Men of Stone

I keep finding more to say and more and more sources about the Man of Wood.  That's why today I decided to blog about the Man of Stone (rdo'i mi) instead.  I'll begin by just giving the sources, since I'm not sure if I'll write any conclusion at all today.  To do that I would first have to get into some new... to me... and interesting... well, to myself at least... insights that cover both the Man of Wood and the Man of Stone as a 'natural' pair. And to do that I'd have to go into some new thinking on the Man of Wood, which I'll just have to save for another time, since the sources seem to keep rolling in. I'd hate to jinx this by writing about it too soon. 

Just a hint for those few who might be able to accept it with supernatural ease: wood and stone are images that Buddhists could and did use to talk about issues of insentience, which is the alternative to sentience (as in 'sentient beings' which we could just as well call 'sapient beings'). They are images that (in one area or another... this being an important point... as in illness, fear, anxiety, counterproductive thinking... Well, you get the idea), encourage imperviousness, immovability. Even non-thought or 'mindlessness' in a certain sense, at least, if you don't mind me using that scary term (and if you do, you just never mind for now). Without wasting any more of our precious time (only joking, actually I could just care less about our precious time and plan to use up a whole lot of it, Huh huh haw!), I'd like to give just about all the examples I could find in the Zhijé Collection.  The first ones I have translated in complete verses. The single lines work fine individually, but there is also a strong possibility that there may be, at times, an elusive conceptual continuity...

The first source, unlike the others, is found both in the Dergé Tanjur (no. 2440) and in the Zhijé Collection (vol. 1, pp. 383-404, at p. 387). It's called Secret Vajra Song: Great Sealing Precepts (Phyag-rgya-chen-po'i Man-ngag Rdo-rje Gsang-ba'i Glu). This is a Mahâmudrâ teaching from the Great Siddha by the name of Saraha, who ought to be the author, therefore. But I wonder if it resulted from a vision Padampa had of Saraha, which would mean we could with some reason call Padampa the author, too? (Just a question. Not like I have an answer or anything.)  

dud pas mi 'jigs rtsi med sbrang ma'i tshang ||
'chi bdag kha ru ma tshud skye 'gro gad ||
lus la 'byung ba ma 'khrugs rdo yi mi ||
ming nas bos pas shi ba ldog gam ci ||

gad > ZC gang. rdo yi mi > ZC rdo'i myi.

It won't be destroyed by smoke, the beehive with no honey.
The creature not thrown into the mouth of the death lord, [show me] one.
In his body are no disturbances of the elements,* the man of stone.
Its name called out, does the dead man turn around to see?

*Disturbance of the elements very simply means physical sickness.

... ... ...

ZC vol.1, p. 396

kye ho sgyu ma'i skyes bu'i 'du shes stor ||
don byed mi nus rmi lam nor gyi gzeb ||
rdo yi mi yi rig byed gang du song ||
glang po'i mgo la rwa med chag dogs bral ||

gzeb > ZC gseb. rdo yi mi yi > ZC rdo'i myi'i. rig > ZC rigs. chag > ZC chags.

chu shing snying po phyi nang gnyis kar med ||
dug sbrul ma bltas sgo nga blang mi rung ||
drang srong nad kyi grogs dang gnyen po soms ||
ded dpon bu ni yab la gling rgyus 'dri ||

sgo nga > ZC sgong nga.

Oh my! The person of illusion has lost his ideas about things.
No profit will come of it, a basket full of wealth in a dream.
The intelligence (Vedas?) of the man of stone, Where did it go?
The elephant with no tusks on its head has nothing to fear.

The banana tree has no essence, neither within nor without.
Taking the egg but not checking for the viper is not to be done.
Do the rishis* [need] nurses and antidotes, you think?
The ship captain's son, for familiarity with the islands, questions his father.

*The ancient sages (seven or eight rishis) of Indian lore are the real founders of medicine among humans. They are believed to live forever... well, very nearly so.

... ... ...

ZC vol. 1, p.  401

sgra nyan pa yi phag rgod gdams pa ston ||
ngan smras bstod tshig khyad med rdo yi mi ||
smig rgyu'i klung na chu thigs yod ma yin ||
skye dang 'chi ba mo gsham bus ma byas ||

sgra nyan pa yi > ZC sgra la nyan pa'i. rdo yi mi > ZC rdo'i myi. smig rgyu'i klung > ZC dmyig sgyu'i rlung. yod ma > ZC yod pa.

The wild pig* that listens to the sound is teaching the precepts.
Speaking ill or hymns of praise make no difference to the man of stone.
In a mirage river there are no water drops.
Being born and dying are things the barren woman's child doesn't do.

*For the wild pig, see no. 57 here.

ZC vol. 1, p. 417

rdo'i myi zhes pa ni / rdo'i myi srin mo'i gling du skyal kyang myi 'jigs pa bzhin du / sems nyid kyi rtsa ba chod pas phyi nang gi 'jigs pa gang la yang spang blang myed pa gcig dgos / de byung na gnyen po phyir 'phel [~phul] ces pa ste / khams na sgun [~rgun] 'brum skems pa la kra ka srung dgos pas / de la dang po kra ka gcig bsad de gsob phyar bas des thub skad // de dang 'dra bar dben pa'i gnas su dge' sbyor nyams su len rtsam na / bar chad 'jigs skam [skyems? rgam?] pa la sogs pa myi mthun phyogs kyi rdog [~rtog, ~dogs] pa byung na / de sems nyid kyi nang du ngo sprad de / rtog pa dbyings su gsad / phyis skyes kyi rtog pa de kun bsrings pas / go cha bzang ste gnyen po phyir 'phel ba'o.

If you were to take a man of stone to a rakshasi island it would have no fear. Even so, when you have gotten to the root of Mind Proper, what is required is an absence of acceptance/rejections toward any fearful thing, whether inner or outer. When that happens, send the antidotes back where they came from.

In Kham, they say, when drying grapes they have to guard them from the crows. So first they kill one crow and fly it as a scarecrow and that suffices. Similarly, when you start practicing the virtuous applications in an isolated place, you may become fearful of inimical forces, like fear of obstacles. In that case recognize it as belonging to Mind Proper and slay the mental reservations [troubling thoughts] in the Realm. That will completely close off access for all the mental reservations that would have arisen later on. Put on this excellent armor [of renunciation] and send the antidotes away.

ZC vol. 1, p. 439

If an attractive young woman were to have her head catch on fire she would put everything else aside and kill the fire. Likewise, perseverance in all the Dharma practices is essential. For example, if you were to strike a man of stone with whip or club, it would not produce in him the least displeasure. Similarly you ought to weather the inimical winds of bodily injuries and mental injuries.

ZC vol. 1, p. 446

For example, it is said that in India, a homeless person with no possessions might go to a cremation ground and eat the food offerings left there for the dead, and dress himself in shrouds. But even he has fear of wild carnivores. A stone man is free from fear and ruin. Emulate him when you do the spiritual practices (sâdhana). Give up attachment to life and limb.

ZC vol. 2, p. 167

As a symbolic way of saying that this understanding is a conceptual one, that there is nothing that could make one understand the real meaning, no master who could make one understand

— “There was this yogi who was explaining Dharma to men of stone.”

As a symbolic way of saying that the explainer of the secret precepts is like an echo, and that they haven't yet made the ear that could make it understandable to the hearer

— “It was heard with turtle ears.”

ZC vol. 2, p. 205

When a yogi taught dharma to a man made of stone, it was heard in the turtle's ear.*

*For a weird exchange about turtle ears, see this Early Tibet blog. The idea here is that the turtle doesn't have any ear (actually, it has two so-called tympana, but anyway), and therefore nothing to hear with, but nevertheless hears. This is one of the 'wonders of the world' that Padampa tells his Tingrian students he has seen. He's having fun with them. In a way.

... ... ...

This next one is a citation from a still unidentified work called Ornament of Shining Precious Substances (Rin-po-che Snang-ba'i Rgyan). From citations elsewhere in the Zhijé Collection, we know that this is a Vajra Song (ZC vol. 5, p. 386):

rdo'i myi yis rma bya'i mdongs ||
kha dog ci 'dra shes myi 'gyur ||
sems la ma brten yul myi snang ||
phyi rol don du bden gyurd na ||
ngo bo chu'i dngos po la ||
lha dang yi dags nya sbal gyis ||
bdud rtsi rnag khrag yul khyim du ||
mthong bar rigs pa ma yin no zhes pa'o ||

The man of stone is not going to recognize
what colors the feathers of the peacock might be.
Without being based in mind, no external realms appear.
If external objects were true in any essential way,
in consequence the thing made of the substance water,
you will have to agree,
would not be seen by gods, pretas* and fish or tadpoles
as nectar, bloody pus and homeland.

*See Fenner's article (p. 260), where he translates this verse from the Mahayana philosopher Candrakirti:  

"6.71 Like (a person who) has a diseased (sense) faculty, a spirit (yi-dwags, preta) at a flowing river also experiences pus. In summary, as there are no objects of knowledge so also there is no mind. Understand this meaning thus."

I much prefer Huntington's (p 165) translation:

"[The mechanism involved when] hungry ghosts experience cognition of a river flowing with pus is identical to that of the visual organ afflicted with ophthalmia.  Our meaning here must be understood as follows: Just as there is no object of knowledge, so there is no cognition."

... ... ...

ZC vol. 5, p. 478

rnal 'byord pa cig rdo'i myi la chos bshad pas ru[s] sbal gyi rna bar thos |

A yogi taught Dharma to a man of stone and it was heard in the ear of the turtle.* 

*This is also one of those 'wonders of the world' passages. It is repeated more than once or twice in the collection.

... ... ...

PS:  I really want to write something about the monkey paw that gets washed in the 'borax' (?) water, but so much to write and so little time. We'll see. Did anybody see those puppets? They were here a few minutes ago. Where did I leave them? Never mind.

Reading on:

Todd Fenner, Candrakîrti's Refutation of Buddhist Idealism, Philosophy East & West, vol. 33, no. 3 (July 1983), pp. 251-61. Full text available here.

C.W. Huntington Jr., with Geshe Namgyal Wangchen, The Emptiness of Emptiness: An Introduction to Early Indian Madhyamika, Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi 1989).

Kurtis R. Schaeffer, Dreaming the Great Brahmin: Tibetan Traditions of the Buddhist Poet-Saint Saraha, Oxford University Press (Oxford 2005).

Good Grief! Gurdjieff in Tibet?

Did George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949) ever visit Tibet?  I recognize the problem that some of you may simply not know why you ought to care, and I empathize with you, but keep in mind that there are people out there who do care, people who may even care far too much. As a Tibetanist they may want to get answers from you. What are you going to tell them? That's not Gurdjieff here in the frontispiece, and neither is it Dorjiev, but the truth is, Dorjiev and Gurdjieff have been confused in the past. One author, otherwise quite a good one I think,* unhelpfully decided that while Gurdjieff in fact isn’t Dorjiev, it’s Dorjiev’s follower Norzunoff that is Gurdjieff.  In either case, if either identification were true, it would follow that Gurdjieff did in fact visit Tibet. (Well, since both Dorjiev and Norzunoff most definitely did.)

(*James Webb, The Harmonious Circle:  The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers, G. P. Putnam's Sons (New York 1980).)

Agwan Dorjiev (ངག་དབང་རྡོ་རྗེ་)

Ovshe Norzunoff
Le Tour de Monde (1904)

Gurdjieff

There is one person I know of who claimed to know for a fact that Gurdjieff was in Tibet, and that's the smoking man you see up there at the top of the blog.  His name was Achmed Abdullah. How did Achmed know Gurdjieff had been to Tibet?  Because he (A.A.) had seen him (G.I.G.) there, in Lhasa.

Now surely Gurdjieff was from the general area of Caucasus-Georgia-Armenia-Turkey (his parentage was Greek and Armenian), and not from Buriatia, as is implied in the quote you will see just below. His surname anyway suggests that he or his family must have originated in Georgia. The name Dorjiev has a quite different origin, since as is the style even today among Mongolians, it is a slightly modified form of the frequent Tibetan name element Dorjé (རྡོ་རྗེ་).*

(*For a bit on the possessive suffix -ov/-off/-ev/-eff used to form Slavic surnames, try looking here. Like surnames everywhere, they may [among other possibilities] be based on place of origin.  Dorjiev's name was formed on the assumption that Dorjé was in some way his surname when of course it was not.  It’s an integral part of his given name.)

The following quote is taken from Rom Landau (1899-1974), God Is My Adventure (1935?), p. 188: 

‘I so often hear about his [Gurdjieff’s] experiences in Tibet,’ I replied: “but I am somewhat suspicious of those Tibetan tales. Every other messiah, from Mme. Blavatsky onwards, claims to have gathered knowledge in the mountains of Tibet. How do you know that Gurdjieff has actually ever been there?’

‘I happen to possess first-hand proofs. Some years ago there was a luncheon in New York, given, if I remember aright, for Gurdjieff. A number of distinguished men had been invited, among others the writer, Achmed Abdullah, who told me that he had never seen Gurdjieff before, but that he was very much looking forward to meeting this unusual Armenian. When Gurdjieff entered the room Achmed Abdullah turned to me and whispered: “I have met that man before. Do you know who he really is? Before the war he was in Lhassa as an agent of the Russian Secret Service. I was in Lhassa at the same time, and in a way we worked against each other.” So, you see, it is quite true that Gurdjieff had been at the very fountain of esoteric knowledge. Some people say he was in Lhassa as a Secret Service agent, in order to disguise the real purpose of his visit, which was to learn the supernatural methods of the Lamas. Other people maintain that his esoteric studies were only a pretext behind which he could hide his political activities. But who can tell?’

  

And the following letter is copied from the same book, p. 202: 

Captain Achmed Abdullah.

Fifth Avenue House,

Sunday. New York City.  

DEAR SIR,

As to Gurdjieff, I have no way of proving that I am right except that I know I am right. When I knew him, thirty years ago, in Tibet, he was, besides being the young Dalai Lama’s chief tutor, the main Russian political agent for Tibet. A Russian Buriat by race and a Buddhist by religion, his learning was enormous, his influence in Lhassa very great, since he collected the tribute of the Baikal Tartars for the Dalai Lama’s exchequer, and he was given the high title of Tsannyis Khan-po. In Russia he was known as Hambro Akvan Dorzhieff; to the British Intelligence as Lama Dorjieff. When we invaded Tibet, he disappeared with the Dalai in the general direction of outer Mongolia. He spoke Russian, Tibetan, Tartar, Tadjik, Chinese, Greek, strongly accented French and rather fantastic English. As to his age well I would say ageless. A great man who, though he dabbled in Russian imperialistic politics, did so I have an idea more or less in the spirit of jest. I met Gurdjieff, almost thirty years later, at dinner in the house of a mutual friend, John O’Hara Cosgrave, former editor of the New York World, in New York. I was convinced that he was Lama Dorjieff. I told him so and he winked. We spoke in Tadjik. I am a fairly wise man. But I wish I knew the things which Gurdjieff has forgotten. 

Very faithfully,

A. ABDULLAH.  

At this very moment I don’t have any definitive disproof of this often-made identification, but I sincerely doubt Gurdjieff ever made it to Lhasa.* If you want to pursue this will-o’-the-wisp further, I'd recommend this essay by Paul Beekman Taylor entitled “Gurdjieff and Prince Ozay.” Here the identity problems get, if anything, even thicker.

(*but keep reading, since I've changed my mind since "now")

It’s true that Achmed’s information about Dorjiev is sufficiently accurate and believable, based on what we can know from independent sources. What isn’t so believable is he had sufficient reason to equate him with Gurdjieff.  Achmed's accuracy makes me tend to believe that he (A.A.) might have actually been in Lhasa, seen Dorjiev there or at least heard a great deal about him, but his assertion of the single personhood of Gurdjieff-Dorjiev is, as he says, not something he can prove. And this equation our independent sources can disprove, especially now that a number of sources about Dorjiev's last years have been made known to the world at large.

It isn’t even all that clear to me that Gurdjieff unequivocally claimed that he had been in Lhasa or any other part of Tibet proper. What he did claim is that he received ultra-esoteric teachings (that formed the [or a] basis of his own teachings, including the well-known dances) at an almost entirely inaccessible location somewhere in the vicinity of the Pamirs from a group called the Sarmoung Brotherhood. They had yet another ‘sister’ monastery on the northern slopes of the Himalayas called Olman Monastery.  I'm not sure if he claimed to go to this Olman Monastery, but even then I am the opposite of clear when it comes to knowing where the “northern slopes of the Himalayas” might be.* I’ve seen some say Gurdjieff claimed he had a “Tibetan marriage” and his eldest son became the head of a lamaserie, although I’m not sure how to trace back the authorities for it, or if it’s all that interesting. Is it?

(*See p. 313 in William James Thompson, J.G. Bennett's Interpretation of the Teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, a Study of Transmission in the Fourth Way, doctoral dissertation, University of Lancaster (1995).  The southern slopes of the Himalayas are much more easily located.  For all I know the northern slopes of the Himalayas could be all the way up beyond the Kunlun Mountains, somewhere near the palace of the Queen Mother of the West.)

Well, we do all have problems with identity. That much is true and undeniable.

§  §  §

References:

Rom Landau, God Is My Adventure:  A Book on Modern Mystics Masters and Teachers, Faber and Faber (London 1935, 1941).

Douglas Fairbanks in “The Thief of Bagdad, an Arabian Nights Fantasy,” 1924 movie, its screenplay by Nadir Khan, aka Achmed Abdullah, aka Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff, the man who knew how to identify people. Well, I’d say Achmed Abdullah (1881-1945) was a very interesting character in his own right. I think we should take what he said with liberal doses of salt. Name changers see everyone else as name changers, you think maybe? Hollywood people know all there is to know about projection.

In general, I very much admire the acting done on both screen and stage under the directorship of Peter Brook, so if even just for that, I’d much recommend seeing “Meetings with Remarkable Men.” Here you can find what looks like a complete version of the film. Or try here.  

And finally, if you are serious about wanting to know something about Dorjiev (1853-1938), I would seriously recommend this and/or the following book or the article by Andreyev. We know how Dorjiev spent the last decades of his life, and No, he did not spend them pretending to be Gurdjieff!

Jampa Samten and Nikolay Tsyrempilov, From Tibet Confidentially: Secret Correspondence of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to Agvan Dorzjiev, 1911-1925, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (Dharamsala 2012).

Alexandre I. Andreyev, An Unknown Russian Memoir by Aagvan Dorjiev, Inner Asia, vol. 3 (2001), pp. 27-39.  This has a survey of now-available sources on the life of Dorjiev.  Several other works by the same author ought to be listed, if I had more energy, including the book cited in the appendix down below.

For some remarkable historic photographs of the Buddhist temple Dorjiev founded in St. Petersburg, look here. For a sketch of the temple's history, try here.

For the birthplace of Gurdjieff, look here, where it says  "Gurdjieff was born in the Armenian city of Alexandropol, which is now called Gyumri."  The birthdate would seem to be up in the air.

§  §  §

Appendix: The Death of Dorjiev

Source:  Alexandre Andreyev, Soviet Russia and Tibet: The Debacle of Secret Diplomacy, 1918-1930s, Brill (Leiden 2003), p. 361:

"In January 1937, Dorzhiev, accompanied by his attendant, Lama Dugar Jimbiev, left Leningrad for Buryatia. There he hoped to spend his last days in a solitary retreat as Buddhist monks do, in his house at the medical school of the Atsagat Datsang, near Verkneudinsk. However his hopes were not to be fulfilled. On 13 November the Buryat was arrested in his home and put into prison in Verkheudinsk. He was accused of high treason (spying for Japan), terrorist and subversive activities, preparation of armed rebellion, and several more anti-Soviet crimes. Two weeks later, shortly after his one and only interrogation, Dorzhiev was taken to a hospital ward. There, on January 29, 1938, he died."

Gurdjieff died during the morning of October 29, 1949, in France. His last words?  "Bravo America."

Answer me this: How can two people who are one and the same person die such different deaths?