Hi,

Hiri, is usually translated as shame of doing evil deeds and Ottappa and fear of the results of evil deeds.

I thoght that in Buddhism, we are not encourage to have fear and I believe that fear is a negative emotion. So are shame.

Venerable Piyasilo translate hiri as "self respect" and Ottappa as "other respect", or simply as "love and respect".

He wrote:

Moral shame (hiri) and moral fear (ottapa) are said to be "guardians of the world", since they prevent humans from falling into animal ways. Worldlings, however, tend to be caught up in the game of shame and fear. By "shame" here is meant the "face game", where one avoids an unwholesome deed for fear of losing face, not for the sake of personal developement. By "fear" here is meant the "merit game", that is, the avoidance of bad karma and the accumalation of good karma for immediate benefits and a better rebirth.

In contemporary language, the term "hiri-ottappa" would be more effectively rendered as "self-respect" and "other-respect" or simply as "love and rspect".

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What do you think?

Best wishes,
Wynn


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