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Dharma Thoughts

“… Seeing the danger of the world,
both of us went forth.
Now we are tamed, our defilements have ended;
we’ve become cooled and quenched.”-
Thig 4.1 Bhaddānāpilānī Therīgāthā

A certain deity who had noted this all-pervading sense of calm and happiness which was
experienced by the monks and nuns asked the Buddha what was his secret and the Blessed One
replied:

“They do not worry about the past
They do not worry about the future
By remaining ever in the present
Are they calm and peaceful”

Instead of encouraging followers to focus on happiness in heaven after death the Buddha declares
that the secret of happiness is to remain ever mindful of the present moment because we have no
control over the future or the past whereas we can control the present. While staying in the present
moment a person should develop what in Buddhism is referred to as the Four Brahma Vihāras
(Divine Abidings). One need not wait to go to heaven after death to experience bliss – this can be
developed in each present moment in this life itself by developing four elevated mental states –
mettā, karuṇā, muditā, upekkhā. Mettā is usually translated as loving kindness which entails a
general sense of friendliness and harmlessness radiated to every living being in the universe—seen
or unseen. When one lives suffused with such an all-encompassing sense of goodwill towards
everything this is akin to living in a heavenly state. Then we can practice karuṇā, compassion for
any living being in the universe which is in a suffering state and doing what we can to alleviate this
suffering. Compassion is not simply feeling sorry for others complacently: it must be accompanied
by the strenuous effort to eradicate suffering in all its forms. When one is so occupied with
eradicating suffering one has little time to be concerned with one’s own petty problems. More
difficult to practice than compassion is the third Brahma Vihāra: muditā, sympathetic joy. It is
relatively easy to develop karuna because in this case one is in a fortunate position oneself. But with
muditā one is required to rejoice at the good fortune of others, even when one is not so fortunate
oneself. Finally we come to the fourth and highest level of divine abiding—Upekkhā or equanimity.
At this stage one has reached such a high level of spiritual development that one maintains an
unperturbed mind completely unshaken by the eight vicissitudes of worldly life: gain and loss,
praise and blame, honor and dishonor, happiness and sorrow. Like a lotus rising above the muddy
waters of a pond, the mind remains calm and serene unaffected by the turbulence around it. Yet this
is not a cold (or indifferent, as the pope maintained) aloofness in the face of mundane realities. Like
a Bodhisattva one strives to eliminate suffering but does not succumb to it. All the Brahma Vihāras
are developed by oneself without the need to seek assistance from a divine benefactor and one
enjoys the positive results in this life itself.

Happiness means experiencing a state of well- being. Happiness is experienced in the present
moment without reference to the past or future, as we saw in the Buddha’s explanation to the deity