The Brahma-Viharas Metta Meets Rationality
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The Brahma-Viharas Metta Meets Rationality Cultivating Metta, Karuna, Mudita and Upekkha With Exercises in Rational Buddhism and Naikan M. Sekiyo Sullivan, Sensei Volusia Buddhist Fellowship This is a working draft of a work-in-process created by Sensei Morris Sekiyo Sullivan for research and review purposes only. © 2012 MORRIS SULLIVAN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No portion of this work may be reproduced or distributed in any form without express written consent from the author. For more information, contact: Volusia Buddhist Fellowship 1493 W. Beresford Ave. DeLand, FL 32720 (386) 717-3779 [email protected] volusiabuddhist.org May all beings be happy at heart. Whatever beings there are, weak or strong, without exception— beings long, large, middling, short, subtle, obvious, seen, unseen, near and far, born and not yet born: May they all be happy at heart. Let no one deceive another, despise anyone anywhere, nor through anger or irritation wish for another to suffer.—from the Karaniya Metta Sutta The Brahma-Viharas: Metta Meets Rationality Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter One: Fundamentals of Meditation ..................................................................................... 4 PRACTICE: Anapanasati Meditation ...................................................................................... 6 Chapter Two: Rational Buddhism ................................................................................................... 7 The 12 Factors of Dependent Origination ................................................................................... 8 The ABCs of Rational Buddhism ................................................................................................ 9 PRACTICE: The ABCs of Rational Buddhism ..................................................................... 12 The ABCs of Rational Buddhism Worksheet ........................................................................ 12 Chapter 3: The Brahma-Viharas ................................................................................................... 13 PRACTICE: Metta-Bhavana ................................................................................................. 15 Chapter 4: Tonglen ........................................................................................................................ 18 PRACTICE: Tonglen ............................................................................................................. 19 Sidebar: Casey Anthony—Making a Case for Compassion ......................................................... 21 Chapter Five: The Seals of Dharma, the Law of Karma and Rational Buddhism ........................ 23 PRACTICE: Rational Dharma Statements ............................................................................ 25 Chapter Six: Naikan ...................................................................................................................... 26 PRACTICE: Approaching Naikan ......................................................................................... 27 Chapter Seven: Mudita—Joy and Universal Gratitude ................................................................. 29 PRACTICE: Cultivating Mudita............................................................................................ 30 Chapter Eight: Equanimity ............................................................................................................ 31 PRACTICE: Equanimity Meditation ..................................................................................... 33 Chapter Nine: Putting it All Together ........................................................................................... 34 PRACTICE: Cultivating the Brahma-Viharas ....................................................................... 34 Postscript: Albert Ellis, Ph.D. and Buddhism ............................................................................... 36 Additional Resources .................................................................................................................... 38 1 Introduction Every Thursday afternoon, about a dozen men convene in a makeshift meditation hall at a correctional institution near Daytona Beach. Beneath too-bright fluorescent lights and separated only by sliding vinyl walls from chatting chapel clerks and Jehovah’s Witnesses, these Buddhist inmates, along with me and a Zen monk who comes up sometimes from Cocoa Beach, meditate for 20 or 30 minutes and discuss ways the dharma can help them cope with the realities of their lives. During one session, a recovering drug addict doing time for offenses ranging from burglary to resisting arrest with violence asks an interesting question. He has been practicing Buddhism for about five years and is also in a recovery program that incorporates Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). He wonders: Can he incorporate REBT into his Buddhist practice? And could his Buddhist practice enhance his understanding of REBT? The answer, I told him, is yes. Albert Ellis, who introduced REBT in 1955, suggested therapists and their patients employ a simple but effective method, the “ABCs of REBT,” to determine which cognitions create stress and suffering and then work to get rid of them. Similarly, the Buddha’s concept of Right Effort encourages the practitioner to examine the mind and determine if there are harmful or helpful mental states present, and then to abandon the harmful ones and cultivate the helpful ones. The two approaches easily go hand- in-hand, and REBT can help bring sometimes difficult Buddhist ideas down to earth. I first became interested in the concept of Rational Buddhism more than 20 years ago when I noticed a profound congruence between REBT and Buddhism while practicing meditation with a Thich Nhat Hanh-inspired group and leading meetings of an REBT-based self-support program for people recovering from alcohol and/or drug dependencies. While working under the mentorship of a psychologist who had trained at the Institute for REBT in New York, I listened one day while a young woman described struggling with an eating disorder and problematic drinking habits, along with what she called “self-esteem issues.” My mentor listened to her, and then answered compassionately, but directly: “Self-esteem is a sickness.” I had read about the Buddhist teaching of anatta—“not-self”—and more or less understood intellectually that what we see as “self” is really a changing set of processes conditioned upon other processes. However, this simple statement about the fallacy of self-esteem hit me right in the gut. I realized that from this ever-changing, amorphous set of processes we create an illusion of “self,” which we rate or “esteem,” potentially leading to very real day-to-day suffering from eating disorders, alcohol dependency and other afflictions and difficulties. I felt as if someone had handed me the answer key to a book of Zen koans. Ellis had also noticed similarities between REBT and Buddhism, and when he died in 2007, he had been working on a book on the topic. He and his widow, Debbie Joffe Ellis, Ph.D., had given talks on the topic. Ellis felt therapy should aim to help people suffer less and enjoy life more, she told me, and her husband had lauded the Buddha for recognizing that we can reduce suffering by learning better ways to use the mind. “There were features of various schools (of Buddhism) that Al found very compatible with REBT,” Joffe Ellis added. “For example, Vipassana and REBT both encourage skeptically and healthily evaluating one’s thinking, and both encourage the use of reason to choose beliefs that are most life- enhancing.” After my conversation with the inmate mentioned above, I began suggesting to meditators they try adding what I’ve come to consider “The ABCs of Rational Buddhism” to their spiritual toolbox 2 alongside traditional mindfulness and concentration practices. Often, people discover that rational analysis of their views and intentions helps them alleviate anger, depression, anxiety and other emotional and behavioral difficulties. This book is a continuation of this process. I have set an exploration of Ellis’ process of examining and working with one’s cognitions into the context of a very traditional Buddhist practice, the cultivation of goodwill, compassion, appreciation and equanimity—the four Brahma-Viharas. The idea of merging the two came to me after an event at which I was one of a half-dozen speakers from different Buddhist traditions. Each of us had talked about the dharma and about meditation; coming as we did from a variety of Zen, Theravada, Tibetan and contemporary Western Buddhist practice lineages, each of us presented the topic of meditation from sometimes very different angles. During a panel discussion afterward, we talked about the importance of that variety to Buddhist practice and about how different people benefitted from different approaches. However, one person asked an interesting question: “Most of us aren’t monks, and we have to fit our meditation practice into the rest of our lives, so we have limited time,” he said. “Is there one practice you’d suggest that would give me, for lack of a better term, the biggest bang for the buck—the most benefit for the time I can set aside to spend mediating?” I do and have done many different kinds of meditation and have found several different approaches very beneficial. However,