HISTORY OF BUDDHISM IN INDIA

1.
Introduction

Buddhist teaching describes, “The mind is everything, what we think

we become”. Therefore, we need to cultivate our mind. However, the
mind is so quick, wonderful, complicated and mysterious. It always
chases and delights in sensual pleasures. According to psychologists,
our mind is very busy and tired because of many responsibilities in our
daily life. If the mind is so tired, we cannot be happy, healthy and long
life. However, if we work with loving-kindness, our mind can relieve
from tiredness and get happiness, energy as well as strength. And then
if we work and live for only ourselves, our mind become narrow and
selfish but if we work and live for others by positive thinking, our mind
become wide, boundless and enjoy. What is more, to be a good person,
we need to cultivate our mind through Brahmavihāra. A good person’s
emotion is always completed with mettā (love),karunā(compassion),
muditā (sympathetic joy) and upekkhā(equanimity). A good person is
like a forest everyone can go there and get something.
For an example, Ashin janakābhivamsa is a very famous monk in
Myanmar. When he was young, he was very good in education but weak
in socialization to communicate with others because he was always
busy with his education. So some blamed and criticized upon him. He
thought, “I am an educated person. So I must be useful and beneficial
for all”. Therefore, he cultivated loving-kindness for nearly four years.
After four years, his sound and expression were totally changed and
he looked very kind, gentle and good in socialization to communicate
with other cultivating loving-kindness. He wrote total 72 books mostly
in Burmese language before he passed away.
Instead, to keep ourselves physically healthy, we go to a gym
for workout, which is to create ourselves physically and stable strong.

1
2 History of Bududdhism in India

Similarly, to have a strong and stable mind we have to develop loving

- kindness, which is emotional workout. Mental exercise means
meditation in Buddhism. However various people associate meditation
with irrational or strange ideas.
If we can continually remind ourselves not be greedy, not be
angry, not be egotistic, not be arrogant, we can uphold a heart of karunā
(compassion) and pleasure everyone with kind love. If we are mindful,
we will continually study to value the people and be in agreement with
the others. Mutual respect and love is the farming of a good custom.
Being holding and calculative complaint is a bad habit. If a person’s
mind is contaminated by leba (greed), dosa (anger), moha (ignorance),
and doubt, he cannot stay clean and hard-workingtrail of Buddhism.
When we lose our temper, our thoughts are confused, our
expressions are ugly, and our words are violent. We cannot control our
actions and speech. It makes everything worse to pacts with issues and
circumstances that rise. We ruin our image and the thoughts just come
into our minds and waste our mental energy. “Losing oursanger is a
temporary insanity”. At any time, something does not go along with
our wishes or when we misunderstand other’s actions and speech,
we produce conflict with additionals. We have a custom of losing our
temper easily. As long as we have a good heart, there is no an occasional
temper tantrum. A modest and softemotion allows us to delight
everyone with a kinddemeanor and voice. When we made a mistake
in our speech or action, we can readily say, “Sorry that was my fault”.
We should mindfully cultivate a heart of kindness and patience, and
should not waste in a moment of fury. We have to purify our heart and
mind. If not, our greed and temper complicate issues.
When things go contrary to our will, it means we are not educated
enough. We must work stronger to cultivate a kind and wide heart. To
be a good person, we have to watch our believeds; they come to be our
words. We have to watch our terms; they come to be our actions. We
have to watch our acts; they become our habits. We have to watch our
customs; they become our character. We have to watch our character;
it becomes our destiny. This ideal is very reasonable. The mental and
physical discomfort cease due to absence of craving, just as the fire
extinguishes in the absence of petroleum. In this way, we can dwell
independently from other unwholesome influences in our daily life.
History of Bududdhism in India 3

According to Buddha teaching, there are four sublime states

of mind. There are loves or loving-kindness (mettā), Compassion
(karunā), sympathetic joy (muditā) and Equanimity (upekkā). In Pāli
of the Buddhist text, these four are recognized under the name of
Brahmavihāra, a word that may be rendered as outstanding, haughty,
or sublime states of attention; or otherwise, as Brahma-like, god-
comparable or godly abodes.
The Brahmavihāras are incompatible with a hating state of mind,
and in that, they are akin to Brahma- the divine but transient ruler of
the higher heavens in the old-style Buddhist image of the universe.
This way of living is very useful and everyone should live in our
daily life. If we live like this, we can notice and obstruct immediately
when we are. We can eliminate defilements quickly. If we do not notice,
it is a bigger mistake. People who guard their own mind and thoughts
are different from other.
According to Buddhism, we have to practice three praiseworthy
deeds, which are liberality (Dāna), ethics (sila) and meditation
(Bhāvanā) to get freefrom of suffering and reach the real gladness.
Practicing liberality (Dāna) is the first meritorious deed that helps us
to go on the trail of sanitization. It is like ornaments that decorate our
mind with happiness. The second meritorious deed that gives us peace
of mind is practicing morality (sila) to control our behavior and speech
that is higher than generosity. The third and the most important merit
is meditation, mental culture (Bhāvanā) such as loving-kindness or
breathing meditation and so on. Meditation is the highest, fastest and
most successful way to develop our spirit to the maximum level.
Research shows that this way of living has a tremendous amount
of benefits and the prime thing for purification of all our actions. It
increases positive emotions and decreases negative emotions. It heals
severe physical and mental ailments. It reduces depression, illness,
migraine pain, emotional tension and slows aging.
According to texts, Brahmavihāra bhāvanā, the cultivation of the
four divine sentiments has come to occupy a central position in Buddhist
life and, forms an essential preliminary in the field of mental training in
Buddhism. From the ethical point of view, these principles constitute
the moral foundation of man and are indispensable to his happiness
4 History of Bududdhism in India

and peace. The four Brahmavihāra dhamma plays an important role

and a state, which ought not to forget to be secure and peaceful in
human society as generally parents care for their children by way of
those four sublime states.
In the Buddhist system, the Brahmavihāra together with higher
meditation tends to Nibbāna (Nirvāna) as the ultimate goal; but
if they are not developed to that height, the immediate result is
the accomplishment of the Brahma world. The Brahmavihāras are
incompatible with a hating state of mind, and in that, they are like
Brahma, the divine but transient ruler of the higher heavens in the old-
style Buddhist image of the universe. Brahma is free from hate, anger,
jealously, harbor and resentment (averā and abyapajjā, etc); and in the
Donabrahma sutta of the Anguttar anikāya, it is said by the Buddha that
one who constantly improves these four sublime states, by behavior
and meditation, is said to come to be equal to Brahma, (Brahma-samo).
If they become the mainpower in his mind, he will be born-again in
pleasant worlds, the dominions of Brahma. Therefore, these conditions
of mind are called God-like, Brahmā-like. In Pali, it goes like this:
So ime cattāro brahmavihāre bhāvetvā kāyassabhedā
parammaranā sugatim brahmalolam upapajjati.Evam kho Dona
brahmano brahmasamo hoti.
The Buddha’s Teaching on the four Brahmavihāra is wide in
scope and great in depth. While the territory of their direct experience
is universal, timeless and entirely transcultural, the actual concept of
the brahmavihāra probably has its origins somewhere in pre-Buddhist
India. In the Buddhist Teaching the Brahmavihāra take a role of central
importance; references to the whole group of four and to each of them
individually can be found from the oldest strata of Buddhist texts (e.g.
the suttanipāta) up to the works of the later commentarial tradition
in all the great sections of the Pali rule and indeed all forms of later
Buddhist literature.
Literally, at the heart of human experience, they are qualities of
mind mentioned to in the early Pali texts where they are understood
to take place in and in turn affect a continuum of experience called
citta. The Pali term citta is rendered in English both as mind and as
heart and represents the process we in tuit as the experiential Centre
History of Bududdhism in India 5

of our being. The nature of the citta is described in the Pali-Suttas as

inherently luminous and pure (pabhassaram). Rather than being an
immutable nucleus at the core of our existence, the cittaa is dynamic,
resonant and highly changeable in deed, it is hard to find a simile for
the speed at which it can change. The citta may be malleable, lofty
and expansive or it can be neglected and obscured with adventitious
defilements (A.17); occasionally, it may even turn into the proverbial
monkey mind (kapicittam; J 435, 6). If untroubled and tamed, it is capable
of recognizing its own good, the noble of others and the common good.
Most importantly, if understood as it truly is (yathābhūtam) it can be
developed through cultivation and completely liberated. (A. I 10)
The Brahmavihāra, the Brahmā-like abodes abode are sublime
expressions of the citta in differing tones of universal empathy. On one
level these Brahmavihāra are paradigms of a free mind and Buddhist
ideals of how to live in the relational world; they are the standard
Dhamma practice for the human realm the realm of being affected by
people, events, things ourselves, our own moods, our own limitations
and disappointments (Sucitto, 2003).
All four of them refer to a quality of intrinsic non-separateness
in human experience and to a set of inherent and boundless qualities
of being, fundamental to all our understanding of health, wellbeing
and happiness. On the one hand, being inherent, they form the
basis of our capacity to relationship and are indispensable to any
emotional, personal, social and spiritual development. In this respect,
it can be said that they are at the core of our nature and constitute our
humanity proper. On the other hand, being boundless, they are the
natural expression of a mind unfettered and not clinging to any self;
they manifest the activity of an enlightened heart entirely free from
all affective and cognitive impurities and represent the culmination of
the Buddhist path.
The four Brahmavihāraapply in the human, the relational world.
They are essentially forms of dear and a profound willingness to see,
welcome, accept and resonate with others. The name Abiding of Brahmā
or Brahmā-like abiding comes from the Vedic deity Brahmā, whom the
Buddhists have adopted and given a celestial place in their cosmology.
6 History of Bududdhism in India

When these qualities of empathetic connection in one’s mind

and heart have been developed to maturity, they have become truly
immeasurable and are referred to as boundless deliverance of the heart
(appamānā cetovimutti). (M iii 145; and S iv 296) The latter text goes on
to state that the qualities which are said to measure or limit the heart
are desire (raga), hatred (dosa) and delusion (moho), in particular a
most suffering inducing type of delusion that insists on the existence
of a permanent and separate entity called myself. To the degree that
our deliverance of heart has become unshakeable (akuppa), we are
effectively delivered from our mistaken notion of a separate selfhood
and all the anguish that goes with it.
The empathtize nature of four of the Brahmavihārais such that
they aid us to admission the aspect of non-distinction in our experience
of the world and the other. This means that whenever we permit
ourselves to respite in one of these four Endless we are operating in a
method of mind and emotion that is radically different to our habitual
experience of self-versus-world-and-other.

1.1  Brahmavihāra
The term ‘Brahma’ here signifies one greater than which nothing can
be and the word ‘vihāra’ means roaming or practicing. It indicates
meditational sense. Brahmavihāra is also known as dry a vihāra to
mean ‘noble roaming’. The word Bhāvanā stands for ‘producing,
dwelling on something putting one’s thoughts to, application,
developing by means of thought or meditation, cultivation by mind.
The Majjhimanikāya Dhānaňjani-sutta praises meditating on the
aforesaid virtues as the vehicles for the gradual progress towards the
highest spiritual abode called ‘brahma-loka’. This path of meditation is
called the path of purification in lalitavistara. The Buddha emphasizes
on the cultivation of loving-kindness for eradication of other’s suffering,
compassion towards all beings even at the cost of one’s well-being,
experiencing joy at other’s happiness and even-mindedness in doing
good to other’s. So goes the kāraka:
“Ciratute jivaloke klesa-vyādhi prapidite.
Vaidyarattvamsamutpannahsarvyādhi pramocakah”