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cultivating love
sova
delocalized fractyllic harmonizing Veteran
in Meditation
Hi everyone waves
Please share links to techniques / practices
or practices themselves
that you or one could use
to cultivate love, kindness, loving-kindness, metta, bodhichitta
Thank you.
Many blessings.
somewhat related sentiment/story: my friend brought back some pine cones from his trip to a redwood forest. The largest pine cones were actually not of the redwoods, the largest trees. Rather, the greatest trees sprout from incredibly small pine cones and seeds. So, from even a super tiny seed grows the great redwood. May all your good seeds have good conditions to grow!
1
Comments
Well, letting go of anger and hate give one a sense of love replacing them, monkey mind wants to be liked so if one thing or set of things is rejected, monkey mind offers something else to get pleased with acceptance at least.
On the path of the Metta Ray (Maitreya) the well known future Buddha we cultivate Love.
How?
The Sufi Bodhis say it like this, 'increase in Love'. In simple terms this means focussing on what you love and loving it more. In other words familiarity through existing qualities, then allowing this feeling or 'emotive enlightenment' to suffuse ones being.
Not a technique, a joyous way of living. :wave: .
I look at everyone and everything. It is all going to die. Nothing will ever work out. And yet everything including this body and mind seek union. Seek to fill this void.
And it won't work.
And thats heart breaking.
And I let it just tear me up.
That tenderness that arises from being vulnerable.
That to me is love.
Then a warmth arises. I can do something for these people.
And then we act.
That inspiration and action is compassion.
Many people find the practice of the Brahma Viharas to be useful. The most well known of these is the practice known as Metta Bhavana.This is particularly useful for developing a mind inclined towards metta. It is one of four such practices. There is a lot of material about them on the net.
They are widely recommended.
There is an organisation called The Brahma Vihara Foundation at www.brahmavihara.org/ which maintains a very useful website dedicated to these practices.
@sova
Love...Now there is a word with endless definitions.
Love, from my zafu, is simply that expression of life which is unbound by self interest.
Our separation from love is just a self wrought dream of our own independent existence that the Buddha exhorts us to awaken from.
An attachment compared to it's resolution
is only a description of
love obscured compared to love unhindered.
Precisely what I was going to say. I find working on the Brahma Viharas in general very useful to replace negative feelings for positive ones. Links I found useful is the one @mettanando already mentioned and the couple others I added.
Just google Brahma Viharas and several others will appear.
http://www.brahmaviharas.org/metta.htm
http://www.buddhanet.net/mettab5.htm
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel006.html
at the beginning i used to do loving-kindness meditation (metta meditation), paying attention to myself first, May i be well and happy and then pay attention to the people i know of one by one like, May my mother be well and happy etc., and then thinking all sentient beings, May all sentient beings be well and happy
when my understanding of the life of myself and others is increase by degrees, the meditation took it turns into different styles
Now my loving kindness meditation is like follows:
May all beings with suffering (dukka) be able to get rid of suffering (become Sukha)
May all beings with sukha be able to understand the Truth of Dhamma (see the delusion they are with)
May all beings be with Dhamma (be able to have Full Enlightenment)
There is no wrong way to do it upekka. But starting with ourselves has lots of things going for it.
A lot of our ego fixation is not because we like ourselves too much, its because we don't like ourselves much at all.
Repeating the words as a mantra works for me.
To develop love for other, you need to love yourself first. (without attachments to things you like and aversion to what you hate)
5minutedharma.com/2014/02/21/076-the-four-wishes/
Also, because I love animals, I feel it is easier to radiate the kindness within me through that.
When practicing love...for something or someone...be all in!
Love it like you mean it. Watch what happens.
In other words...show up and show out, hahaha
What @mettanando mentions is important. Altruism must include ourselves . . .
Many Budding Buddhists are head based and emotionally constipated. I include myself in that category. How to encompass or practice Love/Metta?
Find your passion.
This does not mean being overwhelmed by sentiment, new age loveeness and general gushing . . .
It means smile at joy, beauty, love, art, music, happiness, family, friends, pets, strangers etc. It means living life with love rather than fear, anger, poor me, what is the point attitude etc. How?
Practice. If you have a better plan . . . I for one iz listening . . . :wave: .
Pass the water flask to the weary pilgrim along the way. Be generous with listening.
A pastoral counselling professor, David Augsburger, observed: “Being listened to is so close to being loved that most people can’t tell the difference.”
Thanks, @lobster, for listening. Makes me feel valued and therefore loved! I have always found it difficult to balance love for self with love for others and find that "love" for others is closer to neediness if I do not have equal love for myself. So, for me, as in most things, it is a question of seeking balance. Thanks, all, for the tips on how to do this.
Exactly so.
In formal cushion practice we learn to listen, observe, be with our beloved and our nemesis, samsara and nirvana right there. Perched like a hungry bird . . .