3.4.1 Buddhism & Ethics

Compassion (Karuna)

Definition and Significance

Key Aspects of Karuna

• Relieving Suffering: It involves the aspiration for others to be free from suffering and the commitment to take any possible actions to help them.
• Self-Compassion: Recognising and addressing one's own suffering is also essential.
• Interconnected Happiness: True happiness is unattainable while others in the world are suffering.

The Four Sublime States

• Loving-Kindness (Metta): A benevolent, kind, and friendly attitude towards all beings.
• Compassion (Karuna): The empathy and desire to relieve the suffering of others.
• Sympathetic Joy: The feeling of joy for the happiness and success of others.
• Equanimity: Maintaining stability and calmness in the face of both happiness and suffering. These four states are crucial for all Buddhists to cultivate, guiding how one should act towards both others and oneself.

Ethical Dilemma

Consider a scientist who develops the world's most dangerous nuclear bomb and sells it to the highest bidder without understanding their intentions. This scenario illustrates a lack of wisdom to comprehend the consequences and a lack of compassion (karuna) for those who might be harmed.

ROKPA Charity

ROKPA, established in the 1980s, is a charity that operates schools and educates children in Zimbabwe, Nepal, and Tibet. Its mission is to help families escape poverty through better education while teaching the value of compassion. ROKPA believes that kindness and a desire to help others bring about real and lasting change.

Revision Activity

Consider what a response based on karuna would look like towards issues such as poverty, racism, or asylum seekers. Write a short newspaper story exploring this perspective.

Loving-Kindness (Metta)

Definition and Distinction from Karuna

Metta, or loving-kindness, is the cultivation of a kind, friendly, and benevolent attitude towards others. It is distinct from karuna:

• Metta is the general desire for all people to be happy.
• Karuna emerges when metta meets a specific instance of suffering.

Buddhists believe that cultivating metta leads to inner peace, as it eradicates ill will and hostility, contributing to a world of love, peace, and happiness.

Loving-Kindness Meditation

Buddhists develop metta through a structured meditation practice that involves:

1. Focusing on oneself.
2. Extending loving-kindness to a good friend.
3. Extending it to a neutral person.
4. Extending it to a difficult person.
5. Extending it to all beings. This practice includes thinking positively about each person and using phrases like, "May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be peaceful."

Revision Activity

Debate the statement: "Metta is impossible to show to everyone in the world." Include a quote

Relevant Quotes

"Just as a mother would protect with her life her own son, her only son, so one should cultivate an unbounded mind towards all beings, and loving-kindness towards the world" (The Sutta Nipata, verses 149-150).

"Just as compassion is the wish that all sentient beings be free of suffering, loving-kindness is the wish that all may enjoy happiness. As with compassion, when cultivating loving-kindness, it is important to start by taking a specific individual as a focus of our meditation, and we then extend the scope of our concern further and further, to eventually encompass and embrace all sentient beings." (Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama).