AN 4.200 Sujato's metta 'love' and pema 'love' result in incoherence and contradiction, rendering the Buddha's instruction on metta and 4 jhānas unusable

Sujato also translates 'pema' as 'love, in his AN 4.200. https://suttacentral.net/an4.200/en/sujato?layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

This brings up another fatal flaw with Sujato's 'love'.

According to AN 4.200, when one is in the four jhānas, one has abandoned 'love' (pema), and the negative emotions that can be triggered by 'love'.

Yet, according to the Buddha, one can do four jhānas simultaneously with metta (Sujato's 'love') and the 4 brahmaviharas.

So going by Sujato's translation, you have incoherence and contradiction. One should be able to emanate 'love' in all four directions, yet AN 4.200 says when in the four jhānas, 'love' has been abandoned.

So the translation of both 'metta' and 'pema' as 'love' simply does not work. It's wrong.

Comments

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