of its tusks, or like the ox-king spoiled of his horns; or heaven without the sun and moon, or as the lily beaten by the hail, thus was the world bereaved when Buddha died.
Only in Nirvana is there joy, providing lasting escape, for to escape from the prison, was why the prison was made.
The diamond mace of inconstancy can overturn the mountain of the moon, but only the diamond curtain of Tathagata, the iron curtain of the mind, can overwhelm inconstancy! The long sleep, the end of all, the quiet, peaceful way is the highest prize of sages and of heroes and of saints.
Voluntarily enduring infinite trials through numberless ages and births, that he might deliver mankind and all life, foregoing the right to enter Nirvana and casting himself again and again into Sangsara’s stream of life and destiny for the sole purpose of teaching the way of liberation from sorrow and suffering, this is Buddha, who is everyone and everything, Aremideia the Light of the World, the Tathagata, Maitreya, the Coming Hero, the Walker of the terrace of earth, the Sitter under Trees, persistent, energetic, intensely human, the Great Wise Being of Pity and Tenderness.
The noble and superlative law of Buddha ought to receive the adoration of the world.
ALSO BY JACK KEROUAC
THE DULUOZ LEGEND
Visions of Gerard
Doctor Sax
Maggie Cassidy
Vanity of Duluoz
On the Road
Visions of Cody
The Subterraneans
Tristessa
Lonesome Traveller
Desolation Angels
The Dharma Bums
Book of Dreams
Big Sur
Satori in Paris
POETRY
Mexico City Blues
Scattered Poems
Pomes All Sizes
Heaven and Other Poems
Book of Blues
Book of Haikus
Book of Sketches
OTHER WORK
The Town and the City
The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
Some of the Dharma
Old Angel Midnight
Good Blonde & Others
Pull My Daisy
Trip Trap
Pic
The Portable Jack Kerouac
Selected Letters: 1940-1956
Selected Letters: 1957-1969
Atop an Underwood
Door Wide Open
Orpheus Emerged
Departed Angels: The Lost Paintings
Windblown World
Beat Generation: A Play
On the Road: The Original Scroll
Buddha
(Series: # )
