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Sumedho 157
brahma-viharas
Metta kindness
Karuna compassion
Mudita sympathetic joy
Upekkha serenity of mind
What is divinity? For reflection on divinity we have the four brahma-viharas, the beautiful, selfless qualities that can manifest through the human form when there is no self.
When you are not caught in instinctual behaviour or emotional reactions based on ignorance; when there is dispassion and all that process of self-view ceases, then the divinity is obvious. Then kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and serenity of mind are not something that we have to get, but something that manifests through these forms.
In our lives as separate beings, we relate to things. As individual beings, we have relationships to things, we have to meet and contact and react or respond all the time for the rest of our lives.
On the physical level, we have to respond to eachothers presence in some way. In relationship, when there is no self, then there is this divinity that manifests.
Comment Boe: emergent social phenomenon - the evolved capacity to coordinate behavior of all metazoa – planning: interaction with the future, stable foreseeable patterns of interaction – communication language: – metta, compassion, sympathetic joy, serenity and nothing "devine"!!!
158
Metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha provide a reflection: they form a sequence of how to relate to the world.
Metta is very much how we should relate to ourselves too. It is how to relate to ourselves with kindness and acceptance rather than with aversion and judgement. Metta is having a perspective and not creating even about the unfairness, injustice, inadequacies of ourselves, or others or of society.
Karuna is compassion. When we see the suffering of others and the injustice and unfairness that exist, we respond with karuna. It is from understanding the nature of suffering, how it arises and ceases, that you can haver true karuna for other beings.
Mudita – When you look at flowers, you experience a joyful feeling and that is mudita, a rejoicing in beauty and goodness and truth. And we rejoice in the goodness of others. Mudita is and our ability to be joyful with the beauty and loveliness of lifes experiences.
Upekkha - To be able to abide in serenity of the mind, we are not going around looking for beautiful things to find delight in, because there is no self. The ordinariness of life is upekkha, serenity. Its about having peacefulness with the pains and aches of the aging process and the separation of the loved.
Brahma-viharas are considered as lokiya dhamma, mundane dhamma, not the transcendent or lokuttara dhamma. Because of the way that the mind tends to think, the view arises that lokiya dhammas are not worth bothering with. Lokuttara dhamma is the important one. You don’t pay much attention to lokiya dhammas.
But with mindfulness, you are with the relationship of the lokiya to the lokuttara dhamma. When there is no self, when there is no ignorance conditioning the mental formations, then there is the way of things – the lokiya dhammas. When there is no more ignorance, there is spontaneity. That is what spontaneity is, there is no self in it. It is a more natural way to respond to beauty, truth and virtue.
Ajahn Sumedho
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