[Buddha-l] FW: beauty--or art-- (?) and the restraint of thesenses (Jayarava)

[Jayarava]

--- On Tue, 12/5/09, Mitchell Ginsberg <jinavamsa at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hello Jayarava and Joanna and all, 
> You (two) speak of the sublime (not the glamorous or sexy
> or ....) and then you (Jayarava)

Well actually I am quite doubtful about the word "sublime". I didn't start using it. 

> In Pali Buddhism (Theravada), there are four distinct
> brahmaviharas, each described or defined in somewhat
> familiar terms, metta, karuna, mudita, and upekkha (often
> rendered lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and
> equanimity). They are also called the infinite or boundless
> states (appamañña). 

Yes but don't take the differences as being absolute. I don't think of them as completely separate. Karuna for instance is simply the meeting of metta and suffering; while Mudita is metta meeting happiness. This is one of those times when four aspects of a state (brahmavihara) are being distinguished but not separated out.

Many people have problems with the term brahmavihara. Why on earth would a Buddhist want to dwell with god? So lots of "poetic" translations are used to disguise the presence of that term. Brahma is used to indicate the "highest". But Richard Gombrich has pointed out that in the Tevijja Sutta the audience are Brahmins who believe in brahmasahavyata - companionship with Brahma, synonymous with brahmavihara - as the highest ideal. The Buddha makes fun of their belief and then redefines brahmasahavyata as dwelling in states of metta etc. The description talks about radiating metta to the four quarters. 

The implication that dwelling radiating metta is somehow equivalent to dwelling in heaven is reinforced by the Karaniya Metta Sutta when it says about cultivating metta: 
 
brahmam etam vihāraṃ idhamāhu
This, they say, is dwelling with brahma here and now.

But the Tevijja sutta is using brahmavihara as a metaphor for bodhi.

One of the qualities of Brahma in particular, and of devas in general, in Pāli is that they radiate light. Deva indeed comes from div which means radiant. So "radiant abode" combines many of the features of subject into one poetic phrase. God, Brahma, is used metaphorically.

Gombrich also points out that having misunderstood that brahmavihara was being used metaphorically lead early Buddhists to invent a place where one could dwell with Brahma - the brahmaloka - and caused them to downgrade brahmavihara from being equivalent to bodhi, to being a much lesser state since it involves some kind of rebirth (in the brahmaloka). I have pointed out (on my blog 29.3.07) that the last verse of the Karaniya Metta Sutta betrays this development: verse nine ends with the line quoted above, which would have been the highest goal at an early stage and a natural end point for the sutta; then verse ten goes back to a slightly awkward admonition and ends with not being reborn.

Best Wishes
Jayarava