This weeks FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;Positive Emotion and The Spiritual Lifeand#8220;, is an extract from the legendary series by Sangharakshita, and#8220;Buddhism for Today and Tomorrowand#8221; given in 1976. From the talk and#8220;A Method of Personal Developmentand#8220;, the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community speaks eloquently about how the practice of friendliness can bring about profound change in oneand#8217;s life.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
Positive Emotion and The Spiritual Life
[Music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. [Music] Now this meta bar for now, this development of universal friendliness, does not as a practice stand alone. It's one of a set of four practices known as the four limits less states. We go to try to develop the appropriate emotion without any limit whatsoever. The other three practices are the development of compassion, of sympathetic joy and of equanimity. These are not separate from the meta, the meta is the basis of them all. When we come into contact with suffering, when our friendliness comes into contact with suffering, compassion arises. When our friendliness comes into contact with other people's happiness, then sympathetic joy develops. And when meta, friendliness, compassion and sympathetic joy are developed equally towards all, then equanimity arises. And equanimity, of course, is not indifferent. There's no equanimity without friendliness. We can also add reverence or devotion. And this is experienced when the meta, the friendliness, is directed as it were upwards towards the idea. The spiritual idea. And these five we may say, they are to say, friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity or peace, if you like. And devotion, these five are the principal positive emotions. And their development is regarded as very important by Buddhism. They occupy, in fact, a central place in the spiritual life. And when fully developed, they constitute what is technically known as liberation of heart, or the liberation of the heart. And we may say that nowadays, three-quarters of the way through this 20th century, the development of positive emotion is more important than ever before. Without positive emotion, there is no spiritual life. Many people, unfortunately, in the West, they don't realize this. They think that religion is a doubt and a gloomy affair. And perhaps religion is. But Buddhism, but the Dharma certainly isn't. And personal development certainly isn't. I'd even go so far as to say, especially on my basis of nine years' experience with the friends and with so many people who've come along through the friends, the F.W. Bureau in the course of the nine years, that without strong positive emotions, no spiritual progress is possible. I'd even put it as strongly as that, that without world-developed positive emotions, no spiritual progress is possible. So this means that many people's first duty to themselves and to others is simply to be happy, to develop friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, and reverence and devotion. Formally, I must say, when I arrived back in this country after 20 years in the East, I found that there was not much spiritual emotion in Buddhist circles in this country. I remember my first Wesak meeting, Wesak being the great Buddhist festival of the whole year. I remember my first Wesak meeting in London after my return from India. As I looked around the hall, I couldn't help noticing, I couldn't help seeing and feeling that everybody looked dull and sad. And in the course of my remarks, in the course of my short talk, I remarked upon the factor. I said that we've gathered together here today to celebrate Wesak, to celebrate the Buddha's enlightenment. But you don't seem very glad. It's as though you're almost as sorry that the Buddha gains enlightenment rather than rejoicing over the commemoration. So some of them laughed a little feebly. And that was my, almost my first experience after coming back to this country. And I never forgot it. But certainly we may say that things are very much better now. Or at least considerably better. Now I've said that meditation is the method of personal development. I've described the metaphor now. I've insisted on the importance of positive spiritual emotion. And I've referred to the full development of positive spiritual emotion as liberation of heart. But this is not enough, not even this. We can go further. In fact, we must go further if we want to complete the process of personal development. Because there are two kinds of meditation. And I want to say just a few words about this and then we must conclude. There's what we call the development of calm. This is the first great division of meditation, the development of calm. It represents the calming down of all unskillful mental states. The development of skillful states through the highest possible degree. And it covers meditation as I've described it so far, and it represents, of course, a very high attainment indeed. But it has definite limitations. It can be gained, yes, but also it can be lost, and regained, and again lost. For permanent attainment, we have to have recourse to the second as it were higher kind of meditation. Which is not development of calm, but what we call development of insight. Here insight means direct vision, direct experience of the true nature of existence. Here one sees the world as it is. One sees also what is beyond the world. One sees that also as it is. One sees that the world, the conditioned, the phenomenal, is unsatisfactory, impermanent, unreal, and beautiful. And one sees that what is beyond the world, the unconditioned, is blissful, permanent, real, beautiful. And so seeing, one turns finally away from the world, away from the conditioned. One turns permanently in the direction of the unconditioned. One turns in a word right-round. This is the famous turning about in the deepest seat of consciousness. One turns right-round. And in this way insight goes beyond calm, though at the same time insight is not independent of calm. Insight is developed on the basis of calm, which means that it has behind it the purified and the refined energy of one's whole being. Because it has behind it that purified and refined energy of the whole being, it can penetrate into the depths of existence. Insight therefore is not just a matter of intellectual understanding. Though the content of insight can be expressed in intellectual terms, at least up to a point. Insight is a matter of direct spiritual vision, of direct experience of ultimate reality. And when insight is fully developed, one achieves what is called liberation by wisdom. And liberation of heart, and liberation by wisdom together constitute what is known as perfect enlightenment. So calm and insight are both necessary. The purified heart must be united with the illuminant mind. Love and compassion must be united with wisdom. And when one succeeds in doing that, one's personal development will be complete. So that having reached this point we've made an imagination at least full of use of the first of the four things that the FWBO has to offer. That would say a method of personal development. And having made full use of that method, we should begin to see the world, see human existence, in a very different way, from the way in which we saw it before. We shall begin to see the world, begin to see human existence as a Buddha, as an enlightened being sees it. And how a Buddha sees it, we shall try to understand in our next lecture. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [music] [music] [music] [ Silence ]