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Thus have I heard...

"Wherever self is, virtue cannot exist"

So when it comes to carrying out a beneficial act .... just do it and be done with it before the self-generating ego gets wind of it and puts a spanner in the works, that is, depleting the merits/karma which may come from performing such an act.

In a nutshell : Just do it because you are in a position to do so without any expectations.

@marcitko said:
Hi August,
Welcome to the boards!
I love to practice and find great benefit in practicing metta.
I've developed a routine where I practice metta during my commute to work, in addition to other parts of the day. That way, I find my commute is time well spent, something I look forward to, and something that sets me up for an as pleasant and beneficial work day as possible.
Before difficult or challenging events, I previously thought that preparation is primary. Now I realize that yes, some preparation is in order, but preparing the mind and emotional state is even more important. With a better state of mind and emotional state, the whole event goes much better. Here, metta is my primary preparation practice. Wishing well both myself and whomever I am to interact with and whatever project we are working on.
I find that I can always do metta intellectually (via thoughts) but access actual metta (a friendly, positive, compassionate, loving state of mind/emotion) only sometimes.
Hence, I continue to practice.
What are your thoughts, experiences, and applications of metta?
Wishing you all the very best,
Marcitko

Wow thanks everyone for your kind and detailed replies! I will take them one by one I hope that is copacetic

Yes I wholeheartedly agree that tuning one's emotional registers into lovingkindness makes everything go smoother!

Buddha Shakyamuni said of the benefits of metta, "one's mind concentrates easily" ... in my experience I like to phrase this as "one's mind is very flexible, quick to creativity."

Because I find in my personal experience when my emotional state is that of a loving and joyful quality, good ideas are easy to form.

The love we talk about is not the "Love You" nor the "Love Me" one way love.
It is the "Love All" love. It is the love that embraces self and others and all else.
It says, "I love and appreciate my life; I love and appreciate your life; I love and appreciate all life; equally.
This is the all embracing love, compassion and mercy. Such love does not always sound to the ears as live or compassion or mercy.
When a child does something he or she was told not to do and, say a vase is broken, if the parent responds with anger, "You broke my vase, now you will be punished.", though the parent may love the child, those words of anger are not coming from love.
Now, under the same scenario, the parent is upset, but chooses to not act out in anger, but, instead approaches the child and says, "You were told to be careful, yet you were recless. As a result, the vase is broken. It can not be unbroken. Of course You should be more careful. You will clean it up. But what else have we learned that we many not break more vases?"
In the first, the child learns to not upset ther parent, that is it.
In the second, while not a necessarily perfect example, the child is given the tools to evaluate the action, the causuality, and reflect to gain from the experience an understanding beyond , "You break, I punish". It is a reflection of the "Love All".
To love others without love of self is of slander self.
To love self without love of others is slander others.
Neither is good or healthy.
To live self with a love that enables love of others, the "Love All" is the Middle Way.
It is not the way of the selfish or the coward. It is the way of the truely brave.

Peace to all

@august said:
Hi everybody

Buddha Shakyamuni spoke about the benefits of a lovingmind and in fact, Maitreya will attain complete unsurpassed awakening through the practice of metta or lovingkindness!

I would love to discuss metta with you.

As we know discussion is a circle of ideas. Some of us float or focus these discussion towards an ideal internally and externally.

This is where metta has many forms all of them having components of friendliness, loving kindness and care or compassion towards others, animals and even our material surroundings.

Maitreya manifests even now in the preliminaries of this unfolding. In its purest form which we can attain to in the human realm, we have to practice. Refocus and practice some more. The longer we focus and discipline the more we can project these perfect qualities.

@Kotishka
Some thoughts written humbly, since it's easy to give advice and perspective, and difficult to implement. Feel free to ignore all of the following 🫡
1) If there were not some challenges, it would not be called practice, and there would not be much benefit.
2) Re the hotel workers, maybe this famous quote is relevant: 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win'. Easier said than done, but to my mind, a most excellent little experiment would be to see whether you can win them over via virtous means, which might include some slightly difficult conversations.
3) Do not expect everyone to praise your most excellent plogging efforts. Some will berate you for doing it. I know, since that was also my experience. It is best to a) find a firm resolve in ourselves and - yes - praise and rejoice in our good action ourselves and b) discuss it mostly with those who are on a similar path, with good spiritual friends. And you have those at a minimum on these boards. We must learn to stick to our right action and right effort even in the face of criticism by those a bit less fortunate in terms of understanding what is wholesome and what is not. Not always easy, but sooner or later, we must learn that too.
4) Do not expect the plogging to be a 'walk in the park'. Yes, mostly it is very nice and pleasurable. But sometimes, just like in meditation, obstacles arise. Then, we work with them. Plogging is, to my mind, meditation in action, meditation while giving the body something to do.
5) Your job is not to rid the world of trash, nor is it to initiatiate some kind of revolution in approaching trash in your community. If a bit of that happens, great. But do not expect it. Your job, to my mind, is to a) train yourself in virtue b) spend time in a wholesome activity c) brighten the mind and emotions and d) gain merit/good karma/kamma, if that's something you believe in.

In any case, I applaud your most excellent efforts! I also read your updates with great interest. You motivate me to come back to the plogging, since I let it slide for a while. So, maybe you won't get a bunch of hotel workers to change their ways, but you just might inspire another fellow plogger ie. me. 🤗🫡❤️