What Makes the Dhammapada Timeless and Relevant

There are, I have come to believe, three main ways in which the Dhammapada's teachings are timeless and relevant to all seekers on all paths:

The first is the Buddha's unwavering awareness of suffering and evil. Karen Armstrong writes in her wonderful biography of the Buddha:

.........There is a creeping new orthodoxy in modern society that is sometimes called "positive thinking." At
.........its worst, this habit of optimism allows us to bury our heads in the sand, deny the ubiquity of pain in .........ourselves and others, and to immure ourselves in a state of deliberate heartlessness to ensure our .........emotional survival. The Buddha would have had little time for this. In his view, the spiritual life cannot .........begin until people allow themselves to be invaded by the reality of suffering, realize how fully it .........permeates our whole experience, and feel the pain of all other beings, even those whom we do not find .........congenial.

The banal pseudo-cheerfulness of much of New Age spirituality cannot help us in a time like ours when we are going to have to, without illusion or false consolation, face up to everything we are doing to each other and to nature if we are to have a chance of survival.

The second area in which the teachings of the Dhammapada are timelessly relevant are in the Buddha's constant insistence on the necessity of training and "guarding" the mind. No other person in human history has analyzed with such calm ruthlessness how our ongoing reality mirrors the inner state of our thoughts and intentions. The unexamined life held no charm whatsoever for the Buddha. he knew how savage and destructive its thoughtlessness could be, and he knew how hard it is to keep the mind constantly in the stream of compassion and insight, and so he stressed the necessity for meditation and intense dedication to spiritual practice. This greatest of all pragmatists makes it clear to all seekers that on the path to self-realization no magical solutions or quick fixes will work. What will work in the end is work. As the Buddha said on his deathbed, refusing one last time to flatter or make any false promises, "Work out you own salvation with diligence." As it is said in the Dhammapada: "By one's self is evil left undone; by one's self one is purified...Be not thoughtless, watch your thoughts! Draw yourself out of the evil way, like an elephant sunk in mud."

The third timeless aspect of the Dhammapada's teachings lies, I believe, in the Buddha's championship of compassion, not simply as the deepest and noblest of all enlightened virtues but as an active transforming force in the world. The core of his teachings can be found in the soaring words of the first section, "The Twin Verses":

........."She abused me, he beat me, she defeated me, he robbed me." In those who harbor such thoughts, .........hatred will never cease. "She abused me, he beat me, she defeated me, he robbed me." In those who .........do not harbor such thoughts, hatred will cease. For never does hatred cease by hatred at any time. .........Hatred ceases by love [non-hatred]. This is an eternal law.

---Andrew Harvey---