The Four Sublime States
Contemplations on Love, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity
by
Nyanaponika Thera
The Buddha often spoke
about four states of mind as the four "Brahma-viharas": the divine or
god-like dwellings, the lofty and excellent abodes in which the mind reaches
outwards towards the immeasurable world of living beings, embracing them all in
these boundless emotions. These four "sublime states" are:
loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. They are considered
to be the ideal social attitudes, the springs underlying the ideal modes of
conduct towards living beings. The great healers of social tension and
conflict, the builders of harmony and cooperation, they serve as potent
antidotes to the poisons of hatred, cruelty, envy and partiality so widespread
in modern life. In the present tract, Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, one of the great
interpreters of Buddhist teachings in our time, offers a series of
contemplations on these four lofty states, exploring them individually and in
their subtle and complex inter-relationships. Though short in extent, this
tract remains one of the most inspiring and uplifting essays on Dhamma to
appear in our era.
Introduction
The Basic Passage on the Four Sublime States
Contemplations on the Four Sublime States:
- Love
- Compassion
- Sympathetic Joy
- Equanimity
The Inter-relations of the Four Sublime States
Copyright
Four sublime states of
mind have been taught by the Buddha:
Love or Loving-kindness (metta
)
Compassion (karuna)
Sympathetic Joy (mudita)
Equanimity (upekkha)
In Pali, the language of
the Buddhist scriptures, these four are known under the name of Brahma-vihara.
This term may be rendered by: excellent, lofty or sublime states of mind; or
alternatively, by: Brahma-like, god-like or divine abodes.
These four attitudes are
said to be excellent or sublime because they are the right or
ideal way of conduct towards living beings (sattesu
samma patipatti). They
provide, in fact, the answer to all situations arising from social contact.
They are the great removers of tension, the great peace-makers in social
conflict, and the great healers of wounds suffered in the struggle of
existence. They level social barriers, build harmonious communities, awaken
slumbering magnanimity long forgotten, revive joy and hope long abandoned, and
promote human brotherhood against the forces of egotism.
The Brahma-viharas are
incompatible with a hating state of mind, and in that they are akin to Brahma, the
divine but transient ruler of the higher heavens in the traditional Buddhist
picture of the universe. In contrast to many other conceptions of deities, East
and West, who by their own devotees are said to show anger, wrath, jealousy and
"righteous indignation," Brahma is free from hate; and one who
assiduously develops these four sublime states, by conduct and meditation, is
said to become an equal of Brahma (brahma-samo).
If they become the dominant influence in his mind, he will be reborn in
congenial worlds, the realms of Brahma. Therefore, these states of mind are
called God-like, Brahma-like.
They are called abodes
(vihara) because they should become the mind's
constant dwelling-places where we feel "at home"; they should not
remain merely places of rare and short visits, soon forgotten. In other words,
our minds should become thoroughly saturated by them. They should become our
inseparable companions, and we should be mindful of them in all our common
activities. As the Metta Sutta, the Song of Loving-kindness,
says:
When standing, walking,
sitting, lying down,
Whenever he feels free of tiredness
Let him establish well this mindfulness -
This, it is said, is the Divine Abode.
These four - love ,
compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity - are also known as the boundless
states (appamanna), because, in their
perfection and their true nature, they should not be narrowed by any limitation
as to the range of beings towards whom they are extended. They should be
non-exclusive and impartial, not bound by selective preferences or prejudices.
A mind that has attained to that boundlessness of the Brahma-viharas will not
harbor any national, racial, religious or class hatred.
But unless rooted in a
strong natural affinity with such a mental attitude, it will certainly not be
easy for us to effect that boundless application by a deliberate effort of will
and to avoid consistently any kind or degree of partiality. To achieve that, in
most cases, we shall have to use these four qualities not only as principles of
conduct and objects of reflection, but also as subjects of methodical
meditation. That meditation is called Brahma-vihara-bhavana,
the meditative development of the sublime states. The practical aim is to
achieve, with the help of these sublime states, those high stages of mental
concentration called jhana, "meditative
absorption." The meditations on love, compassion and sympathetic joy may
each produce the attainment of the first three absorptions, while the
meditation on equanimity will lead to the fourth jhana
only, in which equanimity is the most significant factor.
Generally speaking,
persistent meditative practice will have two crowning effects: first, it will
make these four qualities sink deep into the heart so that they become
spontaneous attitudes not easily overthrown; second, it will bring out and
secure their boundless extension, the unfolding of their all-embracing
range. In fact, the detailed instructions given in the Buddhist scriptures for
the practice of these four meditations are clearly intended to unfold gradually
the boundlessness of the sublime states. They systematically break down all
barriers restricting their application to particular individuals or places.
In the meditative
exercises, the selection of people to whom the thought of love, compassion or
sympathetic joy is directed, proceeds from the easier to the more difficult.
For instance, when meditating on loving-kindness, one starts with an aspiration
for one's own well-being, using it as a point of reference for gradual extension:
"Just as I wish to be happy and free from suffering, so may that
being, may all beings be happy and free from
suffering!" Then one extends the thought of loving-kindness to a person
for whom one has a loving respect, as, for instance, a teacher; then to dearly
beloved people, to indifferent ones, and finally to enemies, if any, or those
disliked. Since this meditation is concerned with the welfare of the living,
one should not choose people who have died; one should also avoid choosing
people towards whom one may have feelings of sexual attraction.
After one has been able
to cope with the hardest task, to direct one's thoughts of loving-kindness to
disagreeable people, one should now "break down the barriers"(sima-sambheda). Without making any discrimination
between those four types of people, one should extend one's loving-kindness to
them equally. At that point of the practice one will have come to the higher
stages of concentration: with the appearance of the mental reflex-image (patibhaganimitta), "access concentration"
(upacara samadhi) will have been
reached, and further progress will lead to the full concentration (appana) of the first jhana,
then the higher jhanas.
For spatial expansion,
the practice starts with those in one's immediate environment such as one's
family, then extends to the neighboring houses, to the whole street, the town,
country, other countries and the entire world. In "pervasion of the
directions," one's thought of loving-kindness is directed first to the
east, then to the west, north, south, the intermediate directions, the zenith
and nadir.
The same principles of
practice apply to the meditative development of compassion, sympathetic joy and
equanimity, with due variations in the selection of people. Details of the
practice will be found in the texts (see Visuddhimagga,
Chapter IX).
The ultimate aim of
attaining these Brahma-vihara-jhanas is to produce a
state of mind that can serve as a firm basis for the liberating insight into
the true nature of all phenomena, as being impermanent, liable to suffering and
unsubstantial. A mind that has achieved meditative absorption induced by the
sublime states will be pure, tranquil, firm, collected and free of coarse
selfishness. It will thus be well prepared for the final work of deliverance which
can be completed only by insight.
The preceding remarks
show that there are two ways of developing the sublime states: first by
practical conduct and an appropriate direction of thought; and second by
methodical meditation aiming at the absorptions. Each will prove helpful to the
other. Methodical meditative practice will help love, compassion, joy and
equanimity to become spontaneous. It will help make the mind firmer and calmer
in withstanding the numerous irritations in life that challenge us to maintain
these four qualities in thoughts, words and deeds.
On the other hand, if
one's practical conduct is increasingly governed by these sublime states, the
mind will harbor less resentment, tension and irritability, the reverberations
of which often subtly intrude into the hours of meditation, forming there the
"hindrance of restlessness." Our everyday life and thought has a
strong influence on the meditative mind; only if the gap between them is
persistently narrowed will there be a chance for steady meditative progress and
for achieving the highest aim of our practice.
Meditative development of
the sublime states will be aided by repeated reflection upon their qualities,
the benefits they bestow and the dangers from their opposites. As the Buddha
says, "What a person considers and reflects upon for a long time, to that
his mind will bend and incline."
The Basic Passage on the Four Sublime States
from the Discourses of the Buddha
I.
Here, monks, a disciple
dwells pervading one direction with his heart filled with loving-kindness,
likewise the second, the third, and the fourth direction; so above, below and
around; he dwells pervading the entire world everywhere and equally with his
heart filled with loving-kindness, abundant, grown great, measureless, free
from enmity and free from distress.
II.
Here, monks, a disciple
dwells pervading one direction with his heart filled with compassion, likewise
the second, the third and the fourth direction; so above, below and around; he
dwells pervading the entire world everywhere and equally with his heart filled
with compassion, abundant, grown great, measureless, free from enmity and free
from distress.
III.
Here, monks, a disciple
dwells pervading one direction with his heart filled with sympathetic joy,
likewise the second, the third and the fourth direction; so above, below and
around; he dwells pervading the entire world everywhere and equally with his
heart filled with sympathetic joy, abundant, grown great, measureless, free
from enmity and free from distress.
IV.
Here, monks, a disciple
dwells pervading one direction with his heart filled with equanimity, likewise
the second, the third and the fourth direction; so above, below and around; he
dwells pervading the entire world everywhere and equally with his heart filled
with equanimity, abundant, grown great, measureless, free from enmity and free
from distress.
Digha Nikaya 13
Contemplations on the Four Sublime States
(top)
I
Love, without desire to possess, knowing well
that in the ultimate sense there is no possession and no possessor: this is the
highest love.
Love, without speaking and thinking of
"I," knowing well that this so-called "I" is a mere
delusion.
Love, without selecting and excluding, knowing
well that to do so means to create love's own
contrasts: dislike, aversion and hatred.
Love, embracing all beings: small and great, far
and near, be it on earth, in the water or in the air.
Love, embracing impartially all sentient beings,
and not only those who are useful, pleasing or amusing to us.
Love, embracing all beings, be
they noble-minded or low-minded, good or evil. The noble and the good are
embraced because Love is flowing to them spontaneously. The low-minded
and evil-minded are included because they are those who are most in need of Love.
In many of them the seed of goodness may have died merely because warmth was
lacking for its growth, because it perished from cold in a loveless world.
Love, embracing all beings, knowing well that we
all are fellow wayfarers through this round of existence -- that we all are
overcome by the same law of suffering.
Love, but not the sensuous fire that burns,
scorches and tortures, that inflicts more wounds than it cures -- flaring up
now, at the next moment being extinguished, leaving behind more coldness and
loneliness than was felt before.
Rather, Love that
lies like a soft but firm hand on the ailing beings, ever unchanged in its
sympathy, without wavering, unconcerned with any response it meets. Love
that is comforting coolness to those who burn with the fire of suffering and
passion; that is life-giving warmth to those abandoned in the cold desert of
loneliness, to those who are shivering in the frost of a loveless world; to
those whose hearts have become as if empty and dry by the repeated calls for help,
by deepest despair.
Love, that is a sublime nobility of heart and
intellect which knows, understands and is ready to help.
Love, that is strength and gives strength: this is
the highest Love.
Love, which by the Enlightened One was named
"the liberation of the heart," "the most sublime beauty":
this is the highest Love.
And what is the highest
manifestation of Love?
To show to the world the
path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden, and
realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.
II
The world suffers. But
most men have their eyes and ears closed. They do not see the unbroken stream
of tears flowing through life; they do not hear the cry of distress continually
pervading the world. Their own little grief or joy bars their sight, deafens
their ears. Bound by selfishness, their hearts turn stiff and narrow. Being
stiff and narrow, how should they be able to strive for any higher goal, to
realize that only release from selfish craving will effect
their own freedom from suffering?
It is compassion
that removes the heavy bar, opens the door to freedom, makes
the narrow heart as wide as the world. Compassion takes away from the
heart the inert weight, the paralyzing heaviness; it gives wings to those who
cling to the lowlands of self.
Through compassion
the fact of suffering remains vividly present to our mind, even at times when
we personally are free from it. It gives us the rich experience of suffering,
thus strengthening us to meet it prepared, when it does befall us.
Compassion reconciles us to our own destiny by showing
us the life of others, often much harder than ours.
Behold the endless
caravan of beings, men and beasts, burdened with sorrow and pain! The burden of
every one of them, we also have carried in bygone times during the unfathomable
sequence of repeated births. Behold this, and open your heart to compassion!
And this misery may well
be our own destiny again! He who is without compassion
now, will one day cry for it. If sympathy with others is lacking, it will have
to be acquired through one's own long and painful experience. This is the great
law of life. Knowing this, keep guard over yourself!
Beings, sunk in
ignorance, lost in delusion, hasten from one state of suffering to another, not
knowing the real cause, not knowing the escape from it. This insight into the
general law of suffering is the real foundation of our compassion, not
any isolated fact of suffering.
Hence our compassion
will also include those who at the moment may be happy, but act with an evil
and deluded mind. In their present deeds we shall foresee their future state of
distress, and compassion will arise.
The compassion of
the wise man does not render him a victim of suffering. His thoughts, words and
deeds are full of pity. But his heart does not waver; unchanged it remains,
serene and calm. How else should he be able to help?
May such compassion
arise in our hearts! Compassion that is sublime nobility of heart and
intellect which knows, understands and is ready to
help.
Compassion that is strength and gives
strength: this is highest compassion.
And what is the highest
manifestation of compassion?
To show to the world the
path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden and
realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.
III
Sympathetic Joy (Mudita)
(top)
Not only to compassion,
but also to joy with others open your heart!
Small, indeed, is the
share of happiness and joy allotted to beings! Whenever a little happiness
comes to them, then you may rejoice that at least one ray of joy has pierced
through the darkness of their lives, and dispelled the gray and gloomy mist
that enwraps their hearts.
Your life will gain in
joy by sharing the happiness of others as if it were yours. Did you never observe
how in moments of happiness men's features change and become bright with joy?
Did you never notice how joy rouses men to noble aspirations and deeds,
exceeding their normal capacity? Did not such experience fill your own heart
with joyful bliss? It is in your power to increase such experience of symapthetic joy, by producing happiness in
others, by bringing them joy and solace.
Let us teach real joy to
men! Many have unlearned it. Life, though full of woe, holds also sources of
happiness and joy, unknown to most. Let us teach people to seek and to find
real joy within themselves and to rejoice with the joy
of others! Let us teach them to unfold their joy to ever sublimer
heights!
Noble and sublime joy is
not foreign to the Teaching of the Enlightened One. Wrongly the Buddha's
Teaching is sometimes considered to be a doctrine diffusing melancholy. Far
from it: the Dhamma leads step by step to an ever purer and loftier happiness.
Noble and sublime joy is
a helper on the path to the extinction of suffering. Not he who is depressed by
grief, but one possessed of joy finds that serene calmness leading to a
contemplative state of mind. And only a mind serene and collected is able to
gain the liberating wisdom.
The more sublime and
noble the joy of others is, the more justified will be our own symapthetic joy. A cause for our joy with
others is their noble life securing them happiness here and in lives
hereafter. A still nobler cause for our joy with others is their faith
in the Dhamma, their understanding of the Dhamma, their following the Dhamma.
Let us give them the help of the Dhamma! Let us strive to become more
and more able ourselves to render such help!
Symapthetic joy means a sublime nobility of heart and intellect which
knows, understands and is ready to help.
Symapthetic joy that is strength and gives strength: this
is the highest joy.
And what is the highest
manifestation of symapthetic joy?
To show to the world the
path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden, and
realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.
IV
Equanimity(
Upekkha
)
(top)
Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind,
rooted in insight.
Looking at the world
around us, and looking into our own heart, we see clearly how difficult it is
to attain and maintain balance of mind.
Looking into life we
notice how it continually moves between contrasts: rise and fall, success and
failure, loss and gain, honor and blame. We feel how our heart responds to all
this with happiness and sorrow, delight and despair, disappointment and
satisfaction, hope and fear. These waves of emotion carry us up and fling us
down; and no sooner do we find rest, than we are in the power of a new wave
again. How can we expect to get a footing on the crest of the waves? How can we
erect the building of our lives in the midst of this ever restless ocean of
existence, if not on the
A world where that little
share of happiness allotted to beings is mostly secured after many
disappointments, failures and defeats;
a world where only the courage to start anew,
again and again, promises success;
a world where scanty joy grows amidst
sickness, separation and death;
a world where beings who were a short while
ago connected with us by symapthetic joy,
are at the next moment in want of our compassion - such a world needs equanimity.
But the kind of
equanimity required has to be based on vigilant presence of mind, not on
indifferent dullness. It has to be the result of hard, deliberate training, not
the casual outcome of a passing mood. But equanimity would not deserve its name
if it had to be produced by exertion again and again. In such a case it would
surely be weakened and finally defeated by the vicissitudes of life. True
equanimity, however, should be able to meet all these severe tests and to
regenerate its strength from sources within. It will possess this power of
resistance and self-renewal only if it is rooted in insight.
What, now, is the nature
of that insight? It is the clear understanding of how all these vicissitudes of
life originate, and of our own true nature. We have to understand that the
various experiences we undergo result from our kamma - our actions in thought,
word and deed - performed in this life and in earlier lives. Kamma is the womb
from which we spring (kamma-yoni), and whether
we like it or not, we are the inalienable "owners" of our deeds (kamma-ssaka). But as soon as we have performed any
action, our control over it is lost: it forever remains with us and inevitably
returns to us as our due heritage (kamma-dayada).
Nothing that happens to us comes from an "outer" hostile world
foreign to ourselves; everything is the outcome of our own mind and deeds.
Because this knowledge frees us from fear, it is the first basis of equanimity.
When, in everything that befalls us we only meet ourselves, why should we fear?
If, however, fear or
uncertainty should arise, we know the refuge where it can be allayed: our good
deeds (kamma-patisarana). By
taking this refuge, confidence and courage will grow within us - confidence in
the protecting power of our good deeds done in the past; courage to perform
more good deeds right now, despite the discouraging hardships of our present
life. For we know that noble and selfless deeds provide the best defense
against the hard blows of destiny, that it is never too late but always the
right time for good actions. If that refuge, in doing good
and avoiding evil, becomes firmly established within us, one day we shall feel
assured: "More and more ceases the misery and evil rooted in the past. And
this present life - I try to make it spotless and pure. What else can the
future bring than increase of the good?" And from that certainty our minds
will become serene, and we shall gain the strength of patience and equanimity to
bear with all our present adversities. Then our deeds will be our friends (kamma-bandhu).
Likewise, all the various
events of our lives, being the result of our deeds, will also be our friends,
even if they bring us sorrow and pain. Our deeds return to us in a guise that
often makes them unrecognizable. Sometimes our actions return to us in the way
that others treat us, sometimes as a thorough upheaval in our lives; often the
results are against our expectations or contrary to our wills. Such experiences
point out to us consequences of our deeds we did not foresee; they render
visible half-conscious motives of our former actions which we tried to hide
even from ourselves, covering them up with various pretexts. If we learn to see
things from this angle, and to read the message conveyed by our own experience,
then suffering, too, will be our friend. It will be a stern friend, but a
truthful and well-meaning one who teaches us the most difficult subject,
knowledge about ourselves, and warns us against abysses towards which we are
moving blindly. By looking at suffering as our teacher and friend, we shall
better succeed in enduring it with equanimity. Consequently, the teaching of
kamma will give us a powerful impulse for freeing ourselves from kamma, from
those deeds which again and again throw us into the suffering of repeated
births. Disgust will arise at our own craving, at our own delusion, at our own
propensity to create situations which try our strength, our resistance and our
equanimity.
The second insight on which
equanimity should be based is the Buddha's teaching of no-self (anatta).
This doctrine shows that in the ultimate sense deeds are not performed by any
self, nor do their results affect any self. Further, it shows that if there is
no self, we cannot speak of "my own." It is the delusion of a self
that creates suffering and hinders or disturbs equanimity. If this or that
quality of ours is blamed, one thinks: "I am blamed" and
equanimity is shaken. If this or that work does not succeed, one thinks: "My
work has failed" and equanimity is shaken. If wealth or loved ones are
lost, one thinks: "What is mine has gone" and equanimity is
shaken.
To establish equanimity
as an unshakable state of mind, one has to give up all possessive thoughts
of "mine", beginning with little things from which it is easy to
detach oneself, and gradually working up to possessions and aims to which one's
whole heart clings. One also has to give up the counterpart to such thoughts,
all egoistic thoughts of "self", beginning with a small
section of one's personality, with qualities of minor importance, with small
weaknesses one clearly sees, and gradually working up to those emotions and
aversions which one regards as the center of one's being. Thus detachment
should be practiced.
To the degree we forsake
thoughts of "mine" or "self" equanimity will enter our
hearts. For how can anything we realize to be foreign
and void of a self cause us agitation due to lust, hatred or grief? Thus the
teaching of no-self will be our guide on the path to deliverance, to perfect equanimity.
Equanimity is the crown
and culmination of the four sublime states. But this should not be understood
to mean that equanimity is the negation of love, compassion and sympathetic
joy, or that it leaves them behind as inferior. Far from that, equanimity
includes and pervades them fully, just as they fully pervade perfect
equanimity.
The Inter-relations of the Four Sublime States
(top)
How, then, do these four
sublime states pervade and suffuse each other?
Unbounded love guards compassion against turning into partiality,
prevents it from making discriminations by selecting and excluding and thus
protects it from falling into partiality or aversion against the excluded side.
Love imparts to equanimity its
selflessness, its boundless nature and even its fervor. For fervor, too,
transformed and controlled, is part of perfect equanimity, strengthening
its power of keen penetration and wise restraint.
Compassion prevents love and symapthetic
joy from forgetting that, while both are enjoying or giving temporary and
limited happiness, there still exist at that time most dreadful states of
suffering in the world. It reminds them that their happiness coexists with
measureless misery, perhaps at the next doorstep. It is a reminder to love
and symapthetic joy that there is more
suffering in the world than they are able to mitigate; that, after the effect
of such mitigation has vanished, sorrow and pain are sure to arise anew until
suffering is uprooted entirely at the attainment of Nibbana. Compassion
does not allow that love and sympathetic joy shut themselves up
against the wide world by confining themselves to a narrow sector of it. Compassion
prevents love and symapthetic joy
from turning into states of self-satisfied complacency within a
jealously-guarded petty happiness. Compassion stirs and urges love
to widen its sphere; it stirs and urges symapthetic
joy to search for fresh nourishment. Thus it helps both of them to grow
into truly boundless states (appamanna).
Compassion guards equanimity from falling into a
cold indifference, and keeps it from indolent or selfish isolation. Until equanimity
has reached perfection, compassion urges it to enter again and again the
battle of the world, in order to be able to stand the test, by hardening and
strengthening itself.
Symapthetic joy holds compassion back from becoming overwhelmed
by the sight of the world's suffering, from being absorbed by it to the
exclusion of everything else. Symapthetic
joy relieves the tension of mind, soothes the painful burning of the
compassionate heart. It keeps compassion away from melancholic brooding
without purpose, from a futile sentimentality that merely weakens and consumes
the strength of mind and heart. Sympathetic joy develops compassion
into active sympathy.
Symapthetic joy gives to equanimity the mild serenity that
softens its stern appearance. It is the divine smile on the face of the
Enlightened One, a smile that persists in spite of his deep knowledge of the
world's suffering, a smile that gives solace and hope, fearlessness and
confidence: "Wide open are the doors to deliverance," thus it speaks.
Equanimity rooted in insight is the guiding and
restraining power for the other three sublime states. It points out to them the
direction they have to take, and sees to it that this direction is followed. Equanimity
guards love and compassion from being dissipated in vain quests
and from going astray in the labyrinths of uncontrolled emotion. Equanimity,
being a vigilant self-control for the sake of the final goal, does not allow symapthetic joy to rest content with humble
results, forgetting the real aims we have to strive for.
Equanimity, which means "even-mindedness,"
gives to love an even, unchanging firmness and loyalty. It endows it
with the great virtue of patience. Equanimity furnishes compassion
with an even, unwavering courage and fearlessness, enabling it to face the
awesome abyss of misery and despair which confront boundless compassion
again and again. To the active side of compassion, equanimity is
the calm and firm hand led by wisdom - indispensable to those who want to
practice the difficult art of helping others. And here again equanimity
means patience, the patient devotion to the work of compassion.
In these and other ways
equanimity may be said to be the crown and culmination of the other three
sublime states. The first three, if unconnected with equanimity and insight,
may dwindle away due to the lack of a stabilizing factor. Isolated virtues, if
unsupported by other qualities which give them either the needed firmness or
pliancy, often deteriorate into their own characteristic defects. For instance,
loving-kindness, without energy and insight, may easily decline to a mere
sentimental goodness of weak and unreliable nature. Moreover, such isolated
virtues may often carry us in a direction contrary to our original aims and
contrary to the welfare of others, too. It is the firm and balanced character
of a person that knits isolated virtues into an organic and harmonious whole,
within which the single qualities exhibit their best manifestations and avoid
the pitfalls of their respective weaknesses. And this is the very function of
equanimity, the way it contributes to an ideal relationship between all four
sublime states.
Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind, rooted in insight. But in its perfection and unshakable nature equanimity is not dull, heartless and frigid. Its perfection is not due to an emotional "emptiness," but to a "fullness" of understanding, to its being complete in itself. Its unshakable nature is not the immovability of a dead, cold stone, but the manifestation of the highest strength.
In what way, now, is equanimity
perfect and unshakable?
Whatever causes
stagnation is here destroyed, what dams up is removed, what obstructs is
destroyed. Vanished are the whirls of emotion and the meanderings of intellect.
Unhindered goes the calm and majestic stream of consciousness, pure and
radiant. Watchful mindfulness (sati) has harmonized the warmth of faith
(saddha) with the penetrative keenness of
wisdom (panna); it has balanced strength of
will (viriya) with calmness of mind (samadhi);
and these five inner faculties (indriya) have
grown into inner forces (bala) that cannot be
lost again. They cannot be lost because they do not lose themselves any more in
the labyrinths of the world (samsara), in the endless diffuseness of
life (papanca). These inner forces emanate
from the mind and act upon the world, but being guarded by mindfulness, they
nowhere bind themselves, and they return unchanged. Love, compassion and
sympathetic joy continue to emanate from the mind and act upon the world, but
being guarded by equanimity, they cling nowhere, and return unweakened and unsullied.
Thus within the Arahat, the Liberated One, nothing is lessened by giving,
and he does not become poorer by bestowing upon others the riches of his heart
and mind. The Arahat is like the clear, well-cut
crystal which, being without stains, fully absorbs all the rays of light and
sends them out again, intensified by its concentrative power. The rays cannot
stain the crystal with their various colors. They cannot pierce its hardness,
nor disturb its harmonious structure. In its genuine purity and strength, the
crystal remains unchanged. "Just as all the streams of the world enter the
great ocean, and all the waters of the sky rain into it, but no increase or
decrease of the great ocean is to be seen" - even so is the nature of holy
equanimity. Holy equanimity, or - as we may likewise express it - the Arahat endowed with holy equanimity, is the inner center of
the world. But this inner center should be well distinguished from the
numberless apparent centers of limited spheres; that is, their so-called
"personalities," governing laws, and so on. All of these are only apparent
centers, because they cease to be centers whenever their spheres, obeying the
laws of impermanence, undergo a total change of their structure; and
consequently the center of their gravity, material or mental, will shift. But
the inner center of the Arahat's equanimity is
unshakable, because it is immutable. It is immutable because it clings to
nothing.
Says the Master:
For one who clings,
motion exists; but for one who clings not, there is no motion. Where no motion
is, there is stillness. Where stillness is, there is no craving. Where no
craving is, there is neither coming nor going. Where no
coming nor going is, there is neither arising nor passing away. Where
neither arising nor passing away is, there is neither this world nor a world
beyond, nor a state between. This, verily, is the end of suffering.
Udana 8:3
The Wheel Publication No. 6
ISBN 955-24-0109-7
First published in 1958
Reprinted 1960, 1972, 1980, 1993
Copyright 1958 Nyanaponika Thera
BUDDHIST PUBLICATION
SOCIETY
DharmaNet Edition 1994
This electronic edition
is offered for free distribution via DharmaNet by
arrangement with the publisher.
DharmaNet International
THE
BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
The BPS is an approved
charity dedicated to making known the Teaching of the Buddha, which has a vital
message for people of all creeds. Founded in 1958, the BPS has published a wide
variety of books and booklets covering a great range of topics. Its
publications include accurate annotated translations of the Buddha's
discourses, standard reference works, as well as original contemporary
expositions of Buddhist thought and practice. These works present Buddhism as
it truly is -- a dynamic force which has influenced receptive minds for the past
2500 years and is still as relevant today as it was when it first arose. A full
list of our publications will be sent upon request with an enclosure of U.S.
$1.00 or its equivalent to cover air mail postage.
Write to:
The Hony.
Secretary
BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
54, Sangharaja
Kandy
or
The
Lockwood Road
Tel: (508) 355-2347
DISTRIBUTION
AGREEMENT
TITLE OF WORK: The Four
Sublime States: Contemplations on Love, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and
Equanimity (The Wheel Publication No. 6)
FILENAME: WHEEL006.ZIP
AUTHOR: Nyanaponika Thera
AUTHOR'S ADDRESS: c/o Buddhist Publication Society
PUBLISHER'S ADDRESS:
Buddhist Publication Society
54, Sangharaja Mawatha
Kandy, Sri Lanka
COPYRIGHT HOLDER: Nyanaponika Thera (1958)
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1958, 1960, 1972, 1980, 1993
RIGHTS AND RESTRICTIONS: See paragraph below.
DATE OF DHARMANET DISTRIBUTION: October 1994
ORIGIN SITE: Access to Insight BBS, Pepperell MA * (508) 433-5847
(DharmaNet 96:903/1)
The copyright holder
retains all rights to this work and hereby grants electronic distribution
rights to DharmaNet International. This work may be
freely copied and redistributed electronically, provided that the file contents
(including this Agreement) are not altered in any way and that it is
distributed at no cost to the recipient. You may make printed copies of this
work for your personal use; further distribution of printed copies requires
permission from the copyright holder. If this work is used by a teacher in a
class, or is quoted in a review, the publisher shall be notified of such use.
It is the spirit of dana, freely offered generosity, which has kept the entire
Buddhist tradition alive for more than 2,500 years. If you find this work of
value, please consider sending a donation to the author or publisher, so that
these works may continue to be made available. May your generosity contribute
to the happiness of all beings everywhere.
DharmaNet International,