This is a new translation, not simply a paraphrase of an earlier translation. I have attempted to use contemporary idiom and reasonably sensible English syntax. The original is in verse, but I haven't tried to reproduce the meter. The Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta occurs in the Sutta Nipāta (Sn 1.8 = PTS: Sn 143-152).I've speculated, in another post, that the sutta might once have stopped at verse nine, but an extra verse was added as a result of a lost metaphor.
The Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta.
If you know what is good for you, and what to do about it,
Having understood what true happiness is,
Then this is what you would do:
Be practical, straight forward, direct and honest
Be polite and accept advice graciously
Be tender hearted and not arrogant
Be contented, with moderate appetite, and needs easily met
Be easy going
And do not take on many responsibilities
Be grounded and in control of yourself
Be prudent and not reckless or impulsive
And don’t go chasing after status
Never do even the slightest thing that would result in a bad conscience,
Or give the Wise cause to reprove you.
May they have happiness and peace
May all beings be happy in themselves
Whatever living beings there are,
Those suffering and those released from suffering, leaving none out
All beings of whatever size or shape
Fine or coarse, refined or rustic
Seen or unseen
Beings in remote places, and those around you
Those already born, and those about to be born
May all beings be happy in themselves
Not humiliating, or despising, anyone anywhere
And never, though angry, or experiencing anger,
Never wish suffering for another
Just as a mother would give her life to protect her only child
Likewise include all beings everywhere in your heart and mind
With loving kindness for all the world
In all directions of space, unobstructed, peaceable and without enmity
The heart embraces all.
Whatever you are doing, in every activity
As far as is humanly possible sustain these reflections
To do so, it is said, is to dwell with god right here and now!
Hold your opinions lightly, and be virtuous and good
See things as they really are
And having given up addiction to sensuous pleasures
You will surely not have to suffer rebirth again.
12 comments:
"To do so, it is said, is to dwell with god right here and now!"
I'm curious as to why you chose to add "god" into your translation. Could you please clarify? Thanks! :)
Hi Yueheng,
Thanks for your comment and question.
There are two main reasons for translating "brahma viharaṃ" as dwelling with god.
Firstly it is a literal translation of the words. Brahmā is straight-forwardly "God" in Pāli.
Secondly I did it to be a bit provocative. It is clear that the Buddha was using the term metaphorically, so I'm not suggesting that it was used literally. But by choosing a literal translation I was trying to draw attention to the fact that the Buddha used Vedic terminology a lot of the time. I think this indicates his ability to adapt the religious terminology of the day to his purposes. I wonder sometimes whether Buddhists are fully aware of the extent of this. I linked to my earlier post on the metaphor which you could read if you are interested to know more about this idea.
I think that sometimes we Buddhists gloss over words like "Brahmā" and simply interpret them according to what sounds good to us now. By going back to the actual words we have to think more carefully about what the Buddha might have been trying to communicate. Sometimes I feel that English translations obscure too much in trying to fit words to our expectations. An unexpected, but never-the-less literal, translation can be a useful prod to think about the message of the sutta. I am pleased that it caused you to ask your question!
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Thank you for your explanation. I am aware that the Buddha often adapted already existing Vedic concepts for his teachings and his appropriation of "brahma" is one such example.
Which leads me to another issue which I have been grappling with for a while. Can a Buddhist believe in God? Of course the logical response to that question would be: "Depends on what you mean by God". if by "God" you mean an old man in the sky who lords it over a creation full of lesser mortal beings, I'm quite sure that Buddhism categorically rejects that kind of God.
But Buddhism, especially in its Mahayana stream, seems to suggest the existence of a higher power of compassionate-power that transcends our worldly limitations and seeks to save all sentient beings from suffering. This power (which surely has to be personal if it is capable of compassion) has been personified as Amitabha, Avalokiteshvara, Tara, etc. Would it be accurate to term this power "God"?
I would be interested in hearing your opinion on this matter.
Hi Yueheng,
The short answer to your question is no it is not appropriate to refer to Bodhisattva's as "God".
The term God, capitalised like that, seems inextricably linked with Abrahamic deities - ie an all powerful creator god. We might perhaps use 'gods' - plural lower-case - as we do when discussing Vedic or Greek gods. But this may create a confusion because the function of a god is not the function of a Bodhisattva.
Bodhisattvas, and Buddha's for that matter, have only one function - to relieve beings of their sufferings. Gods functions are all to do with the manipulation and exercise of power in the gross sense of being able to bend nature, or other beings, to one's will. Gods operate entirely within the sphere of conditioned existence.
One does see 'deities' used sometimes, and I have used it myself. It is perhaps less confusing, more open to interpretation but context is important - what are we trying to say in this case?
Perhaps if Buddhism did not acknowledge such gods (and it clearly does as they are mentioned on almost every page of the Pāli and Sanskrit canons!) then the word might be redefined. But if we call the Bodhisattvas 'gods' then how would we distinguish them from Indra, Angi, Brahmā and the others who regularly crop up in the sūtras?
I'm not convinced that the 'power' of a Bodhisattva is ultimately personal since ultimately, according to the texts, there are no persons and no Bodhisattvas either. So the power could only ever be personal in a provisional manner.
I would also question whether you have understood the sūtras as I understand them. If we take the Sukhāvativyūha Sūtras which are the locus classicus for the so-called "saving power" of the Buddhas, then
we see that it is not so much the Buddha that saves, as the faith of the person in the saving power. Faith is a spiritual faculty, and one which developed can liberate the heart - at least according to the Pāli texts. The personification is of the object of our faith, not in some concrete power. The power of a Buddha to save me rests in my attaining insight into the true nature of experience through putting into practice the teachings of the Buddha. By contrast the Akṣobhyavyūha Sūtra, which predates the Sukhāvati, makes it clear that one must dedicate oneself to practice in order to be reborn in Abhirati (the Pureland of Akṣobhya).
In effect the 'power' of the Buddhas resides in our own ability to see the nature of experience - impermanent, insubstantial, and disappointing. Buddhas, out of compassion, show us many ways to attain this insight that they already have; but ultimately we have to see it for ourselves. The Pureland Scriptures do not over-ride this. They promise only to arrange a rebirth in a realm where this insight is easy to obtain - it is important to recognise that we will still have to do this for ourselves. So really we are not saved by the Buddhas, they only facilitate our saving of ourselves.
Good question and I hope my answer makes sense.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
hi,
interesting read this little Q+A! theres almost too much information to soak up (in the whole site) but very interesting i must say.
thanks, Jayarava, for an always intriguing, informative, and educational blog...i keep finding this place from other sites all the time...getting quite used to it now. :)
Alex.
Hi Alex,
You're most welcome. It is a pleasure to write the blog, and I'm delighted that anyone reads it and gets something out of it.
Regards
Jayarava
I'm not sure that the Vedic Brahma and the Abrahamic/Western God are really equivalent terms, though Brahma may very well be the closest Vedic term to our Western 'God'. Also, since the primary concern of Buddhist thought and practice isn't theology but rather soteriology, why worry about it? The Buddha was famously silent about theology, and as pertaining to Buddhist practice, I for one will maintain his ambivalence.
It is a metaphor anyway; I doubt very much that the Buddha was trying to tell us that Brahma sets up house in our living room because we're good at Metta work! But likewise, if the Buddha wasn't afraid to make the occasional God reference, why are we? What are we attached to?
Hi Illuminateur,
At least by the Buddha's time Brahmā or Prajapati was precisely the creator God. I am distinguishing him from the grammatically neuter word 'brahman' which was more like a transcendent principle that is familiar from more contemporary Hinduism. Brahmā did not have a punishing role for misdeeds, but the Hindu system of Karma (a manifestation of brahman) took care of that role. Orthodox Brahmins believed that they would go to heaven on the basis of having fulfilled their Dharma (ie their caste duty) and after the appropriate funeral rituals (śrāddha) had been performed. It seems to me that this was the audience the Metta Sutta was aimed at, and so the translation of Brahmā as God is especially relevant. It might well prove useful in the Christian West also to argue that Buddhism shows the way to Heaven - without death, and judgement by an arbitrary and jealous creator, and without the intercession of priests and the pathetic figure of Jesus. of course more of us will have to live out this goal of dwelling with god ourselves for it to be entirely convincing - I'm sure I couldn't pull it off!
The reason to "worry about it" is that Buddhists have traditionally been quite ignorant of the origins of such phrases as "brahma vihara" - to dwell with Brahmā. The Buddha was certainly not silent on the question of theology in the Pāli canon my friend - he dwelt on the inadequacies of theology often and at length. Apropro this you might want to consult the Tevijja Sutta (DN13) which is vital in understanding the context of the phrase "brahma vihara", and also in the Dīgha Nikāya the Kevaddha Sutta which is precisely saying how unrealistic theology is. Hardly silence!
Yes you are right it is a metaphor. What is interesting is that early Buddhists did not think so. They took it literally and invented a whole new class of realms over and above the Devaloka, called the Brahmalokas which they populated with beings called Brahmās (plural). Vedic cosmology has Brahmā as the highest deva but Buddhists, because of the failure to recognise the metaphor for what it was, began to proliferate concepts. In itself this is not a fatal error to make as cosmology has barely made an impact on the godless West. But what is worse is that where the Buddha literally meant that to practice dwelling with god "brahma vihara", in the way that he describes it, is to attain ceto-vimutti or liberation of the heart; the early Buddhists took this as a metaphor. This failure was more critical because it meant that the Theravada school undervalued metta bhavana as a practice. What I am doing, on the back of research by Professor Gombrich, is arguing for a revalorisation of brhama vihara as a means to liberation. And this is a project which is vitally important!
Your last point escapes me. At first you say (wrongly) that the Buddha was silent on the subject of theology, and then you admit that he made occasional references to god and seem to be saying that there is no problem in talking about god. Apart from the apparent contradiction it seems to me that you are confused. Of course it is vitally important to understand that you are not the product of, nor subject to, a creator god. By invoking the bogie of "attachment" you are missing the more important point about clarity and right-view. I know that some Buddhists would like to do away with the necessity for right-view, but I believe it (following the Buddha of the Pāli texts, and my own teachers) to be indispensable for understanding your experience, until such time as you have perfect view or insight. To put it another way - confusion about the Dharma is a hindrance to practice.
I really am pleased that this post has stimulated so much interest. That was the point :-)
Best Wishes
Jayarava
I don't see where the Buddha's occasional mention of God, or gods, is theology in any way; as you said before, he consistently finds theology to be a rather useless endeavor, and by theology, I mean speculations about the nature of the divine. I know that the Buddha talked about the uselessness of theology; what I mean by his silence on the subject is that he didn't engage in theological discussions and speculations, because, as you said, and as I agree, he found them rather useless.
I also never said I believe in a creator God, nor that such a concept has any place in Buddhism. When I use the phrase "talking about God", I merely mean that Buddhists seem to be more reluctant to use metaphors containing God-language than the Buddha was himself. Here in the West, it is almost imperative to use such metaphors-and for Buddhists to reclaim them with less reluctance-because it's where most people start from.
I used the word "attachment" because I am concerned that many disgruntled (Christian) Westerners seem bound and determined to find atheism in Buddhism as a matter of Dharma truth, without further investigation. Isn't that an attachment better left aside, just as surely as theism is an attachment too?
Hi Illuninateur,
If you read those suttas I suggested you will see that what the Buddha is engaged in there is not a passing mention of God but a concerted critique of the notion of God. He is engaging in extended debates with Brahmins on the nature of God, and extended conversations with Jains on the nature of Karma, and with the Ajīvakas on the nature of ethics. This is Theology by any definition, despite the fact that the Buddha seems to have considered believing in God to be unhelpful. His use of "brahma vihara" is initially part of a strategy to undermine the Brahmins belief in Brahmā - it is quite cunning and calculated and involves plays on the twin notions of Brahmā and brahman. But by the time the Canon was written down the context was lost and the metaphor misunderstood. You seem not to see the context within which the metaphor operated (and how could you because the Gombrich's writing on the subject is not widely available - keep an eye out for his new book "What the Buddha Thought".)
You suggest there is an imperative to use the language of God in Western Buddhism, but on what grounds? What would be the advantage? I can see massive disadvantages because of the way Westerners relate to God or the idea of a God. What a mess we are in because of that. The Buddha was operating in an entirely different context and merely aping his strategies may not be of much use. Although I suggested it, can you imagine walking into a seminary or church and anouncing that you know the way to heaven and gving instruction on the Mettā Bhavanā? If you do try that then be sure to video it so we can all have a laugh.
Context is all important! The Buddha was not recalaiming the language of deity, he was showing how stupid it is. We don't need to do that because most people believe it to be stupid now anyway, and anyway Richard Dawkins and co are doing a good job.
You sound almost indignant that some people believe something that you do not. (see several blog posts labelled with belief for my views on this). You can't regulate belief. You can encourage good behaviour. Otherwise just work on your own mind. Being reactive about what other people believe is a recipe of unappiness and conflict, as I know only too well. As far as attachment is concerned then focus on your own attachments; and love people despite their faults. If you become a shining example of humanity and people ask you what your secret is, you can tell them it is due to your non-attachment and see if they take the bait. Otherwise trying to stop people being attached is like trying to bail the ocean with your bare hands.
Remember: blessed are the cheese makers.
Stumbled upon your blog...fantastic...thank you...
your welcome. Jayarava
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