308. BURNING: Following the image of Augustine’s cauldron (note 307), see Shakespeare*, Macbeth 4.1.10-11 for the witches’ chorus:
“Double, Double toil and trouble:
Fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.”
See also the witches call of “‘Tis time, tis time,” at note 141.
For another reference to burning, see Joyce, Ulysses (note 111).
THE FIRE SERMON: Eliot*: “The complete text of the Buddha's Fire Sermon, (which corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken, will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren's Buddhism in Translation (Harvard Oriental Series). Mr. Warren was one of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident.”
The Fire Sermon is a central Buddhist text. See Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, Adittapariyaya Sutta (Āditta Sutta), Samyutta Nikaya 35.28 (483 BCE, tr. Warren, 1896):
“The eye, O priests, is on fire; forms are on fire; eye-consciousness is on fire; impressions received by the eye are on fire; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent, originates in dependence on impressions received by the eye, that also is on fire. And with what are these on fire? With the fire of passions, say I, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of infatuation, with birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair are they on fire.
...Perceiving this, O priests, the learned and noble disciple conceives an aversion for the eye, conceives an aversion for forms, an aversion for eye-consciousness, an aversion for the impressions received by the eye; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent, originates in dependence on impressions received by the eye.
...And in conceiving this aversion, he becomes divested of passion, and by the absence of passion he becomes free, and when he is free he becomes aware that he is free; and he knows that rebirth is exhausted, that he has lived the holy life, that he has done what it behooved him to do, and that he is no more for this world.”
See below for an alternative translation of the Fire Sermon.
THE EYE, throughout this poem, is veiled or averted: it fails (line 39), is forbidden (line 54), fixes on the feet (line 65), hides behind wings (line 81), presses lidless (line 138), weeps (line 182), turns upward from the desk (line 216) and is covered, then opened (lines 360-363). See also note 219 for the spectrum of perceptiveness in this poem, and note 279 for a queen looking away.
309. PLUCKED OUT: Eliot*: “From St. Augustine's Confessions again. The collocation of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism, as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident.”
See Confessions (note 307) 10.34.53:
“And I, though I speak and see this, entangle my steps with these outward beauties; but Thou pluckest me out, O Lord, Thou pluckest me out; because Thy loving-kindness is before my eyes. For I am taken miserably, and Thou pluckest me out mercifully; sometimes not perceiving it, when I had but lightly lighted upon them; otherwhiles with pain, because I had stuck fast in them.”
See note 310 for a less merciful sense of being plucked out.
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* see note 0.1
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ĀDITTA SUTTA, by Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
The Fire Sermon
(Translated by J. Vold)
Everything is burning, holy ones.
And what is everything?
The eye, holy ones, is on fire;
the forms that pass it by are on fire;
the eye’s own awareness is on fire;
the impressions it receives are on fire,
and every sensation spawned
by the need for those impressions:
all pleasure, pain and numbness is on fire.
And how does the fire burn?
With the fires of passion:
passion burns the eye, holy ones,
with fires of hate and lust
and fires of delusion,
fires of birth and age, death and sorrow,
fires of crying and suffering,
grieving and despairing:
the eye with all its passions is on fire.
And not only the eye, holy ones,
but the ear is on fire and all that can be heard
is burning;
the nose is on fire and all that can be smelled
is burning;
the tongue is on fire and all that can be tasted
is burning;
the body is on fire and all that can be touched
is burning.
And sensing this, holy ones,
the wise and honorable disciple
learns to turn away:
he turns away from the eye
turns away from the forms,
turns away from awareness,
from impressions
and from every sensation spawned
by the need for those impressions,
turns away from all that is
pleasant, painful or numb;
he learns to turn away
from the ear and from what it hears,
from the nose and from what it smells,
from the tongue and from what it tastes,
from the body and from all that it can touch;
he learns to turn away from the mind
and from ideas,
from the mind’s awareness,
from impressions
and from the sensations spawned
by the need for those impressions;
he turns away from all that is
pleasant, painful or numb.
And by turning away, holy ones,
the disciple gives up all passions,
and when he leaves the fires of passion he is free:
and being free he knows that he is free:
he knows his birth is finally exhausted,
his holy life lived, his duty done,
and finally, holy ones,
he is no more for this world.
