Bauddh Dharm Darshan Sanskruti aur Kala

SR No.: 004152
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Dharmchand Jain, Shweta Jain
Publisher: Bauddh Adhyayan Kendra
Publication Year: 2013
Total Pages: 212
Language: Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 17 MB

Page 194

192 • alles gof-esta, Hecklat oite one men or rather living beings which consist of four different levels or stages of mind. In our Indian ethical tradition they are also called bhāvanās.
For a clearer picture of these 'Bramvihāras'a little discussion is required as to what they actually are and how they are termed as ethical principles and rightly so. However, as mentioned earlier, underneath them are the hidden psychological dispositions which come wrapped in the form of ethical virtues, which at a even higher stage are exalted spiritual qualities culminating in the ultimate spiritual goal of liberation, nirvāņa or nibbāņa. I intend to call it a journey (vihāra) from psychological make up to socio ethical ideal climaxing into the final stage of the spiritual goal.
Maitrī is friendliness in positive terms and adosa or non-enmity in negative terms. Very simply it is directing or bestowing love to living creatures. It helps ones own self because it reduces adosa or hatred. It helps others on whom it is bestowed because he gets the feeling of satisfaction of being loved. Friendliness is a refined expression of the feeling of love and of gregarious instinct which involves (perhaps) a certain amount of choice but a choice not governed by self-interest. Thus, the ethical concept of maitri is distinguished from "rāga" or attachment which Indian moral thinkers including Buddhists would reject and call it a form of hindrance in proper ethical upliftment of the individual. Though rāga or attachment may show similar characteristics signs in appearance, but they lack what in Buddhism called 'right knowledge' or 'sammāditthi'. Buddhist philosophers point out that cultivation of this moral virtue. necessitates a great amount of constant alertness which is succintly put in one word sammādithi'.
The second Brahmavihāra is ‘Karuņa' or compassion. It is aroused by seeing someone in distress. It means identifying one-self with another one who is in distress. In common parlance it is called 'softening of heart'. This is a stage of mind in which attitude of violence automatically subsides. Psychologically, it is an expression of the instict of racepreservation. An individual (not only human) psychologically grows with two equally important and simultaneous instincts of self-preservation and race - preservation. The term race is need not be understood and interpreted in sociological sense of class identify. Here, it simply means any one whom one can identify with at a particular time and place. It is