arising and ceasing of metta

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befriend
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arising and ceasing of metta

Post by befriend »

in Mahasi Sayadaw's book on the brahma viharas he talks about contemplating the arising and ceasing of a metta phrase and that this technique can lead to Arhantship, has anyone practiced this method?, thank you, metta, befriend
Take care of mindfulness and mindfulness will take care of you.
Thisperson
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Re: arising and ceasing of metta

Post by Thisperson »

befriend wrote:in Mahasi Sayadaw's book on the brahma viharas he talks about contemplating the arising and ceasing of a metta phrase and that this technique can lead to Arhantship, has anyone practiced this method?, thank you, metta, befriend
For clarification, are you referring to this?
http://www.buddhanet.net/brahmaviharas/bvd016.htm
befriend
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Re: arising and ceasing of metta

Post by befriend »

yes, I will read it more closely then ask questions. thank you.
Take care of mindfulness and mindfulness will take care of you.
Kabouterke
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Re: arising and ceasing of metta

Post by Kabouterke »

Just FYI, Bhante Vimalaramsi at the Dhamma Sukkha Meditation Center and his student Doug Kraft also teach Brahma Viharas as a path to liberation. While Vimalaramsi might be an outspoken critic of the Mahasi tradition, you might find some of their materials interesting to look through because they explain how the brahma viharas can lead to enlightenment.

Thanissaro also wrote an excellent article on how the suttas say the brahma viharas can take you all the way to the end goal. It was called "the limits of limitless states" or something to that effect, but I can't find it anywhere.
perkele
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Re: arising and ceasing of metta

Post by perkele »

Kabouterke wrote:Thanissaro also wrote an excellent article on how the suttas say the brahma viharas can take you all the way to the end goal. It was called "the limits of limitless states" or something to that effect, but I can't find it anywhere.
I found it. It is in the book "Beyond all directions: Essays on the Buddhist path". Here is also an HTML version on an accesstoinsight "fork" website for easier text copy-pasting.

I think it can be a good read.

In fact Ven. Thanissaro argues against the idea that the Brahma Viharas alone can take you all the way to the end goal. However, he goes to some lengths to emphasize the importance of the Brahma Viharas in connection with the development of the noble eightfold path.

Some quotes:
When you look into the Pali Canon — the source texts for the Theravada tradition — it's easy to see why the brahmavihāras are given so much importance in the living tradition, for there the brahmavihāras are connected to all three aspects of the path to the end of suffering: virtue, concentration, and discernment.
So it's clear that Theravada, both in its living tradition and in its source texts, has long given a great deal of importance to the brahmavihāras, both as a basic set of attitudes to be practiced by all human beings who hope to raise their minds to a higher-than-human happiness, and as part of the path of practice leading to the highest happiness of all: nibbāna.

But recently a number of Western scholars and mediation teachers have advanced the claim that the tradition has underestimated the importance of the brahmavihāras; that the brahmavihāras are not just part of the path to nibbāna. They can act as the whole path. All you need to do is develop the brahmavihāras and they'll take you all the way to awakening.
These two discourses show clearly that the Buddha regarded rebirth in a brahma world as a goal inferior to nibbāna. And because the distinction between nibbāna and the brahma world is such a serious, life-and-death matter, it's unlikely that the Buddha would have wanted to speak ironically about it, blurring the distinction when talking to the two brahmans in DN 13.
So it's obvious that the unlimited attitudes of the brahmavihāras do have at least one limit. On their own, they cannot lead to awakening. As a practice, they can't by themselves bring about dispassion of identification, and so they can lead only to an inferior goal in which identification is present as well.

This means that the new interpretation of DN 13 is unreliable as a guide to practice. It also means that the concluding passage of Sn 1:8 has to be interpreted in the traditional way, as a list of qualities to be developed in addition to the brahmavihāras if the concentration based on the brahmavihāras is to lead to any of the stages of awakening.

In other words, the traditional emphasis on the brahmavihāras as a path to awakening is neither too little nor too much. The brahmavihāras can function as part of the path to awakening, but only a part. To attain even the first level of awakening, you have to add other practices to induce the disenchantment and dispassion leading to genuine release.
Kabouterke
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Re: arising and ceasing of metta

Post by Kabouterke »

perkele wrote:
Kabouterke wrote:Thanissaro also wrote an excellent article on how the suttas say the brahma viharas can take you all the way to the end goal. It was called "the limits of limitless states" or something to that effect, but I can't find it anywhere.
I found it. It is in the book "Beyond all directions: Essays on the Buddhist path". Here is also an HTML version on an accesstoinsight "fork" website for easier text copy-pasting.

I think it can be a good read.

In fact Ven. Thanissaro argues against the idea that the Brahma Viharas alone can take you all the way to the end goal. However, he goes to some lengths to emphasize the importance of the Brahma Viharas in connection with the development of the noble eightfold path.
Awesome detective work, Perkele. However, I'm not completely convinced on your reading of his article. I agree that Thanissaro is saying that the brahma-viharas must be combined with another practice in order to reach final liberation. To see what that other practice is, we have to see why he wrote this article.

This article was written in reaction to "a number of Western scholars and mediation teachers [who] have advanced the claim that ... the brahmavihāras are not just part of the path to nibbāna. They can act as the whole path" without the need to "[contemplate] inconstancy, stress, and not-self." In other words, this article is in reaction to people claiming that simply developing the qualities of the brahma-viharas (presumably when practiced purely as samatha meditation) can lead to enlightenment.

In his conclusion, he says "This shows that the brahmavihāras on their own are not enough... Something more is needed." "To attain even the first level of awakening, you have to add other practices to induce the disenchantment and dispassion leading to genuine release." What is the other practice that we have to add? He says it's "the reflection on the inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness of that state of concentration", i.e. insight.

In conclusion, what he's saying is that it's not enough to simply develop the qualities of the brahma-viharas in a pure concentration, samatha-style practice. You can't just develop metta, compassion, joy and equanimity and expect to become enlightened somehow. However, when the brahma-viharas are the object of meditation in which samatha and insight are yolked together, final liberation can result.
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fivebells
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Re: arising and ceasing of metta

Post by fivebells »

You can certainly practice that way, whether it will lead to arahantship, I can't say. Study the fabrications which go into the practice of metta, this is the arising. When the metta decays, study the factors which led to its decay, and the craving underlying those factors. Very sharp sati is necessary to do that, of course. Tune the fabrications so that metta is still generated but the cravings are abandoned.
Kabouterke
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Re: arising and ceasing of metta

Post by Kabouterke »

fivebells wrote:You can certainly practice that way, whether it will lead to arahantship, I can't say. Study the fabrications which go into the practice of metta, this is the arising. When the metta decays, study the factors which led to its decay, and the craving underlying those factors. Very sharp sati is necessary to do that, of course. Tune the fabrications so that metta is still generated but the cravings are abandoned.
How you describe it is similar to the approach of using metta to gain insight as described in the Atthhakanagara Sutta (AN 11.17). However, in that sutta, the four brahma-viharas and their resulting jhanas (1-7, but not the 8th) are part of the practice. According to this sutta (and a number of others), contemplating the brahma-viharas when done in this way does lead to awakening.

See here a summary by Piya Tan:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox ... rojector=1
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