Ringkasan dibuat dengan bantuan AI • Belum diverifikasi
Ceramah ini membahas empat Brahma Vihara (cinta kasih, belas kasih, sukacita simpatik, dan keseimbangan batin) sebagai praktik yang berasal dari Buddha, bukan komentar. Ajahn Sona menekankan pentingnya memancarkan cinta kasih tanpa syarat, seperti mendengarkan musik yang indah, dan mengajak pendengar untuk tidak terlalu konservatif dalam berlatih. Ia menjelaskan bahwa cinta kasih dapat mencapai jhana pertama, dengan lima tingkat kegembiraan yang berbeda, dan emosi ini diproduksi oleh diri sendiri, bukan faktor eksternal, sehingga bisa dilatih secara mandiri. Belas kasih sejati dibedakan dari kesedihan partisipatif; karuna adalah cinta kasih yang dipancarkan kepada yang menderita, bukan ikut menderita. Sukacita simpatik berarti ikut berbahagia atas kebahagiaan orang lain tanpa pilih kasih, menghindari iri hati sebagai musuh dekatnya. Keseimbangan batin (upekkha) adalah faktor pencerahan yang tinggi, memungkinkan kita mengamati dunia tanpa menyetujui atau menolak, dengan dua jenis: keseimbangan sehari-hari dan keseimbangan dalam samadhi yang dalam. Keempat Brahma Vihara dikaitkan dengan niat benar (faktor ketiga Jalan Mulia Berunsur Delapan), di mana cinta kasih, belas kasih, dan keseimbangan batin memenuhi aspek-aspek niat benar. Pesan utama ceramah ini adalah bahwa keseimbangan batin adalah 'kepala yang dingin' yang melengkapi 'hati yang hangat', dan praktik ini penting untuk mengembangkan kebijaksanaan sejati.
So, tonight we chanted the four Brahma Viharas, a very beautiful chant, which is good to take
home actually, a chant at home.
This idea of radiating to each of the Brahma Viharas, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic
joy, equanimity, radiating to the four quarters.
I used to think that that Sutta was not actually original, it was a kind of commentarial thing.
Then I looked it up, yeah, turns out the Buddha did suggest that you can do it in that way.
Very short, very easy to memorize and so forth.
To refresh yourself on, so now you have the divisions of loving kindness into compassion
and sympathetic joy.
So, you have possibilities in all kinds of situations.
You can change your dwelling place, whatever you prefer.
They're all good at certain times.
Sometimes you want to practice loving kindness, which is simply profound goodwill without
consideration of the condition of the beings that you're radiating it to.
So, you're not contemplating that.
That they're in suffering or that they're happy.
It's without conditions attached and it's without any particular consideration of the
situation that they're in.
So it's just generalized.
It's kind of like a whole crowd of murmuring beings that are behind a curtain on stage.
You can imagine being in a theater and you hear...
Well, even here in the sala, you hear these geese and ducks and various birds and so forth
squawking and chirping.
But you're aware of them.
You're not aware of the particular situation.
And the same with humans and whatever other beings.
Loving kindness is not restricted to just the humans, but humans and non-humans alike.
By the way, you'll see that reference in the...
11 Benefits of Loving Kindness.
One becomes dear to humans.
One becomes dear to non-humans.
And the non-humans, of course, one who is very friendly and non-aggressive, animals will
have a lot less concern and nervousness around such a being.
Same with humans.
And whatever non-humans there are.
Whether they're in these more exalted dimensions.
And you shouldn't be too scientific about such matters.
At least hold it as a very beautiful poem or something like that.
It adds to the depths of your emotions.
If it works for you, then you can radiate and imagine.
And of course, many people have a...
There's...
There's a...
Something like that.
Who knows exactly how the descriptions measure up.
There's a lot of metaphors and so forth.
But feel free to radiate, you know, boundlessly.
This is an emotional act.
It's like listening to music.
It's like listening to the most profound, beautiful music.
Don't listen to it as a physicist.
You're not interested in that strings vibrating make sounds, et cetera.
None of that produces music, by the way.
I mean, those are...
Those are the physics of things, but it's not the music of things.
The same with...
We're raised in a society where the preoccupation with minute descriptions of physicality and
how things work.
And that's not how we work, at least the best of us, in the emotional dimension.
So we have to...
It has to produce the...
This in the same way that music produces some sort of exalted experience.
This is the same way.
Don't be too conservative with this.
Allow it to pervade your being.
You know...
You know, in the descriptions of the first jhana, so loving-kindness, you can attain
the first jhana.
This is a samadhi state.
And the commentaries go into the various levels of this.
So there are five levels of the first jhana.
And one of the...
The primary emotion is joy.
And the joy can be accompanied by just feeling good.
Feeling of being uplifted.
And this is the nature of joy.
It's like you'll see somebody...
You...
You...
With kids or anybody, you go to...
You see a friend on the street that you love to see, and you see your spine go up like
this.
It just...
The head tilts back, and the spine goes up.
That's joy.
And then, even better, it shoots up your spine.
Little rushes come up your spine.
Right?
And then the whole body can shake with joy.
And then also, one can have tears of joy.
And the final one is uplifting so much that one feels one is lifting off the ground.
And you'll see this with people that they're really having joy.
They're jumping up into the air.
They can't stay on the ground.
Kids are great for this kind of thing.
It's just bouncy, bouncy.
Dogs too.
Really good at that.
All kinds of animals participate in that, those experiences of joy.
So the...
This is...
This is part of the expression of this.
This is not something that should be constrained too much, too dignified or anything like this.
This is...
When you do your loving kindness, you know, this is...
A lot of people, if they're loving kindness...
This is not interesting if it was put into a movie.
You would not get the part.
You need to emote.
And the face and all this kind of stuff...
Even though you're alone.
So it's very good.
This is the fact is that you're disconnecting from some situation that has to be there.
You're understanding that all of these emotions are produced by you.
Under any of these other circumstances.
circumstances. When you meet your dear friend and so forth that you haven't seen for a long time,
it's not the friend that's producing this feeling. It's you. You're producing the feeling. So try to
find where the buttons are, you know. How do you do this? And do it more often. Understand the
autonomy of this. And then you realize, okay, I can do this. I don't need externalized triggers
for this. I can produce this. So this is like why it's called a dwelling. So you can enter it.
So this is, and then you have the choice also of these other beautiful experiences, because you
come across situations that come to your attention where people are suffering, animals are suffering,
and so forth. And very carefully should be wise about your response to these things.
Because
generally speaking, the response is not skillful. It's a form of participatory grief
and sadness with them, suffering with them, which is, Buddha is saying, is not skillful. Why do you
want to add suffering to the world? There's enough suffering. Are you disappointed that
everybody is? If one person in the world, if compassion is supposed to be suffering,
then if
one single person in the world is suffering, then the other eight billion should also
sympathetically suffer with them. That wouldn't make any sense, would it? So it's, that's not
compassion. Compassion is loving kindness, radiated towards those who are suffering.
Awareness of it, and awareness of the vulnerability of every being to suffer, at least bodily.
It's possible to transcend the dukkha, the suffering emotionally, even in the midst of bodily
illness and so forth. But every body, everybody, every body is subject to pain and distress
in the body. And there's enough of that. So it is a different and very careful take on this idea of compassion.
compassion it's better even to not use the word because it's so tainted in in the way people use
this word compassion you can just stick with this word karuna and have a different definition this
is karuna which is loving kindness radiating towards those who are who are suffering and
how does it feel it feels beautiful it's not you're not celebrating their suffering in any way
you're feeling this sense of warmth and of course if if the person is anywhere near you and and you
can do anything well by all means it can be a motive it motivates your distress your your
actions if it's you know if they're hungry you can feed them and so forth whatever you can say
things that ease their their distress perhaps
sometimes there's nothing you can do and sometimes that you just hear about it they're
far away there's nothing you can do but you can dwell in in profound loving-kindness with
full awareness of their state of suffering and then the third is sympathetic joy and that is
also to have loving-kindness for beings that are experiencing joy and not to be too concerned about
how skillful their joy is they're getting some moment of relief from their distress it may not
be all that skillful you can celebrate the fact that there there's no pain there that there's
some joy there and you don't have to be too concerned with the fact that they're not realizing
perhaps that this joy is very shallow or temp temporary and that
enjoying certain things is always followed by disappointment afterwards you don't have to
analyze it to that extent you can just say uh if the if the being is joyful
at least they have a moment some moments of joy of course if they have deeper joy then it's that's
a really profound and beautiful thing if they have joy based on wisdom then uh it's really to
be celebrated
and to be inspiring as well to find somebody who is has joy in based on clarity of mind or
their own practice of loving-kindness something like that it's wonderful you can you can
participate in that one of the uses of this is that if nothing's going on in your life you can
always borrow somebody else's joy this is you know it's free you there's no copyrights or anything
just they're having a good time they they're celebrating their situation
just identify with them participate in that I mean we do this this is one of the ways they
they talk about the um the near enemies of of this sympathetic joy is that you're it's partial
so you're only joyful when your family is successful and happy
but you cut it off for the na you know so you're you go to the school thing the track meet and your
kid wins and he's there and you're very you're celebrating so forth but the next time the neighbor
kid wins and you're not so joyful why you can enjoy their joy too it doesn't matter who wins
enjoy every one of them if you happen to golf it's a it's a um game of frustrations but somebody is
always getting one good shot away and you just participate in that the other ones by the way I
you should practice equanimity if you're a golfer and it doesn't really matter where that ball goes
it's okay whatever that ball does it's it's it's what it should be doing I have a story I really
never thought much of golf I really uh I'm I'm in agreement with Mark Twain he said golf is a good
sport I have this fantasy of buying a golf course and taking all of those holes and all that stuff
out of there so people all they have to do is just walk around this beautiful green pasture
like what what do you want to ruin it for you know like people are they're they're really
yeah why frustrate yourself like that anyway I um near the uh I was very much
in my meditation stage and and things are falling away this is before I became a monk you know before
I became a monk I I end up as a hermit like a a lay hermit far in the woods leaving everything
behind but as I was moving towards this drastic uh situation I stopped at my parents house and
so forth my father in order to have some connection with me said let's go golfing
it's like
the last thing on Earth but I thought this is I've been taught you know in in monasteries you
know your parents are very important now how else are you gonna you can't just do what you want you
gotta so we go golfing my my father is not meditating so you know he's not anyway neither
of us are any good at this game but I'm there I don't care where the ball goes I whack the ball
and it goes off into the river it goes
habitually off into it and my father is more or less interested in killing the ball
seeing how far it will go but he is no good at either so it usually flubs it or you know but I
I'm a Buddhist so I'm very equanimous about this I don't care where the ball goes but he
cares where the ball goes and he's getting madder and madder and madder
thankfully this is only nine holes so it's all a practice of compassion because basically my early
training had been more in the Mahayana school which is very very emphasis on great emphasis
on Karuna and compassion so I'm there being very compassionate you know no problem he he's
he hasn't understood the Pointlessness of being furious at a golf ball we're bonding
this is therapy I don't know what it is but by the way we finally get to the eighth hole he's he's
tried to murder that ball every time it's been a disaster finally we get to the eighth hole
he lines up and gets one away you know like 250 yards straight and then I realized oh my God
he's we're backwards it's going back down the seventh
green we he's hit it we we thought we were you know we're he's finally got one away
and I don't say a word so he's feeling pretty good you know finally yeah that's the first time you
know and I don't say anything so we start walking down the green that was a good shot Dad you know
and I know we're we're going the wrong way down the seventh backwards down the seventh
seventh and about halfway down there he suddenly realizes holy Christ
we're this is the wrong I don't say a word oh is it is it ah oh okay well I guess we'll go back and
so that was how you be with you know with equanimity
right there joy even though it's it's short-lived and based on the wrong information and so forth
anyway I haven't told that story for 20 years I think the last time I told it
I told it I was with Ajahn viradhamo I was out in Ottawa and we'd been invited we were we were
conducting a retreat I was I was one of the the junior monks you know giving the odd talk and so
forth we got invited to a Sri Lankan house Donna and the oh yeah it was in Toronto in a in a nice
fancy kind of condo and so forth in the the elderly man there was a psychiatrist and somehow I told
this story and he at the end of he said now that's therapy that's therapy he was he thought that's good that's therapy
he thought that's good that's therapy
Anyway, you see it's loving-kindness, it's compassion, it's sympathetic joy and equanimity.
All in a bundle there, so they're all useful.
And also your obligation to do what you can for your relatives.
So this has a lot of practical application.
You can find something in all situations and you can also figure out which role you're
playing next time you go on a golf course or into a game or something like that.
Am I Ajahn Sona's Dad or am I Ajahn Sona there?
So yes, back to the sympathetic joy, just to enjoy everybody's joy.
So the failure of it is when you reserve it only for those who you identify with, your
close, your relatives, your family and so forth.
You celebrate.
celebrate their their joys but other people sometimes you I mean the very opposite of that
is is envy or a lack of of appreciation of others successes and happiness but
why keep it why be stingy with yourself to to keep it within a narrow framework is to just be
to miss all kinds of opportunities for for this incredible beautiful experience of
enjoying somebody else's joy you know you can help yourself it's abundant so this the near
enemy of of compassion is grief and the near enemy of sympathetic joy is this partiality
open up to it and then we're on to this the last of the sublime abidings which is really the most
exalted as well and it's it's well known and amongst the the great early philosophers you see
this
this
, appreciated highly in the in some of the Greek philosophers the Buddha has taken it to you know
ultimate levels equanimity upeka is also the seventh factor of the seven factors of enlightenment
so it is an enlightenment factor this is the mark of true wisdom and by the way you don't have to
always be in loving kindness or compassion or joy there is another place where you may be that every
everybody has their preferences and if you can get there you may prefer to spend your time there
it's not necessary to you don't have to like do a certain amount of loving-kindness before you go
off into the upeka you can make that any of those things can be made a sort of a central practice
and you can either self-analyze or with the encouragement of a teacher so some people are naturally
kind of reserved and not all that they don't really have the experience of warmth and so the teacher
might encourage them say I want to do anything else just loving-kindness for the next year that's
all you do just that and others who were just they're they're golden retrievers you know they're
They're just labs, you know.
They're just dripping with loving kindness and compassion, you know.
But, okay, a little more equanimity.
Let's do some equanimity.
I want you to, because often they will also be subject
to that helping profession kind of illness.
You take compassionate people who are very good and compassionate people
and you overload them with as much as they can take
of dysfunctional people or sick people until they burn out.
That's the system.
So that person also, in fact, often they understand it
as that's what you're supposed to be all the time.
And they may not, and especially often it's tainted
with sympathetic grief and so forth.
So they may need to understand they have freedom
to move towards equanimity and just be an observer
of the universe as it unfolds, just to watch it.
And to watch it with the knowledge that you didn't make it,
you don't even approve of it.
The Buddha is not, by the way, is not celebrating the universe.
He doesn't think it's good.
He thinks it's problematic.
It's fraught with suffering.
It's not only fraught with it, it's intrinsically,
there's an intrinsic problem in it for every being in it.
But what can you say?
You're going to waste your time arguing with it,
scolding it, disapproving of it.
It's completely indifferent to your disappointment in it.
So it's unwise to take that stance.
So it's, the option is, that's the way it is.
And there's a very beautiful position you can be in,
and that's called equanimity.
And you can be in that state.
You can be as appropriate.
You simply observe what it is.
You know, they're approving.
They're approving or disapproving of it.
And you watch the rise and fall of things.
The, what occurs in people's and beings' lives,
sometimes pleasant, sometimes very unpleasant.
And you watch it as, without making an argument with it.
And that is equanimity.
That is an option, which one needs to practice a lot
because it's not, it's virtually not in the vocabulary.
And it's an enlightenment factor, and it's a, it's also beautiful.
There's two types, two fundamental types.
One is activity with thought, with interaction with the world.
You're carrying it around in the midst of life.
And the other one is, one should be so fortunate as to get into the,
such a state of deep stillness and Samadhi that there's nothing
but this perfect still balance.
It's very rare.
That's the fourth.
It's very rare.
And by the way, you'll hear people, you know,
talking about Jhanas and so forth.
This is not, it's been kind of popularized.
And I really think they're doing,
some are doing a disservice to people who are thinking
that they easily have access to this.
I think they're just, they don't realize that they haven't got this,
got it, and that they're being told they've got some, this thing.
But it's a very different thing.
shallow or not even remotely what it is. Because to shut down the mind like that and to go
into that incredibly refined condition is rare. It's super normal. So one should not
underrate it. One should have it as a very exalted condition, that Samadhi that goes
to that level. You know there is one of the descriptions is that basically breathing,
respiration is virtually undetectable in that state. So, it's very deep. Something is shutting
down in the workings of the brain in fact. That respiration is almost undetectable or
the one, the person in that is experiencing as like the cessation of breathing. And so
….
So you know, we would like, it would be interesting to be able to do that, but I think for most
of us it's going to be a form, which is very beautiful, is that we're going to carry it
around in our ordinary life.
And it's a fantastic idea, and it doesn't occur to most people that they're allowed
to do that.
But you are.
So the Buddha's saying, the door's open, and it's wonderful, and why wouldn't you?
So often it's regarded with suspicion for ordinary people, they haven't thought about
it enough, they haven't examined enough, and they don't understand that the most exalted
wise beings in history have thought this was a wonderful attitude to cultivate.
And it's an incredible freedom.
So that's the...
That's the fourth of these four sublime abidings, and each one is...
They're more or less your mansions which you can go to, and they're mansions of profundity.
And last night I talked a little bit about how the Eightfold Path works with these things.
With upeka it also fulfills, if you remember last night, a loving kindness fulfills these
things.
So non-ill will, non-cruelty, or the second one is abandoning the thought of harm.
So loving kindness does that, and the third factor of this right intention is nikama, or
renunciation of craving and desire for things.
Each one of them can be formed in a positive way.
So the opposite of ill will is good will, loving kindness, and so forth.
The opposite of wishing harm is compassion, and the opposite of grasping is, the opposite
is generosity, is giving instead of taking.
But renunciation fulfills that as well.
It's not that you're giving things away or taking things, it's just that you don't want
anything.
So, by the way, there's some interesting stories about people who decide to go off
to the holy life or change their lives, and there's two kinds of things.
One is you decide you got a bunch of stuff, and then you decide to change off.
You're going to go off and be a monk or something like that, or get rid of your stuff.
So you go around systematically giving it away.
That's one of the stories.
And you'll find people in the, that have gone off to be monks and nuns, have stories about
this.
What do they do with their stuff?
So some of them are very systematically giving this to that and so forth, and talking about
the enjoyment of that.
Or sometimes the little bit of reluctance with it and so forth, but this is the nature
of it.
And others just dump it.
So you'll hear stories from the suttas of just people dumping gold into a river, just
walking away.
They might not even bother to give it away, just walk away, burn it.
So that's...
Complete detachment from it.
One is a positive thing, generosity.
But generosity and renunciation are not the same thing.
So upeka, equanimity, also fulfills his right intention.
So it has no trace of ill will to it.
It has no trace of the wish for harm, and it has no trace of grasping or cumulative.
So it's...
it also fulfills right intention that's why it's it's an enlightenment factor as well
and basically it has to be informed by wisdom it's very close to
uh the function of wisdom so i will leave that for tonight because we're now into the cool head so
by the way i forgot to mention so nekama or i mean uh upeka is the cool head so we got the
warm heart going now we're more or less cultivating the cool head