Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c11.s2.3

c11.s2.3

Simplest and least unattractive is the formal practice of regulated breathing accompanied by a simple assertion of the act, a device loved according to tradition by the Buddha himself as occupation for the rainy season when his wandering life of preaching ceased.² Repellent in the extreme is the meditation of impurity, demanding the presence of the monk at a cemetery, and the careful meditation on all the hateful aspects of a corpse in decay, a drastic measure of convincing even the greatest lover of human beauty of the vanity of the love of the flesh, but perhaps necessary for Indian monks, since even the highest ascetics are regarded by Brahmanical tradition as singularly apt to fall victims to female blandishments.³ Of much more attractive kind are the forms of meditation which lead with certainty to rebirth in the world of Brahmā, the Brahma-vihāras. In the wild one first practices the feeling of friendliness to all creatures; then develops sympathy as compassion in its place; then sympathy in their joy; and thence passes to the true end of the meditation, the attainment of absolute indifference of feeling (upekkhā), a striking warning against any conception of love as the end of man.⁴