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The Buddha’s advice to the Kalamas

THE KĀLĀMA SUTTA

This is what I heard. Once, the richly endowed one (Bhagavā). while wandering by stages in the Kosala country with a large Bhikkhusangha, arrived at a town belonging to the Kalāmās called Kesaputta.

The Kālāmās of Kesaputta heard [it said]: ‘bho (‘Sir’) Gotama, the freelance spiritual teacher (samana), the Shakyan who has gone forth from [that] clan, … has entered Kesaputta. [With] good renown, he is described as:
‘Indeed richly endowed, of highest worth (arahant), fully and perfectly awakened, knower of the worlds, best guide for men training [themselves], teacher of devas and human beings, awakened, richly endowed. He makes known this world and its devas, maras, and brahmas; this generation and its spiritual seekers (samanas), priests (brāhmanas), princes (devas), and [other] people, seeing it all clearly himself with his higher knowledge (abhiññā). He presents a dharma which is goodly (kalyāna) in the beginning, middle, and end [of the spiritual life], with its inner meaning (sāttha) and specific expression (savyañjana), all complete (kevala) and perfect (paripunna(?)); a completely purified and sublime life (brāhmacariya) – that he illuminates. The sight (dassana) of such worthy ones (arahants) is good indeed.’

Then the Kālamas of Kesaputta drew near the Bhagavā. Having drawn near, some prostrated (abhivadetvā) and sat down to one side. Some exchanged joyful greetings (sammodi9su), and after a gladdening and memorable conversation, sat to one side. Some saluted him with raised, joined palms and sat to one side. Some told him their name and clan and sat to one side. Others [just] came in quietly (tunhabhuta) and sat to one side.

The Kālāmās said … ‘Bhante, certain spiritual aspirants and priests (samanas and brāhmanas) visit Kesaputta. They only explain and illuminate their own teachings (vāda), condemning, abusing, and pulling to pieces (opapakkhi9 karonti, literally ‘plucking’) the teachings of others. Then different ones visit [and do the same thing]. We are in doubt (kankhā) and uncertainty (vicikicchā) about them, Bhante. Which of them told us the truth. which spoke falsely?’

‘You are definitely right to be in doubt and uncertainty. Kālāmās – this [matter] is a doubtful one. So, Kālāmās, don’t [rely on] what you hear repeatedly (anussava), nor on what is handed down in a tradition or lineage (parampara, lit. ‘succession’), nor on hearsay (itikirā), nor on a scripture as authority (piṭaka-sampadāna), nor on sophistry or logical inference (takkahetu or nayahetu), nor on prolonged consideration (ākāraparivitakka), nor on getting carried away by a view you identify with (ditthinijjhānakkhanti) [alternatively, ‘nor on indulgence in the pleasure’of speculation’], nor on [someone making a] plausible impression (bhabba-rūpatāya) [alternatively, ‘nor on (something that) looks plausible’], nor on your respect for a spiritual teacher (samaṇo no garū).

‘Kālāmās. When you know of yourselves that these teachings (dhammas) are unskilful, blameable, faulted by sensible people (viññugarahitā); that, followed through and practised, they lead on to harm and dukkha, then give them up.
‘Consider this, Kālāmās. When craving (lobha) …, hatred (dosa) …, [or] delusion (moha) arise in someone, do they lead to benefit or harm?’ ‘Harm, Bhante.’ ‘Someone who is craving …, hating …, [or] deluded, obsessed and mentally overcome by craving …, hatred …., [or] delusion, kills, takes what is not given, goes with someone else’s wife, tells lies; and gets others to do likewise. Will that give rise to his harm and dukkha in the long run?’ ‘Certainly, Bhante.’ ‘So do you think these things are skilful or unskilful?’ ‘Unskilful, Bhante.’ ‘Are they blameable or not?’ ‘Blameable.’ ‘Are they condemned or approved of by sensible people?’ ‘Condemned.’ ‘If you follow them through and practise them, do they lead to harm and dukkha or not, or what do you think?’ ‘ It appears to us that they lead to harm and dukkha’
‘That is why I said that you should not [rely on] … [repeated as above, to:] … give them up.

‘[But], Kālāmās, when you know of yourselves that these teachings are skilful, blameless, recommended by sensible people, and that followed through and practised they lead to welfare and happiness, then practise them and stick to them.

‘Consider this. When non-craving …, non-hatred …, and non-delusion arise in someone …, who, without these [three], not obsessed or overcome by them, refrains from killing, taking the not given, going with someone else’s wife, telling lies, and getting others to do likewise, will that give rise to his welfare and happiness in the long run? ‘ ‘Yes, Bhante.’ ‘So do you think that these things are skilful or unskilful?’ ‘Skilful.’ ‘Blameable or not?’ ‘Blameless.’ ‘Condemned or approved of by sensible people?’ ‘Approved.’ ‘If you follow them through and practise them, do they lead to welfare and happiness, or not, or what do you think?’ ‘It appears to us that they lead to welfare and happiness.’
‘That is why I said that you should not [rely on] … [repeated as above, to:] … give them up.

‘Then a follower of the Āriyas, who is free from this sort of covetousness and ill-will, and is undeluded, with clear comprehension and mindfulness, lives with his heart full of mettā. He extends his mettā to each quarter in turn, and above and below, and in all directions, to all living beings as [to] himself. He lives with his heart filled with abundant, exalted, and limitless mettā, free from hostility, unaffected by ill-will, extending to the whole world.
(The above paragraph repeated for compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.]

‘So a follower of the Āriyas, with a heart (citta) thus free from hostility, unafflicted by ill-will, undefiled, and unified gains four anticipations (assāsās) here and now. He thinks: “if there is life after death, and if skilful and unskilful actions (kammas) have results, then when my body disintegrates after death, I might be reborn in a blissful realm.” This is the first anticipation.

‘“But if there is no life after death, and actions have no results, then here and now, in this lifetime, I am free from hostility, afflictions, and anxiety, and I shall live happily.” This is the second anticipation.

‘“If one who does evil experiences evil [consequences], then since I never think of doing evil to anyone, how will dukkha ever touch me?” This is the third anticipation.

‘”But if one who does evil experiences no evil consequences, then I know that I am pure on both counts.” [i.e. if so-called evil acts do not result in suffering, they cannot really be regarded as ‘unskilful’. So one is pure in that one performs no so-called evil acts, and in that no acts are really evil anyway’. Probably a tongue-in-cheek remark by the Buddha.] This is the fourth anticipation. …’

‘Indeed it is so, Bhagavā! Indeed it is so, Sugata!…’ [The Kālāmās then repeat the four anticipations, in agreement.]
‘Brilliant, Bhante, brilliant! It’s as though someone had righted something knocked over, revealed the concealed, shown the way to a lost [traveller], or taken a lamp into the darkness so that those with eyes can see everything. just so the Bhagavā has demonstrated the Dharma in various ways. Bhante, to the Bhagavā for refuge we go. To the Dharma for refuge we go. To the Bhikkhusangha for refuge we go. Bhante, please regard us as followers (upāsakas) who have today gone for refuge for life’.

Notes:

This is a translation I prepared a long time ago, so it lacks input from recent scholaship and wise interpreters. It’s a re-rendering based on explanations given by the Venerable Sangharakshita at a seminar at Padmaloka, July 1980. Prepared using the unedited transcript of the seminar. and translations by Ñanamoli, Soma, and Woodward.

Words in square brackets are additions to make the sense clearer. Three dots (…) means that some repetition has been omitted. The Pali originals, given in italics, have been checked where possible, and are usually given as in the headwords of the Pali Text Society’s (PTS) Pali English Dictionary
The original in romanized Pali is in the Anguttara Nikaya, Vol. I, pp188-193 (ed. R Morris, revised Warder, Luzak for PTS, 1961). Virtually complete translations are available in the PTS’s Numerical Sayings. and as translated by Soma Thera, The Instruction to the Kalamas (Wheel Publications No. 8, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Ceylon, 1963). Partial translations: Woodward’s Some Savings of the Buddha (Buddhist Society, London), pp189ff; Bhikkhu Ñanamoli’s Life of the Buddha, pp175-8; Walpola Rahula’s What the Buddha Taught, pp2-3 (very selective, significantly omitting ‘faulted by sensible people’); and Alexandra David-Neel’s Buddhism, p123 (very garbled). It is discussed at length in Michael Carrithers’ The Buddha (Oxford University Press ‘Past Masters’ series), pp89-94, with a partial translation.
Ratnaprabha

Tolerance — ksanti

Kusunoki Masashige, photo by Jim Epler https://www.flickr.com/photos/epler/

The Zen master and the general

In the warring period of medieval Japan, one of the most ferocious of the clan generals swept into a peaceful valley with his army. The general was used to the terror his arrival would always cause. The Buddhist monks in the local Zen monastery fled into the mountains – all except one. The general stomped through the monastery buildings, and was very surprised to find one remaining monk, the Abbot, a well known Zen Master, who was calmly sitting in his room. He strode up to him. his sword drawn: ‘Don’t you know who I am? You dare to remain seated in my presence? I have killed scores of men. Do you realise that, without blinking an eyelid, I could run you through with this sword?’ The Zen master did not move. ‘General,’ he said ‘do you realise that, without blinking an eyelid, I could be run through with that sword.’ After a pause, the general put away his sword and bowed, and ordered his army to leave the valley.

I remembered this story as a striking example of a special kind of tolerance which is found in Buddhism, a personal tolerance which includes the ability not to join in with any games of power. (I will question the Zen Master’s behaviour later.)

Tolerance in Buddhism

It’s tempting to bestow some reassuring but bland declarations of how nice it would be if everyone else were more tolerant. But what of our own personal level of tolerance? I’d like to look at that from a specifically Buddhist angle.

I learnt Buddhist meditation as I was about to start my finals at university (and I certainly needed the effects of meditation then!) So I had some contact with a Buddhist, the meditation teacher, in fact he was the one who told me that story. He impressed me very much, and I decided to investigate Buddhism as a whole, not just the practice of meditation.

Two things, among others, really struck me about Buddhism. One was its emphasis on the individual, and one’s actual experience, here and now. The other was that it does more than tell you that you ought to be kind to people, and tolerant and so on. It recognises that you may not feel kind or tolerant, and so it offers practical methods for developing such qualities, and methods for leaving behind habits that lead to harm and suffering. These two points apply to Buddhist tolerance.Firstly, it is said to be individual tolerance that matters most. So it is not Buddhism that is tolerant, but Buddhists. And it is not other isms that Buddhists tolerate, but real individual people. I think this is quite an important distinction.

However, if you strongly identify with your religion or your ideology, and label other people with their religion or ideology, then it is very tempting to make the label so huge that you can’t see the person behind it. And then it is a label which you tolerate, or don’t tolerate, as the case may be. She is a Moslem, so she must be bloodthirsty and fanatical, say.

The second point was to do with seeing tolerance as a quality to be developed in the individual, using practical methods, not as a pious hope, or something received from outside you by grace. So what is the quality of tolerance like, and how can you develop it?

Well, I’ve been using the word tolerance, which of course is an English word, to translate a traditional Buddhist term which actually has a rather broader meaning. The word in Sanskrit is ksanti, a rather beautiful word, I think. As well as tolerance, it means forbearance, patience, kindness, and maybe the best translation is non-reactivity. Non-reactivity is something the Zen Abbot exemplified, I think. It is the ability to respond with kindness whatever another person does to you. Quite a tall order, but it is something you can gradually strengthen, as we’ll see. It is not something you just have or don’t have, and you just have to put up with it. This is a great mistake, I think, which it is very easy to make. I can believe, ‘well, so I am a bit crabby. But I was born like that, and that’s the way I am.’ .So ksanti is a quality you can develop, the ability to remain cheerful and positive even if people are not treating you as you’d like to be treated.

An old poem ascribed to the Buddha includes the line: ‘Ksanti is the highest form of austerity.’ I think this means that when people get difficult, learning not to react with more of the same is a better form of training than the most impressive feats of self-denial or fasting and so on.

Developing ksanti

So how do you learn ksanti, how do you develop tolerance as a personal quality?

In Buddhism, the first steps for cultivating any inner quality are ethical ones. You apply awareness to your actions, and to your feelings as well. You restrain any impulses that are intolerant, because if those emotional urges turn into words and actions, they get a firmer hold on you, as well as damaging whoever has to bear the brunt. Instead of acting from intolerance, you emulate anyone you know, or know of, who seems to be truly tolerant, and so your habitual behaviours slowly adjust.

But ethics is only a first step, and it is not enough. You need to tackle the intolerant impulses at their roots in the heart, and cause tolerant impulses to sprout there instead. Any method which achieves a direct emotional change is called meditation. Meditations for developing ksanti use the medium of empathy. In a meditation to cultivate kshanti,you would get into a quiet state of mind which is flavoured with confidence. This is because the meditation will not work if you do not have a strong sense of self-worth. You could say that you can’t really tolerate others unless you can be tolerant to yourself: everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, but it is counter-productive to give yourself a hard time about them. In Buddhism, they are called ‘adventitious defilements’ because deep down you are ok, there is a core of inner purity, the potential for Enlightenment.

So with that feeling of being happy about yourself, you than call to mind the people you are intolerant of (whether or not you think the intolerance is justified), and you start to feel what it must be like to be them, as best as you can. You regard them with the same kind of understanding that you have for yourself, and notice that they are the way they are because of all sorts of circumstances, and some of those circumstances can change. Thus you start to empathise with them.

As you empathise more, you may realise that your intolerance of them is based on very superficial characteristics – it’s their tone of voice or their facial expression which really gets up your nose. Alternatively, you may decide that their behaviour is just not on. In Buddhist terms, their behaviour is unskilful, ie it is damaging to themselves or others. This is where your tolerance is really tested – when it seems that you have good reasons for it. William Blake says:

Learn … to distinguish the Eternal Human … from those States or Worlds in which the Spirit travels. This is the only means to FORGIVENESS OF ENEMIES.[i]

In other words, we can recognise that our common humanity is where our regard for each other comes from. On the surface of that humanity, everyone passes through many mental states, some skilful, some unskilful. If our reason for not being tolerant is others’ mistakes and unskilfulness, then we will tolerate no-one.

You can’t ignore unskilfulness. But I think you need a thoroughly tolerant frame of mind in order to be of any real use in helping someone overcome it. And maybe you can’t — maybe you can’t cope with this person, but you have no choice but to cope with your own reactions to them.

There are much more advanced developments of ksanti or tolerance in Buddhism, connected with the very significance of birth and death, but I just wanted to give you some practical ideas about how to make it stronger. There is one more thing I’d like to add about tolerance as a quality. Kshanti has been defined as not expecting anything.[ii] This may seem a bit extreme, because we always, surely, have some expectations. But then we are often being disappointed. And what makes it so difficult to be tolerant is other people not fulfilling our needs and our expectations of them. Expect nothing, and life is full of very pleasant surprises!

So in this talk, I have deliberately focussed on ksanti, tolerance, as a quality for each individual to strengthen in themselves. We may think we are already very tolerant. That may be true when it comes to events in distant countries, or the religious rites of exotic communities. Tolerance is really tested, though, between you and your relatives, the people you work with, or whoever is with you now. Can we really put up with such weird and unreasonable human beings in such close proximity?

One reason for the difficulty of being tolerant is that other people are different from us, and their differences can seem unreasonable, even threatening. Can I accept that someone else is fully human, and deserving of a good and full life, even though they are not like me? One way out of this problem is to regard differences as unreal, but I think that is a cop out.

Religious tolerance

I wanted to concentrate on personal tolerance, so I have not discussed religious tolerance, or the toleration of variant views and beliefs. As you know, this is not really an issue for Buddhism as a tradition, despite very poor behaviour by some Buddhist communities. But ksanti or tolerance as a personal quality is just as much an issue for Buddhists as for anyone else. For a Buddhist, any other person is to be treated as an independent human being, responsible for their own destiny, who is potentially a Buddha, whatever their opinions may be.

But what if their opinions are pernicious? For example, what if they hold tenaciously to an ideology in which a huge section of the community is regarded as untouchable, their very shadows being seen as polluting, as is still the case in large parts of India? If so, then I think the harmful views should be exposed, but in a spirit of personal friendliness. So I am pointing out that you do not have to tolerate everything. Tolerance does not mean blurring the truth and pretending that we all believe the same thing or are really all on the same path. I am convinced that there are real differences between people, and also real differences between the Buddhist approach and other approaches, and between different people’s priorities and aims. I feel it’s rather intolerant for someone to insist otherwise.

Why is it that (with exceptions such as Northern Myanmar in our own time) Buddhists have as a whole has been quite happy to coexist with other religions and ideologies, while for most of their history, the other world religions have not been tolerant of each other?

I haven’t time to treat the whole issue thoroughly, and I could well be quite wrong about it. But I consider that it is connected with belief in God. Buddhists do not believe in God. Buddhism is a religion of discovery, of discovering the truth by taking full responsibility for the growth of your own wisdom and compassion. The other main world religions are, for most of their followers, religions of revelation. If you believe your truth is revealed from an infallible divine source, then it is difficult to admit the quite different revelations of other religions, or even the different interpretations of the revelation of your own religion.

It is obvious that individual theists can be genuinely tolerant people, but I think that such people have left behind some of the traditional associations with God. Each theistic religion as a whole, as a tradition or an institution, seems to militate against many forms of tolerance, and will carry on doing so unless there are some big changes. For example, I very cheekily asked a priest why the church did not simply repudiate the Old Testament, but he wasn’t having it!

So, if you are a believer in God, however you conceive of him, a non-theist might really test your tolerance by saying: ‘I am convinced that God does not exist, and that belief in God can in itself explain why there is more active intolerance in the theistic religions than outside them.’

Conclusion

I was thinking some more about the story of the Zen Abbot and the general. It is an impressive story, and he must have been a very impressive man. But I am not sure he was setting a very good example. In fact, I am sure he had no intention of setting an example, he was just being himself. If I had been there, I am certain I would have scampered off into the mountains with the other monks.

When I have told such stories before, some people usually respond by saying: ‘If everyone acted like that, society would fall apart!’ or ‘Someone has got to resist the tyranny and oppression of the strong over the weak’, or they think he was just lucky.

I sympathise with these responses, but I think they miss the point. The Abbot was not writing a list of recommended behaviours to suit all situations. He was just being himself, and each of us is different. For a start, we have probably not developed anything like his imperturbable kshanti, and that is not something you can pretend about.

Another Japanese master was lucky enough to die in his bed. As he lay dying, his devoted disciples gathered round, and asked him for his last words of wisdom. He just croaked: ‘I don’t want to die!’ ‘But master’, they said, ‘we want some final advice that posterity will remember you for’. ‘No really,’ he said ‘I don’t want to die.’ So I am sort of heartened by that. Maybe we can develop tolerance, tolerance for each of our fellow human beings, not imposing our expectations on them. But maybe we can keep one or two aspects of this world untolerated, as that last Zen master did with the expectations of his own pupils; maybe we can even refuse to tolerate the finality of death, and discover for ourselves what it is all really about.

Based on lecture to a United Nations Association interfaith meeting in 1995

[i] William Blake, Jerusalem, 49: 72-5. His capitals.

[ii] Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, 174.

Karma in Buddhism: why stop acting from preference?

Karma: acting by skill instead of likes and dislikes

A karma means a deed: anything we initiate, whether a deliberate thought, a few casual words to someone, or a physical action. All actions have their effects, and the intentional ones change our character and thus our future most powerfully of all.

There is a choice between what the Buddha called dark deeds and bright deeds. With mindfulness you can put energy into certain mental impulses and withdraw it from others; you can let some impulses express themselves in action, and restrain yourself from acting on others. This is Buddhist ethics, an ethics based in your knowledge of mental states, which offers the choice between skilful actions, the bright deeds, which genuinely benefit one’s self and others, and unskilful, dark deeds, which cause harm and distress.

The consequence of the basic negative impulses of craving and aversion is that things go wrong, and life becomes unsatisfactory because the world does not match your wants. This is how unskilfulness is defined in Buddhism: it comes from craving or aversion, and it leads to frustration and misery. By definition, unskilful actions harm yourself and others. Skilful actions in contrast come from open and loving states, and lead to benefit and happiness.

The first stage of a Buddhist life is to move the seat of government from the likes-and-dislikes polarity to that of skilful and unskilful, the criteria of Buddhist ethics. You restrain the craving, the clinging, and the other self-protective responses, and you see whether you can stop yourself turning those mental responses into harmful words and deeds. Instead, you practise friendliness, compassion, stillness, awareness and so on.

This does not mean a swap to not doing what you want to do and doing what you dislike. Skilful/unskilful are categories of a different nature from like/dislike. You are choosing on the basis of skilfulness instead of giving in to the habits of protecting a precarious identity, and a skilful choice can be tough, but it is often delightful. It can be very skilful to do what you like, and pleasant experiences are often the consequences of previous skilfulness. Ruling your life by always choosing what you like, hedonism, leads to disappointment and selfishness. But ruling your life by what you don’t like is religious asceticism, a practice the Buddha tried before his awakening, and emphatically found did not help. He reflected: ‘Why am I afraid of such pleasure?’ Then he explored the delights to be found in a clarified human mind – a skilful mind.

Karma, action, has tangible consequences, according to Buddhism. Why is it that one notices some things and not others? And why is it that some things are liked and some disliked? The reason is said to be past karma: the decisions we have made, the habits we have entrenched, perhaps in previous lives, in short all our seeds of ethical and unethical actions; these give significance to our current world, and determine what we notice and what we do about it.

Extracted from Finding the Mind by Robin Cooper (Ratnaprabha), Windhorse Publications, 2012.

Some notes on envy in Buddhism

Sanskrit irshya, Pali issa

Envy in English is: “A feeling of grudging or somewhat admiring discontent aroused by the possessions, achievements, or qualities of another” (Collins dictionary)

Angelo Bronzino, Wikimedia

It may be ethically neutral – “I do envy you your lovely house”.– Simply a form of praise.
It may represent mild covetousness, actually wishing you did have a nicer house, but not with any enmity involved.
Then it can become negative where you feel that they have something that you deserve better than they do.
Finally a strong hatred or aversion, where you want to hurt the possessor that you envy.

It is one of the five poisons (kleshas)

Craving
hatred
ignorance
envy (irshya)
pride

Irshya can arise as an unskilful response when we notice the possessions, the good qualities or the achievements of others. We wish we had those things ourselves, so it is a form of craving. But it goes much further than covetousness or craving, because we don’t simply notice something which we then want to have, we actually resent the person who’s got it. So it is a mixture of craving and hatred. The Buddha says that envy arises when we can’t bear the success or possessions of other people. We find it difficult or impossible really to appreciate other people’s joys and achievements. They seem painful to us, because they remind us too strongly of our own deficiencies, as we see them.

The Alexander Berzin archive defines irshya as: “A disturbing emotion that focuses on other peoples’ accomplishments – such as their good qualities, possessions, or success – and is the inability to bear their accomplishments, due to excessive attachment to one’s own gain or to the respect one receives.”

Consider:

Envy among children…
envy at work…
envy in romance and friendship…

Kant defined envy as “a reluctance to see our own well-being overshadowed by another’s because the standard we use to see how well off we are is not the intrinsic worth of our own well-being, but how it compares with that of others.” So if we are completely at ease with ourselves as we are, the qualities and achievements of other people are not threatening at all, in fact we can appreciate them, and enjoy them. Envy comes from comparison, and from the feeling that I am special, so that I deserve things in preference to others, or the feeling that I have a special entitlement.

Everybody needs a certain amount of approval and appreciation, and perhaps if you lack it as a child, you are likely to have that sensitivity to being reminded, as you see it, of your deficiencies, by the qualities and achievements of others. The metta bhavana is a wonderful practice for tackling a lack of self-worth, because it doesn’t stop with encouraging a sense of love and well wishing towards yourself, but it expands to others as well, and that process of expansion is what establishes a robust mental emotional positivity in yourself. You no longer need the outside world to treat you well, because you feel okay about yourself.

Someone once asked the Buddha: “what is it that traps people, so that, though they wish to live in peace, without hate and hostility, they yet live in conflict, with hate and hostility.” The Master replied: “It is the bonds of envy and avarice that so trap people that, though they wish to live in peace, they live in conflict, with hate and hostility.”

“If we trace external conflicts back to their source, we will find that they spring up because we envy others for the qualities they possess which we desire for ourselves, and because we are driven by an unquenchable avarice to extend the boundaries of what we can label ‘mine’. Envy and avarice in turn are grounded in two more fundamental psychological conditions. Envy arises because we identify things as ‘I’, because we perpetually seek to establish a personal identity for ourselves internally and to project that identity outward for others to recognize and accept. Avarice arises because we appropriate: we attempt to carve out a territory for ourselves and to furnish that territory with possessions that will titillate our greed and sense of self-importance.” (Bhikkhu Bodhi)

In the beginnings of envy, perhaps skilful desire is there, and is being used positively, to stimulate action. In the Mandala of mythical Buddhas, there is a green Buddha in the Northern quarter, his name Amoghasiddhi means “infallible success”, his quality is action or karma, and he transforms the poison of envy into the all performing wisdom. The mental state that counteracts envy is mudita or sympathetic joy, but we can also say that actively intervening in your life is important if you find yourself experiencing envy, realising that you do have the ability to make a difference, to change things, looking at what you are doing, rather than worrying too much about whether people are better or worse than you.

Fearlessness is also an antidote to envy, and the green Buddha holds up his right hand in the gesture of courage, or bestowing fearlessness, as in the story of a furious elephant being set upon the Buddha by his envious cousin Devadatta.

**The meditation on sympathetic joy (mudita).**

First of all making a connection with a lighter, more at ease part of ourselves, wishing ourselves well. Then thinking of somebody we like who is happy or fortunate, at present at least, and seeing if we can rejoice in their happiness or good fortune. Then thinking of a neutral person, and if necessary imagining their happiness or good fortune, and rejoicing at that. Then a difficult person. Then equalising the mudita for all four people, and spreading it out to everybody in the world.

Ratnaprabha = Robin Cooper

writings on buddhism