It has always struck me since my Catholic high school days that early Christians (really the Greeks in general) had different words for different kinds of love - a word for erotic love, a word for love of family, a word for love between friends, and then agape - unconditional love. There was no one ambiguous word for "love" that was employed to mean anything from greedy desire for a hamburger, to naked lust, to feelings of cameraderie, to simply liking a person, to sublime self-sacrificing atlruism. Our English word "love" has become next to useless because of how it has been overlain with all kinds of irrational and even degrading meanings.
I think that is why many Buddhists have really started to carefully investigating and cultivating the Buddhist words - metta (loving-kindness), karuna (compasion), sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upeksha) because the meaning of these includes warmth and feeling but is not narrow or irrational or materialistic. And instead of just being an emotion we may or may not feel, these four brahmaviharas (divine abidings) are states that we can actually cultivate.
It is also noteworthy to me that all four of them are about loving-kindness and that loving-kindness is a general wish for the well-being, happiness, security and ultimately enlightenment of others. Compassion is when loving-kindness encounters those who are suffering. Sympathetic joy is when it encounters those who have reaped the rewards of good causes or, even better, have attained a degree of liberation and insight. Equanimity is the ability to have an stance of loving-kindness towards all in all circumstances. And just as Jesus said, "love others as you love yourself" the cultivation of these four boundless states of mind begins with directing the well-wishing, compassion, joy in honestly gained success, and equanimity towards oneself - and after that radiates that feeling or well-wishing in all directions. Furthermore these states lead to and/or are generated from an insight into the interdependently transformative nature of all beings and all that is.
Another great thing about the teachings relating to loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity is that they identify the near and far enemies of each. The far enemies are the opposites - so hatred, cruelty, envy, and bias would be far enemies of each of the above qualities. But the near enemies are the counterfeits, and so the teachings warn us not to get confused. Don't mistake sentimental attachment for loving-kindness, or over-identifying with the pain or successes of others to the point where you are just living your life through others or losing your perspective, or mistaking indfifference for equanimity. And again, to idenfity the difference requires wisdom and so wisdom leads to the four divine abodes and also is generated by our working on them.
But here we come back to Nichiren Buddhism. Nichiren said that for ordinary beings in the latter age it is extraordinarily difficult for us to cultivate all the virtues and merits that Buddhists cultivated in the past. Rather, we should concentrate on wisdom, and since we have no wisdom we should replace wisdom with faith in the Wonderful Dharma. Faith, means trust and confidence. The Wonderful Dharma is the true nature of ourselves and of all reality. It is the Wonderful Dharma taught in the Lotus Sutra that points out our universal buddha-nature and the compassionate presence of buddhahood in our lives. Our faith gives us access to this. It means that in chanting Odaimoku we can look forward to our minds coming to dwell in the four divine abodes as one aspect of the many virtues and qualities of buddhahood which our faith and practice of Odaimoku can help bring about.
But there is also this - we can chant till we are blue in the face to get a job or to meet the perfect person, or to get a raise or find the perfect home. But once we have made that ultimate root cause, we must go out and send in resumes, or attend social gatherings, or improve our work, or go check out the houses on the market. There must be follow-through with faith in the power of the Odaimoku. In the same way, we must chant to bring forth such beautiful states of mind as the four divine abodes. And then when we are out in the world we should be more self-aware and look for opportunities to approach ourselves, our family and friends, strangers, and even enemies in a new way. We must be self-aware and make the effort. Otherwise, we are merely praising the Lotus Sutra with our lips but then slandering it in our hearts and in our actions by dualistically thinking that the Odaimoku will do the work so that we don't have to. The power to bring forth the beautiful states of mind described in the four divine abodes comes from the Odaimoku - the seed of buddhahood that they are aspects of. But in turn, we must do our best to glorify the Odaimoku and all life be being loving, compassionate, joyful, and ful of a peace that picks no sides and has no boundaries.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
P.S. I want to thank Brian, and Byrd and others for comments posted on a discussion list prompted all this to come out. I have been thinking about these things for several years now since taking a year long seminar on them with Dharmajim and also in preparation for the four day retreat I held in Denmark last August that had these as the theme.
Wow! All those years as a freelance writer chanting for credit, and I actually got one! OK, so it's on an obscure (sorry, but true) Buddhist blogsite, but hey! Oscar here I come!
I'm wondering though, do you(or anyone else) think that the fact that our language has so few expressions for so many different kinds of "olve" that this limits our perceptions in how we even chant? For me, starting to do metta meditations was a real eye-opener! I wish I'd had it earlier. All those years I was justbeing taught to "chant for someone's happiness" which got old after awhile, and didn't have near the "pop" for me as doing a metta meditatin. But we don't have a word for metta in English.
Is it sort of like Orwell's Newspeak? No word for freedom, nosuch concept in peoples'minds? Lets'start a movement to make these otherwords part of the more common English vocab --now, THAT would be a big step towards kosen-rufu! What do you all think? Byrd in LA
Posted by: Byrd inLA at October 4, 2004 08:56 PMByrd,
I think "yes." Best - B.
I think that in general my mind and heart have been opened to all manner of perspectives and insights by going back to the sutras and being open to what other Buddhist teachers have had to say. Thinking about "love" from the perspective of "metta" is just one of many examples where I have benefited in terms of my understanding of life and the inspiration and direction of my practice by "going back to Shakyamuni Buddha" and "going back to Buddha Dharma itself".
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
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Posted by: Ryuei at October 5, 2004 01:56 PM