Spirit of Light
Be who ever you want
I was asked to write a dhamma talk about the topic of four sublime states. from the Buddhist teaching.
The words in this dhamma talk are Amanaki´s own understanding of the topic, and should not be seen as direct words from the Buddha
The four sublime states, what are they?
Love and kindness. (Metta)
Compassion (Karuna)
Sympathetic joy (Mudita)
Equinimity (Uppeka)
All of this belong together because they are intertwined and are a part of the core teaching of the Buddha. So what can we take from these 4 states and use in our daily life? Let us start with Love and kindness.
Love and kindness.
When we speak about love and kindness we do not think of Love as in affectional love, but a love for all sentient beings, not only on the planet earth but for all beings in the universe. and that we wish them all well and no harm toward them.
So how do we do this in a practical way in daily life? because most of the beings we will encounter in this lifetime is here on earth.
Mostly every day we will experience situations that put our love toward others on a test or tribulation. It does not need to be a huge thing, but even the small things in life that can lead to irritation, anger, frustration and so on. How can we keep loving someone who constantly irritating us, or makes us angry?
This is where love and kindness come in to play. As we enter a situation where we already know we can experience tension or irritation toward the other person, we can be prepared with mindfulness toward the situation. When something does arise, we stop ourselves and ask (mentally) Why does this make me mad? what can I do to end the irritation without becoming angry? Is it me or is it the other person who create the situation?
So when we ask our self this questions, we create a timeframe where we are mindful toward what is actually happening. we begin to see clearly the situation. and we understand that if we respond in a negative way or in a way they are to harm the other person back, it will create suffering for both parts.
So when we realize that if we continue to argue back and forth it will have no benefits at all, but instead we have had time to see the situation for what it actually was. then we can smile of it and answer in a nice way, that probably will put the other person off enough so we avoided a huge argument or fight. This is one way of understanding love and kindness. and how we can use it in a daily situation.
So what did we actually do? by opening us up to the situation and take time to look at it, we could even in a few seconds make a better opinion about the situation and avoid suffering.
Then when we have control and do not react to the situation we can also come up with a better answer if we do need to give one.
And another situation where love and kindness come to play is if we see someone struggle, even we may not have a lot of resources we can give the person care, and give of our time.
If we take the situation where someone is critically sick or are in the time of distress from something that happens to them. out of love and kindness, we can sit down together with them and let them speak without fear of judgment or that we walk away. When we give of ourselves to them with unconditional love, we touch in on the next part of the 4 states and this is called compassion.
Compassion.
With compassion, we put our self in the situation and we can feel the suffering of the other person or persons. We listen to them and feel on our body how they going thru very difficult times and they suffer from this.
There is not always we can help them directly but with words of comfort, calm space and the ability to listen in to what they going thru, and when we can give our advice or ask some very light questions of what we can do to be to their help. But most important is to be there for them, even we do not say a word. (often healing of the mind happens on its own from just not being alone)
But we can also have compassion toward people in a different part of our world, toward those who suffer in wars and who does not have the life we ourselves have this lifetime.
And in war, we can have compassion toward the enemy that we are exposed to. We do not need to hate them or even kill them. But when we can look at them and see the suffering they also going thru, we can be the ones who give them help if they get wounded or comfort them in the moment of their death. There is no need to hate them because they do their orders from someone higher in command. in war, they do not have a choice.
Even terrorists it is possible to have compassion toward, not form what they do in this life, for what they act upon is pure evil, but we can have compassion toward the suffering they will experience in their next lifetime.
Sympathetic joy.
Mudita or sympathetic joy for others is the third of the states.
When we are around other people, we often experience a situation where others get praised or congratulated on something very good they have done or achieved. The sympathetic joy is that we can enjoy their happiness and without any envy or any ill thoughts about this person, we take part in the enjoyment of their success. and even cheering them on to become even better. But if we should become selfish and jealous of them, then we do not experience the empathic joy together with them, then we suffer because they get attention and we do not.
So again we can put love and kindness, compassion and sympathetic joy together and we get an even better experience of life, even it is not about our self, it is about being a part of the community or work. We take joy in every good experience that all beings will experience, and yes also we enjoy when we ourselves get to be joyful.
Equanimity.
So the last part equanimity or calmness from within.
When we combine the 3 other parts we gain a very calm mind and we start to see the life around us as it actually occurs. both the good and the negative, but we do not take part in it with emotions, we are calm within, no matter what happens. and this makes us able to be there for others in the time of needs. We can live life without anger, hate, jealousy, and disappear. because our mind always stays in a relaxed and unattached state. We no longer let other people get to our mind, where we would show emotions that could cause others to suffer from our words, actions or thoughts.
But to be able to experience all these 4 states of mind we must train our mind by meditation. and we can use Metta meditation where we focus our love and kindness out from our body toward all living beings. so instead of having the mind look within our self, we let our unconditional love and kindness reach all corners of the existence. and we wish no harm upon anyone, all we want is that every living being can experience the calmness and joy we have cultivated so to be able to be there for others. We become selfless without a self/ego that we cling to.
With steady cultivation and daily meditation, it is fully possible to experience the bliss every day even in our world of chaos and suffering.
Dhamma talk by Amanaki.
May. 31. 2019
If this dhamma talk would be to help for others, it is a freeware so there is no copyright to my words
To the moderators: If i have posted this in a wrong thread, please put it in the correct area of the forum.
This dhamma talk was given by Amanaki to the RF forum.The four sublime states.
The words in this dhamma talk are Amanaki´s own understanding of the topic, and should not be seen as direct words from the Buddha
The four sublime states, what are they?
Love and kindness. (Metta)
Compassion (Karuna)
Sympathetic joy (Mudita)
Equinimity (Uppeka)
All of this belong together because they are intertwined and are a part of the core teaching of the Buddha. So what can we take from these 4 states and use in our daily life? Let us start with Love and kindness.
Love and kindness.
When we speak about love and kindness we do not think of Love as in affectional love, but a love for all sentient beings, not only on the planet earth but for all beings in the universe. and that we wish them all well and no harm toward them.
So how do we do this in a practical way in daily life? because most of the beings we will encounter in this lifetime is here on earth.
Mostly every day we will experience situations that put our love toward others on a test or tribulation. It does not need to be a huge thing, but even the small things in life that can lead to irritation, anger, frustration and so on. How can we keep loving someone who constantly irritating us, or makes us angry?
This is where love and kindness come in to play. As we enter a situation where we already know we can experience tension or irritation toward the other person, we can be prepared with mindfulness toward the situation. When something does arise, we stop ourselves and ask (mentally) Why does this make me mad? what can I do to end the irritation without becoming angry? Is it me or is it the other person who create the situation?
So when we ask our self this questions, we create a timeframe where we are mindful toward what is actually happening. we begin to see clearly the situation. and we understand that if we respond in a negative way or in a way they are to harm the other person back, it will create suffering for both parts.
So when we realize that if we continue to argue back and forth it will have no benefits at all, but instead we have had time to see the situation for what it actually was. then we can smile of it and answer in a nice way, that probably will put the other person off enough so we avoided a huge argument or fight. This is one way of understanding love and kindness. and how we can use it in a daily situation.
So what did we actually do? by opening us up to the situation and take time to look at it, we could even in a few seconds make a better opinion about the situation and avoid suffering.
Then when we have control and do not react to the situation we can also come up with a better answer if we do need to give one.
And another situation where love and kindness come to play is if we see someone struggle, even we may not have a lot of resources we can give the person care, and give of our time.
If we take the situation where someone is critically sick or are in the time of distress from something that happens to them. out of love and kindness, we can sit down together with them and let them speak without fear of judgment or that we walk away. When we give of ourselves to them with unconditional love, we touch in on the next part of the 4 states and this is called compassion.
Compassion.
With compassion, we put our self in the situation and we can feel the suffering of the other person or persons. We listen to them and feel on our body how they going thru very difficult times and they suffer from this.
There is not always we can help them directly but with words of comfort, calm space and the ability to listen in to what they going thru, and when we can give our advice or ask some very light questions of what we can do to be to their help. But most important is to be there for them, even we do not say a word. (often healing of the mind happens on its own from just not being alone)
But we can also have compassion toward people in a different part of our world, toward those who suffer in wars and who does not have the life we ourselves have this lifetime.
And in war, we can have compassion toward the enemy that we are exposed to. We do not need to hate them or even kill them. But when we can look at them and see the suffering they also going thru, we can be the ones who give them help if they get wounded or comfort them in the moment of their death. There is no need to hate them because they do their orders from someone higher in command. in war, they do not have a choice.
Even terrorists it is possible to have compassion toward, not form what they do in this life, for what they act upon is pure evil, but we can have compassion toward the suffering they will experience in their next lifetime.
Sympathetic joy.
Mudita or sympathetic joy for others is the third of the states.
When we are around other people, we often experience a situation where others get praised or congratulated on something very good they have done or achieved. The sympathetic joy is that we can enjoy their happiness and without any envy or any ill thoughts about this person, we take part in the enjoyment of their success. and even cheering them on to become even better. But if we should become selfish and jealous of them, then we do not experience the empathic joy together with them, then we suffer because they get attention and we do not.
So again we can put love and kindness, compassion and sympathetic joy together and we get an even better experience of life, even it is not about our self, it is about being a part of the community or work. We take joy in every good experience that all beings will experience, and yes also we enjoy when we ourselves get to be joyful.
Equanimity.
So the last part equanimity or calmness from within.
When we combine the 3 other parts we gain a very calm mind and we start to see the life around us as it actually occurs. both the good and the negative, but we do not take part in it with emotions, we are calm within, no matter what happens. and this makes us able to be there for others in the time of needs. We can live life without anger, hate, jealousy, and disappear. because our mind always stays in a relaxed and unattached state. We no longer let other people get to our mind, where we would show emotions that could cause others to suffer from our words, actions or thoughts.
But to be able to experience all these 4 states of mind we must train our mind by meditation. and we can use Metta meditation where we focus our love and kindness out from our body toward all living beings. so instead of having the mind look within our self, we let our unconditional love and kindness reach all corners of the existence. and we wish no harm upon anyone, all we want is that every living being can experience the calmness and joy we have cultivated so to be able to be there for others. We become selfless without a self/ego that we cling to.
With steady cultivation and daily meditation, it is fully possible to experience the bliss every day even in our world of chaos and suffering.
Dhamma talk by Amanaki.
May. 31. 2019
If this dhamma talk would be to help for others, it is a freeware so there is no copyright to my words
