Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/120

1°4 Buddhist Philosophy ECHo connected might all live and become happy. He should fix himself to such an extent in this meditation that he would not find any difference between the happiness or safety of himself and of others. He should never become angry with any person. Should he at any time feel himself offended on account of the injuries inflicted on him by his enemies, he should think of the futility of doubling his sadness by becoming sorry or vexed on that account. He should think that if he should allow himself to be affected by anger, he would spoil all his sila which he was so carefully prac- tising-. If anyone has done a vile action by inflicting injury, should he himself also do the same by being angry at it? If he were finding fault with others for being angry, could he himself indulge in anger? Moreover he should think that all the dhammas are momentary (kha1Jikattii); that there no longer existed the khandhas which had inflicted the injury, and moreover the inflic- tion of any injury being only a joint product, the man who was injured was himself an indispensable element in the production of the infliction as much as the man who inflicted the injury, and there could not thus be any special reason for making him re- sponsible and of being angry with him. If even after thinking in this way the anger does not subside, he should think that by indulging in anger he could only bring mischief on himself through his bad deeds, and he should further think that the other man by being angry was only producing mischief to himself but not to him. By thinking in these ways the sage would be able to free his mind from anger against his enemies and establish him- self in an attitude of universal friendshi p l. This is called the metta-bhavana. In the meditation of universal pity (karulp'i) also one should sympathize with the sorrows of his friends and foes alike. The sage being more keen-sighted will feel pity for those who are apparently leading- a happy life, but are neither acquiring merits nor endeavouring to proceed on the way to N ibbana, for they are to suffer innumerable lives of sorrow 2 . We next come to the jhanas with the help of material things as objects of concentration called the Kasil)am. These objects of concentration may either be earth, water, fire, wind, blue colour, yellow colour, red colour, white colour, light or limited space (Paricchi1l1ulkiisa). Thus the sage may take a brown ball of earth and concentrate his mind upon it as an earth ball, sometimes I Visudd/zilllagga, pp. 295-3 q. 2 Ibid. pp. 314-3 1 5.