Kindness and the Five Paths
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 6 minute read This excerpt commences the chapter ‘Kindness Front and Centre.’ Kindness and the Mahayana Five Paths The path to Nirvana—as expressed the Satipatthana Sutta—can tend to be interpreted by Theravada commentators as narrowly focusing upon renunciation; mindfulness of the body and its movements; the mechanical noting of experience within slow walking meditation, and through that practice, noticing how the nature of everything one experiences is subject to impermanence, insubstantiality and inherent suffering (the three lakshanas.) That path also offers challenging insight meditations – such as the meditation on the stages of decomposition of a corpse – for more serious practitioners.[1] The drawback of this approach, though, is that practices and meditations which focus on emotional development, such as the metta bhavana and devotional practices tend to be either side-lined or treated nominally. This narrow and somewhat intellectual approach is attractive to those who identify their Buddhism with wanting a certain personal meditative experience, along with, hopefully, the eventual confirmation of a certain level of spiritual attainment: Buddhism as ‘spiritual materialism.’ Wanting to cater for this desire among westerners for spiritual attainments – in the view that it somehow furthers Buddhism, Eastern teachers have perhaps wilfully ignored certain inconvenient truths, like the centrality of emotional development in life and on the path. However, Mahayana Buddhism – and particularly its expression in Tibetan Buddhism – restores this focus and puts kindness back front and centre. Alienation When Sangharakshita returned to Britain in the 1960s, he observed that Westerners were being taught mindfulness in this narrow way and that it was leading them into states of alienation. Subhuti relates Sangharakshita’s views concerning some of the causes of alienation and we might recognize these same patterns in many young people today. Image by coombesy on Pixabay. When we find that certain feelings are unacceptable, we suppress our real emotions, and ‘assume we experience what we think others want us to feel.’ This pattern extends to thoughts: ‘As to thoughts, we are not so much alienated from them as fail to have any thoughts at all,’ because so many agencies are telling us what to think. ‘The state of alienation … coupled with a wrong understanding of Buddhism, … leads to the extreme zombie-like states witnessed by Sangharakshita.’[2] That wrong understanding of Buddhism can be due to a corrupted form of objectivity: ‘Sometimes, for instance, mindfulness itself is interpreted as standing aloof from experience, watching one’s body, feelings, and thoughts as though from a distance–here the practice of mindfulness is the systematic cultivation of alienation!’[3] Or a wrong view about ethics may...
Compassion and its ‘enemies’
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 10 minute read Diving into the Preface of ‘The Buddhas and Global Governance,’ this excerpt digs into the intricate dynamics of compassion and its adversaries. Building upon the narrative of ‘ The Twitter Files,’ it navigates through the suspension of Jordan Peterson from Twitter, shedding light on the complexities surrounding bringing the right amount of compassion to transgender issues. Join me as I embark on a journey towards understanding the nuances of compassion and where the Middle Way lies. The ‘banning’ of Jordan Peterson from Twitter The ‘great sin,’ however, on ‘Old Twitter’ was to comment on a transgender issue: as Jordan Peterson found to his cost when he was suspended[1] from Twitter in July 2022 for allegedly violating their rules against hateful conduct. Mikhaila Peterson said her father would be off the platform until he deleted the tweet. Conservative commentator David Rubin commented on the incident, “The insanity continues at Twitter. @jordanbpeterson has been suspended for this tweet about Ellen Page. He just told me he will ‘never’ delete the tweet. Paging @elonmusk.”’ [2] only to be suspended himself, at which, ‘Rubin and Mikhaila called on Tesla CEO Elon Musk – who recently bid $44 billion to take the platform over in efforts to promote free speech.’[3] Musk eventually took over Twitter in October 2022. ‘The crime’ Peterson had claimed in a tweet on 24 June 2022 that ‘The Umbrella Academy’ star Elliot Page, who formerly went by the name of Ellen, and who had announced his transition in December 2020, had his ‘breast removed by a criminal Physician.’[4] Peterson had said ‘her’ instead of ‘his,’ tweeting, ‘Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.’[5] (Emphasis added) Peterson explains his thinking behind the tweet: ‘Page is a star, and she advertised her transformation and made the claim that this is revolutionized her life and then she displayed her new body in a public forum and got 1.7 Instagram likes for it, and probably enticed, let’s say, one young girl who is confused into becoming sterile, which is one too many for me.’[6] Peterson’s tweet, along with other controversial tweets and statements in interviews, led the Ontario College of Psychologists to order him to undertake a social media coaching program; he appealed the decision, and lost:[7] ‘Dr. Peterson is subject to regulation by the College of Psychologists of Ontario, which received complaints about Dr. Peterson’s public statements. Following an investigation into those of Dr. Peterson’s statements alleged to be “transphobic, sexist, [and] racist,”...
The Metta Bhavana
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 9 minute read This excerpt is from the chapter ‘Buddhist Practice’ and it explores the metta bhavana meditation practice in its practical aspect. It follows on from ‘Day-to-day mindfulness.’ The Metta Bhavana I want to move on now to the Metta Bhavana: the ‘root’ meditation in a set of four called the Brahmaviharas or ‘divine abodes.’ Metta is Pali for ‘Universal Loving Kindness’ and bhavana means cultivation.’ I explored the principles behind the emotion in Chapter 1; and in ‘Kindness as Constructive Imagination.’ It is worth reiterating that metta is an emotion and that the practice consists in whatever creative action will systematically bring that emotion about. It doesn’t matter, for instance, that we care about or are sincere in our wish to develop loving kindness: this may be no more than virtue-signalling (to ourselves and others) what a good person we would like to be. No, what matters is that we are effective in our practice and come to actually care what happens to ourselves and every ‘other’ in a real, powerfully passionate and robust way. The method doesn’t really matter: it is all about trying out different things until something works. There are, therefore, a few common methods that people tend to use to stimulate the emotion: Reciting the phrases: May I be well; May I be happy; May I be free from suffering; May I make progress’ and waiting for an appropriate response Imagining the person at their best; or during a happy time, and wishing on them a similar experience today Using imagery: such as imagining a flower opening in our heart; or a warm colour, symbolizing love, flooding the world And, based the idea explicated in ‘Kindness as Constructive Imagination:’ that our emotional response to a person in conditioned by our view of what they are, I suggest a further method: Aligning our view of each person with what they actually are: a living being, with hopes and fears, who is sensitive to their experience, who wants to be happy and not to suffer Structured practice or ‘radiation method’ There are two basic ways to do the practice: the structured practice in five stages or the ‘radiation method.’ In the former loving kindness is cultivated firstly towards oneself; then towards a good friend; a neutral person; a person we find difficult; and in the final stage we extend it out to encompass more and more living beings. In the radiation method we simply radiate it out to living beings in all directions. Here then are instructions for the practice of...
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