Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
A Zen Meditation on the Four Abodes

A Zen Meditation on the Four Abodes

Last updated on: October 5, 2021 at 1:00 am by James Ford

A Zen Meditation on the Four Abodes 2021-10-04T09:01:02-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A ZEN MEDITATION ON THE FOUR ABODES

James Ishmael Ford

When it is stripped to its essentials, I find the good of the Christian religion boils down to one thing. Love. It attempts to bridge the gap between humanity and the pain of humanity and some mysterious force that calls everything together. And that force is love.

When I look at Buddhism, the place where I find the closest analog is in loving-kindness. Really in the whole of the Brahmaviharas, literally the “abodes of brahma.” They are the cardinal virtues of the Buddhist way. In fact, they’re older than Buddhism. But the Buddha adopted and adapted them to his own purposes. And they’ve continued a central part of our Buddhist way.

And they’re a pretty good description of the mess that I am reaching for when I say love.

It seems it was Buddhaghosa who first mapped out a formal meditation discipline based on these four abodes in his fifth century classic, the Path of Purification, the Visuddhimagga.

For many of us the Vajrayana nun Pema Chodron and the Insight meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg have been the principal interpreters of loving-kindness as a spiritual practice.

The abodes are metta which is most commonly translated as loving-kindness, karuna, mostly translated as compassion, mudita translated as sympathetic joy, and upekkha as equanimity.

These terms can be further unpacked. Metta invites a forest of translations. These include friendliness and benevolence. I think these terms invite shading to the English neologism loving-kindness. Karuna is almost always translated as compassion, although I’ve found empathy once or twice. Which, again, adds shades to the word. “Sympathetic joy,” like “loving-kindness” reveals the difficulties when there is no precise translation. Although I found it really helpful when I read Stephen Batchelor explain mudita as the opposite of schadenfreude. Upekkha invites a term at the edge of common usage in our culture in equanimity. The only other word I’ve seen is even more obtuse, “equipoise.” We’re looking at balance, harmony.

What I find interesting about these abodes is how they can be seen both as descriptive of the awakened mind, and as practices in that lovely dual sense of preparation and doing. Like love itself, they are dynamic. They also inform each other, and taken together present the unfolding mystery of creation. At least as we can experience it.

They also have “far enemies,” which are their opposites. And they have “near enemies,” which seem similar to the abodes, but which do not bear healthful fruits.

Far enemies, as I said, are opposites. Every conditioned thing, everything in this world this and that, of high and low, of every form of dualism has an opposite. So, the far enemy of loving-kindness is hatred. The far enemy of compassion is cruelty. The far enemy of sympathetic joy is envy. And the far enemy of equanimity is prejudice.

I think of hatred, cruelty, envy, and prejudice as the demonic side of our personalities. These are the poisons of our human condition. To me their naming is reminiscent of two other demonic beings, the two children sheltered by the spirit of Christmas present in Dicken’s Christmas Carol. The boy “ignorance,” and the girl, “want.” The Spirit warning Scrooge, they are man’s children. And “Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy…”

Warnings piled upon warnings here.

However, reality is complicated. And so, there are things that are similar to a thing, but not it. Instead think tawdry substitutes. In the matter of love, in the matter of the wise heart, in the matter of the abodes, fool’s gold, if you will. The near enemy of loving-kindness is attachment. The near enemy of compassion is pity. The near enemy of sympathetic joy is euphoria or over-excitement. And the near enemy of equanimity is indifference.

Actually there are many more than these. But they’re pretty good stand ins for all the near misses of our spiritual lives. As an example Pema Chodron notes that the near enemies of compassion not only includes pity, but also helplessness, and what she calls “idiot compassion.”

Idiot compassion was coined by the disgraced Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa for when we try to help but forget ourselves and our needs in the equation, causing our own suffering. It makes me think of the Giving Tree, the once wildly popular children’s book where the tree gives and gives, even its own life, to make the child then man happy. Who, I noticed, never is. Think doormat. Doormat is not compassion. But sometimes people think that’s what they’re called to do when called to compassion.

That there are larger lists noted, let’s consider these particularly seductive near enemies of our practice and our awakening.

First, attachment and detachment. This is a seductive one. In fact, it sometimes the whole of the Buddhist project seems to be to arrive at some state where you don’t care. This is not the point of the great project. First, off trying to detach from the world and what exists in the world is to try and detach from yourself. This only leads to more hurt. And, second, it violates the whole bodhisattva vow.

What we’re actually invited to do here, is to let go of our grasping at the things that prevent us from being present to how things actually are. It is an invitation to not turn away and into some fantasy or other idea of the world that actually presents to us. As the Zen teacher Domyo Burke explains, we’re invited to “stop resisting the way things are” and to “act in the world without tying everything back to our sense of self.”

Next, pity. For me it immediately calls to mind the tenth case in the Gateless Gate.

A student of the intimate way came to the master Caoshan Benji. He said, ‘My name sis Qingshui. I am solitary and destitute. Please give me alms.’” What is the right response? How do we meet the needs of the world?

There are many needs, and finding the right way to meet them is critical. Sometimes we’re talking about actual hunger and thirst. The needs of our bodies. How do we meet them? What can do we do? And how do we see what we cannot do? A sandwich? Working to change a social policy? What part of our own life goes to this?

And what about spiritual needs? What about the thirst of the monk, Qingshui? What about the alms he needs? We need?

Compassion demands that we turn toward, not away.

And then there’s euophoria. There’s an oft quoted observation from the Zen missionary Shunryu Suzuki. “Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.” In the original manuscript for what would become Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, the phrase is given context. He speaks of how his teacher died, and that he was forced to leave Eiheiji, the major training temple, and return to succeed his teacher as priest of a small country temple.

“For us,” he commented. “It is necessary to keep the constant way…” There’s a pause. Then, “(N)ot some kind of excitement, but we should be concentrated on the usual everyday routine. If we become too busy and too excited our mind will become rough – rugged. This is not so good for us. So, if possible try to be always calm and joyful and keep yourself from excitement. That is the most important thing for us.” He adds how hard it is to do that. How chasing after some excitement or other simply leads us astray.

To be honest, I read this, and I felt a hint of wistfulness. It seems clear he did not want to leave Eiheiji, although I’ve never heard anyone use the term excitement for the rigors of that famous and infamous training hall. Instead, he bowed to duty.

And well, duty has a place in our practice.

I think more directly to the point euphoria is a seductive thing. And there is nothing wrong in the moment of joy, of excitement. The problem is when we need it. When we chase it. When it substitutes for the world we actually live in.

And, then indifference. It’s an old saying mostly attributed to Elie Wiesel, and he did say it, but so have others. “The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.” Indifference is a terrible thing. And as with most of these near enemies, it’s as easy as pie. That’s why Dr Martin Luther King Jr preached into our hearts, “Let us not just think justice prevails simply because we choose not to hate. We also have to choose against indifference.”

An important point here is that any practice we undertake, from silent meditation to koan introspection has opposites and near enemies. The opposites are usually easy to see. Near enemies, however, much less so.

And, worse, near enemies can be seductive. They’re often easier than embracing the more healthful and ultimately helpful practices. They are the stones in that road which leads to perdition.

On the Intimate way, we need to keep our wits about us.

And the secret to the way is humility…

Uncategorized

Previous Post

October 4, 2021

A Feast for Francis: The Zen Priest Reflects on a Medieval Christian Saint

Next Post

October 6, 2021 Thinking of Thor Heyerdahl & Kon Tiki

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which principle is taught in "turn the other cheek"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Mock your enemy Argue your case Do not retaliate Fight back