Basic Meaning
An antidote or remedy that contributes or supports the elimination or pacification of a particular ailment or affliction.
Has the sense of
According to Dan Martin, it "seems to mean rather a kind of friendly opposition, an antidote, a harmony restorer."
See pages 667 - 668: In Sanskrit, lit., “opposite”; a “counteragent” or “antidote,” a factor which, when present, precludes the presence of its opposite. In Buddhist meditation theory, an antidote may be a virtuous (kuśala) mental state (caitta) that is applied as a counteragent against a nonvirtuous (akuśala) mental state. The Buddhist premise that two contrary mental states cannot exist simultaneously leads to the development of specific meditations to be used as such counteragents, sometimes called the five “inhibitory” contemplations: (1) lust (rāga) is countered by the contemplations on impurity (aśubhabhāvanā), e.g., the cemetery contemplations on the stages in the decomposition of a corpse; (2) hatred (dveśa) is countered by the divine abiding (brahmavihāra) of lovingkindness (maitrī); (3) delusion (moha) is countered by contemplating the twelvefold chain of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda); (4) ego-conceit (asmimāna) is countered by the contemplation on the eighteen sense-fields (dhātu); and (5) discursive thought (vitarka) is countered by mindfulness of breathing (ānāpānasmrti). Progress on the path to liberation is also described technically in terms of the abandonment of a specific afflictive state (kleśa) through the application of its specific antidote. Thus, afflictions and their antidotes are enumerated for the nine levels of samsāra (the sensuous realm, or kāmadhātu, the four levels of the subtle-materiality realm, or rūpadhātu, and the four levels of the immaterial realm, or arūpyadhātu). In each case, the antidote is an increasingly powerful level of wisdom (prajñā) that displaces increasingly subtle levels of the afflictions. Both the four types of noble persons (āryapudgala) and the ten stages (bhūmi) of the bodhisattva are defined by which antidotes have been successfully applied to eradicate specific afflictions. Thus, the accumulation and application of various antidotes is one of the practices that a bodhisattva must learn to perfect. The Buddha is said to have taught 84,000 antidotes for the 84,000 afflictions.
antidote, remedy. antidotal technique/corrective measure, cure; opponent, counteragent, antithesis, factors discordant to
