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 195

Four Brahmvihāras of Budhist ❖ 193
this compassion, sympathy, pity or empathy for those who need us at a particular moment of distress. Further 'compassion' or 'pity' is not to be understood in any sense which may justify in-equality in our socioeconomic world. It is simply an acceptance of a factual reality at a particular time which leads to arousal of a sublime emotion in individual that is not in use at that point of time. It is this, which takes the form of an ethical quality when there is conscious effort by an individual to cultivate it and sustain it. It requires a careful check and a balanced attitude by the individual lest it changes into śoka or avasāda (sorrow) which may lead his mind towards dullness or inability to act. This is a state of mind which is again a form of hinderance in the practice of genuine ethical principle. Such negative states of mind such as räga or attachment in context of maitri or śoka or avasāda in context of karuņā are only obstacles in the smooth journey of the individual from the psychological realistic behaviour to a chosen path of ethical conduct. "There is suffering'-the first noble truth of Buddha is the generative organ of this the feeling or virtue of compassion or karuņā for all sattvas (living beings) which is called sattvālambana karuņā by the Buddhists. The mahāyāna school goes further in enlogizing the concept of karuna or compassion which is a part of Bodhi or supreme knowledge. It takes the status of supramundane and is called Mahakaruṇā. Here from the ethical stage it reaches the metaphysical stage. Buddhist Sanskrit literature makes ‘karuņā' as powerful as bhakti is in Bhagvata cult. Just as bhakti is a means to attain liberation, so is karuņā essential to Mahabodhi.
The third Brahmavihāra is mudită. Mudita may not appear very explicitly as a form of non-violence as the first two Brahmavihāras of maitri and karuņā do. Mudita means an expression of joy or delight. Joy is an emotion which is an expression of pleasantness indicating the existence of an attitude of acceptance and unpleasantness as an attitude of rejection. Pleasantness is prelude to joy or elation. Mudită in its ethical connotation is the expression of unselfish love. When one sees the achievements and the corresponding happiness of others, he feels one with them, rather than feeling jealous or envious of them. He feels he is sharing their happiness and feels as if their happiness is his own happiness, and also enhancing a kind of respect for respectables and virtuous. He wants to maintain others' happiness and thereby preserving