I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE,
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL PAIN,
I AM THE WAY TO GO AMONG THE LOST.

JUSTICE CAUSED MY HIGH ARCHITECT TO MOVE;
DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED ME,
THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.

BEFORE ME THERE WERE NO CREATED THINGS
BUT THOSE THAT LAST FOREVER -- AS DO I.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YOU WHO ENTER HERE.
.

So begins Canto 3, with the inscription that confronts Dante over the Gates to Hell. Virgil tells him to steel himself for what is to come.

But before they even enter Hell, and encounter any of the devils and damned that await them there, Dante is first assaulted by the pitiful, angry, and pained wails of souls who suffer a different destiny. He describes the sounds as being like the grains of sand in a sandstorm that whip and blast at a person incessantly. Who are these souls who suffer so, not even in Hell? Virgil explains:

... "This state of misery
   is clutched by those sad souls whose works in life
   merited neither praise nor infamy.
Here they're thrown in among that petty choir
   of angels who were for themselves alone,
   not rebels, and not faithful to the Lord.
Heaven drives them out -- its beauty would be marred;
   nor will the deep abyss receive their souls,
   lest they bring glory to the wicked there."
.

When Dante finally sees them, they are led about running behind a banner. He recognizes their leaders immediately. (We are not told who it is by name, but scholars apparently think it is likely to be Celestine V, a virtuous monk who had been made Pope but then convinced that he was unsuited to such a worldly post and abdicated it. Dante had considered his successor, Boniface VIII, to have been a evil man. And so Celestine was figured a coward in Dante’s mind for abandoning the Papacy to him and returning to being a hermit.) The number of them was so great that Dante did not think so many had ever been taking by death. They ran to and fro, constantly stung by flies and wasps about their faces, so much so that blood ran down their faces and mixed with their tears. Rejected by Heaven for turning away from it and by Hell for their virtues, they have no place and the world had forgotten them.

We can see, here, what little Dante thought of people who lived safe lives of virtue but who shied away from confronting evil in the world.

Dante then notices in the distance souls gathered on the shore of the river Acheron, where they are to be ferried over by Charon. When the two arrive there, Charon has also arrived for another boatload and is hurling verbal abuse on the souls who await him. Charon notices Dante and tells him to go back to where living souls enter Purgatory. Virgil makes it known they are there on the bidding of heavenly powers and Charon falls silent. They board Charon’s skiff and Dante falls unconscious on the way to the far shore.

We already can see the dark imagery of suffering, terror, and resignation Dante’s journey through Hell is going to entail, as he is already describing experiences that are quite horrifying and we have not even entered into the Pit yet. The entire journey is one of ever increasing images of punishment as they descend lower and lower to the very bottom of the place, which is where the secret entrance into Purgatory is found — right at Lucifer’s feet. The image I see as a metaphor is that of an Autumn nightfall, when first the light of day dims and goes out, to be replaced by slim replacements — the moon or stars, and perhaps nothing at all if it is a cloudy night. And then after the light is gone, the night cools, getting colder and colder until just before daybreak, when it is the darkest and coldest. But this moment, which to someone who had no idea what might happen next would think the very least hopeful, is the sign that the night is about to end and the new day to begin. The entire book, Inferno, is like this. The next book, Purgatory, is like the other side of the next morning.

1. Neither existent nor inexistent
   And also not existent and inexistent;
   It is not found in them
   Nor is it apart from them.
2. It cannot be apprehended conceptually
   Nor is it an object of hearing or intellect.
   It is the release from the ways of language
   And the recognition of the inner mind’s purity.
3. It is the real and sublime Dharma-sun,
   Pure and immaculate;
   The great radiance of wisdom
   Illuminating all the worlds.
4. It is the destroyer of the obstacles of gloom
   The awakened examination of greed, enmity, and delusion
   And all of the mental defilements, et al.
   Therefore, I now pay homage to it.

[T1611.813b27-813c06; translated by C. Patton]

1. We are, each one of us, a gift
   Given to the world by the world;
   Like so many jewels falling in the night
   That would glitter and shine in the light.
2. Dreams dreaming themselves;
   Thoughts thinking themselves,
   Lost in the darkness and shadows of sight.
   Yearning imparts weight, and we fall from the Heavens.
3. Striking the Earth, we settle into a place
   And into a shape. The paths are worn where we walk;
   Lines are drawn around the ways we talk;
   Walls are built defending our lines of thought.
4. Look up to the stars! Those distant jewels shining and crying:
   They know what we really are, watching us wish away our lives.
   Blind beauties and deaf musicians!
   Let us wander not in search of something more.

Dante is initially impressed by the appearance of Virgil. However, he quickly begins second guessing himself.

In Virgil’s Aenead, the hero Aeneas also travels to the Underworld while still alive, and Dante wonders how he could possibly be the measure of such a man.

But I? Who grants my coming?  And for what?
  I'm not Aeneas, I'm not Saint Paul!  No one--
  Not I myself -- could think me worthy, so
If I should enter on this quest, I fear
  it would be mad and foolish.  But you're wise,
  you understand more than my words can say."
And as a man who unwills what he wills,
  changing his plan for every little thought,
  till he withdraws from any kind of start,
So did I turn my mind on that dark verge,
  for thinking ate away the enterprise
  so prompt in the beginning to set forth.

Virgil’s response is chiding. He recounts to Dante that he was visited by Beatrice in Limbo, who implored him to go and guide Dante to the her in Heaven. (For those who are curious, in Christian theology, Limbo was the “in between” place virtuous non-Christian souls ended up. Especially those that were never exposed to Christ’s teaching.) Therefore, Dante should stop all of this excuse making and accept the task at hand. He is as capable as anyone to take on the enterprise. Dante’s spirits are regenerated by the revelation that the angel Beatrice was behind his rescue and he sets out with Virgil for Hell.

This canto seems simple enough, but it is a situation I think any who wishes to take on a task of great risk or effort will face at the start. Am I worthy? Am I capable? Do I want to take on such a commitment only to discover I cannot complete it? But most importantly, what makes me so special to do something most people never attempt?

In these sorts of ways, we fritter away the initial aspiration until all momentum is gone. And this is where very often it is some outside source of motivation or inspiration that helps us regain our resolve and go forth regardless of our doubts and uncertainties. And the truth is that most of the doubts about worthiness or capability in the spiritual realm are simply excuses the ordinary heart throws up to block any attempt to take on an extraordinary life. Anyone who is capable of the aspiration to make an effort is also capable of making the effort. Making the effort means that there is some chance of success. And when it comes to traveling from point A to point B, whether physically or spiritually, it is really mainly a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and being persistent. Eventually, some measurable distance will be crossed and one can look back and realize they indeed can move themselves further.

And, again, what is it that makes a person an “extraordinary” person, like Aeneas or Homer or Virgil? Is there some innate difference between ordinary people and great people? Surely, there may be talents and circumstances that vary between one and another person, but I suspect that the primary difference is the ability to form the aspiration to do a great thing in the first place.

In some branches of Buddhism, there is a theory of a motive power lying in the act of aspiration, which is the thing that makes the entire endeavor possible, however long and toilsome it may be. It is like a seed planted into the fertile soil of the mind that then sprouts and grows. The sprout may die early on because it lacks water or sunlight, yes. But if the seed were never planted, there couldn’t be anything to grow in the first place. And so the aspiration is the “first cause.” The journey may take eons (literally) and thousands of lifetimes to complete. But so long as the plant that grew from the seed of the first aspiration lives, the task will be accomplished. And so, in these teachings, the very act of making a sincere vow is treated as a powerful thing. “I shall not rest until all living things are happy and content!” “I shall not rest until no being here is hungry!” Etc. The merit of simply being capable of these sorts of vows — sincere commitments — is itself quite extraordinary. If that much can be done, there is not telling what a person is liable to do.

So, essentially, the very fact that Dante can conceive of comparing himself to Aeneas or any other mythic adventurer means that he is the sort of person who can become mythic himself. But first, he needs to stop being afraid of that possibility.

Midway upon the journey of our life
   I found myself in a dark wilderness,
   for I had wandered from the straight and true.
How hard a thing it is to tell about,
   that wilderness so savage, dense, and harsh,
   even to think of it renews my fear!
It is so bitter, death is hardly more --
  but to reveal the good that came to me,
  I shall relate the other things I saw.

And so, Dante begins his magnum opus. This first canto of Inferno relates how the journey through Hell came about. Dante is oblique about the meaning of this opening situation and continues the literal scene of being in a terrifying wilderness, having strayed from te “straight and true.” But I cannot but take it to be at the same time metaphorical for a spiritual crisis. The wilderness could be within the space of his own heart. But, like any good story, the metaphor and the literal narrative work together wonderfully. The reader can suspend the desire for one or the other way of reading it and allow both to overlap at the same time. The underlying metaphor is never openly admitted to, and so it lurks beneath the verse and impregnates it with poigancy. Anyone who has traversed such a crisis can understand without much prodding. Others can enter an understanding through empathy. Either way, Dante is relating to us that he found himself in a grave situation. One which he could not find his own way out of. He needed help to do so. And he received it.

Dante survives the night journey through the wilderness and emerges to gaze upon the Sun at daybreak. Before him rises the Mountain (which we will later find is the mount of repentance: Purgatory). But his path is blocked by first a hungry leopard on one side and then a starving wolf on the other. Dante hints that the wolf represents craving and the leopard wrath. Despondent and hopeless, he begins to turn back and return to the dark wilderness again. But he is stopped by a stranger.

"I was a poet, and I sang of how
  that just son of Anchises came from Troy
  when her proud towers and walls were burnt to dust.
But you, why do you turn back to such pain?
  Why don't you climb that hills that brings delight,
  the origin and cause of every joy?"
"Then are you -- are you Virgil?  And that spring
  swelling into so rich a stream of verse?"
  I answered him, my forehead full of shame.
"Honor and light of every poet, may
  my long study avail me, and the love
  that made me search the volume of your work.
You are my teacher, my authority;
  you alone are the one from whom I took
  the style whose loveliness has honored me."

The metaphor continues. It is perhaps no accident that Virgil is coming to Dante’s rescue in the narrative. Virgil does more than inspire Dante, he carries him through bearing witness to Hell and the trek up the mount to repentance. Indeed, it is not a mere accident that Virgil does this: Virgil has been dispatched by an Angel to rescue him from his spiritual danger. Virgil is to bring Dante to her. There is richness to this metaphor. There is rarely so concrete a way of express how the wisdom and inspiration of classic genius spans the mists of history to touch our lives in the present. And consider the spiritual lineage we now have: Who shall Dante come and rescue today? For now Dante is the classic genius who left his soliloquy to fertilize the hearts of those who read and reflect on it today.

Virgil explains to Dante that the direct route to the mountain is impassable. The wolf will check a man’s progress until he dies and she never tires of feasting on such souls. Instead, the roundabout route to safety is to go down to the very pit of Hell where there is a passage to Purgatory.

"Should you then wish to rise go to them,
  another soul will come, worthier than I --
  with her I'll leave you when I go my way."

And, so it happens, Beatrice is the door to Dante’s repentance and his guide through Heaven.

I’ve begun reading Anthony Esolen’s translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy and would like share my thoughts as I go by posting them here at the Mani Pearl. Those who come here as faithful Buddhists might find the subject difficult to get into, but I am myself always intensely curious about the ways of religious thought and language. I have a syncretic streak that desires always to find the shared principles found in various places and which abhors what splits asunder different points of view. Which is not say I make a habit of ignoring differences, or of pretending that vastly different religious and philosophical traditions can be merged in some literal fashion. Rather, I tend to see the sincerely religious practicianers and philosophers of the world as fellows to myself, who are treading a similar path, with similar goals in mind. There is a way the mind and the heart is driven when it is true, and so we see very similar conclusions and epiphanies in one place and another. I proceed with the belief that all religion and philosophy of the human spirit has a shared goal of uplifting human civilization and maintaining what is wise and what is right.

At any rate, the first part of the Divine Comedy is Inferno, Dante’s journey through Hell with Virgil as his initial guide on the long trek to Heaven (Paradiso). For those who are unfamiliar with the text, it is an epic poem. Dante narrates a journey by himself though the Christian cosmos beyond this world: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. I have not read much background commentary from the Western tradition on Dante’s deeper motives for writing the text, but I see a couple themes already. First, Dante was disgusted with the behavior and leadership of his contemporaries. He uses his journey through Hell and Purgatory to name names and pass tongue-in-cheek judgement on them. He uses the journey through Heaven to name the true saints and philosophers and they in turn denounce the corruption of various Church and secular institutions. No one was safe from Dante’s criticism, not popes nor nobles nor monastic orders. The second theme is (I think) a concrete metaphor for a spiritual journey he had taken after his first love, Beatrice, had died an untimely death. He was grief stricken and took time to recover from it. I myself had gone through a very similar experience when I was a teenager and can very easily sympathize and understand. It can be very much like beginning in Hell and dragging yourself up through Purgatory and finally to the peace of Heaven. It is no surprise to me, then, that Beatrice appears in Paradiso as Dante’s Angelic guide through the Heavens. It is the point at which he finds peace with her passing and paradoxically is reunited with her again (through the story). Perhaps I am reading this into the verse more than Dante actually intended, but it seems to me a real part of the story.

Of course, to return to the Buddhist perspective of reading the text, I must say that to a traditional Buddhist, it is not so foreign a territory as one might imagine. Buddhism has its own roughly equivalent cosmology — Naraka (Hell), the World (Purgatory), and the various Deva and Brahma-lokas (Heavens). Buddhism differs from Christianity in a profound way in that Buddhists believe living beings can and do indeed traverse the path through Hell, Earth, and the Heavens. Nor do they believe there is any substantive spiritual separation between humans and other living beings. And Buddhists made the mystic leap beyond (away from?) eternal union in Heaven with a Creator. Buddhist cosmology does not assert eternal spirits or eternal destinies as the Christians do, and so the spiritual journey becomes literally possible in Buddhist cosmology. In fact, the journey is central, not the destiny.

Whereas, in the Divine Comedy, Dante is playing with theology, pretending to be reporting a supernatural adventure, seeing what no one sees and then reports after death (aside from the occasional intervention by Angelic muses, perhaps). He uses the stage of the afterlife to interweave his understanding of the first principles of existence (the wisdom, morality, and faith that spring from God) with his commentary on how few of his contemporaries in his experience succeeded in living as “good Christians” (to steal a phrase from Luther). But there certainly is a sense of a spiritual journey to the story, that goes beyond the literal scenery he passes through. Indeed, he cheats his way into Hell and leaves it to rise higher (something otherwise impossible in Christian theology). It is in many ways a Catholic Christian rendition of Homer’s Odyssey.

So, the theory and function of Buddhist and Christian cosmologies differ somewhat, but the structures of the two are parallel. The nature of the Divine Comedy, as a journey through the deepest evil to the highest good, actually resonates with my Buddhist education, as it signifies the transformation of the spirit from a defiled state to a pure one through the journey. On this score, the Divine Comedy is closer to Buddhism that Christianity, but it is small point. Dante was not attempting to write theology, he was simply bending the rules so that his character would have access to and describe all three realms of the afterlife.

Thus far, I am enjoying the Divine Comedy. It is multi-layered: an adventure full of scathing rebukes and deserved laurels for his contemporaries and luminaries, masterful poetry, and underneath it all: Dante’s own spiritual journey. It should be interesting to write a layman’s commentary as I read this text: To my knowledge, it has not yet been critically appraised by a Buddhist reader.

1. The wise look within
   And behold the shimmer of light
   That illumines the depths of the heart.
   Beholding the shimmer,
2. They enter into the thicket of thoughts.
   Some become entangled in the vines.
   Some find themselves impaled on the thorns.
   Some are confused by the mirages.
3. A few continue regardless of all obstacles,
   Keeping their eyes on the light
   Shining forth from the mysterious center:
   The pure heart.
4. They are not stopped by the entanglements
   Because they learn to untie all knots.
   They are not stopped by the thorns
   Because they learn to heal all wounds.
5. They are not stopped by the mirages
   Because they learn to dispel all illusions.
   And as they draw nearer to the source,
   Reaching the place free of dust and debris,
6. The light grows brighter, purer, and clearer:
   Like a star …
   Like a lamp …
   Like a sun …
7. Until nothing else remains
   But the heart.
   And then one becomes, not the seeker,
   But the sought.

A maṇi pearl is a jewel that changes itself according to desires of whoever holds it. It is, as a treasure, more a potentiality in action, fluid in form and appearance. As such, it represents a gift that is not merely an concrete and passive object that recipients can either enjoy or reject because of their own inclinations. It is a metaphor for the principle that skillful means of charity should proceed first with the recipient’s actual needs in mind, rather than imposing a conception of what should satisfy their needs. A bodhisattva goes into the world with the thought to aid living beings in whatever means they require and from that motive shapes the methods and means to do so. And so, a bodhisattva’s gifts are like maṇi pearls.

In some small way, I hope this weblog can act as a maṇi pearl. But, alas, it is just a journal of dead words that a reader must shape their minds around. But those who see something of value can pursue it by creating a dialogue. I will be posting essays of thoughts that have been percolating in my spirit for some time. They find their form from my studies of Buddhist and Chinese philosophy on the one hand and my experience of life here in America on the other hand. It seems to me, that as a civilization, we are in desperate need of a return to the wisdom and understanding that infuses most of the ancient traditions on the world, which we have foolishly discarded. Yet, these traditions are outmoded now when facing the world today. A synthesis of contemporary form and timeless principle is needed. This is the task that preoccupies my thoughts.