Where is unconditional/true love in the eight fold path?

Jeffrey

I find it in the right speach and right action and livelyhood. My reason is that in order to have the inspiration and energy to treat each individual fairly and kindly we have to have some sense of love. I guess by love I might mean metta.

Do you find love in other areas of the eightfold path? (not sure if this thread will develope into anything??)

Sabre

I'd say it is mainly part of right thought, the second factor. But the path is just a way of structuring the teachings, which could have been done in other ways. I don't see real benefit in fitting certain practices/states in certain boxes. If I practice metta, I just practice metta and I don't think "I'm developing right thought".

With metta!
Sabre

how

Just what part of it isn't unconditional love.

Jeffrey

you tell me haha

how

Can't, as I see the eightfold path as unconditioned love with its only limit being whatever part of it one least develops.

lobster

The Dalai Lama once said, 'This Buddhism is all about the mind', as he pointed to his Heart. I would suggest that some paths start at the bottom and work their way up the centres or wheels of Being/awareness - the chakras. Others start at the top and work their way down. Buddhism starts at the top.

Love, devotion and surrender is very much part of Yidam work, when involved with vajrayana
http://www.dharmadownload.net/pages/english/Natsok/0014_Leksheyling_teaching/leksheyling_teachings_0012.htm

Purelander Buddhism works more at the heart level.
Spiritual love, metta is not like mundane love, it does not compare to pizza lust or I love those shoes, that person, that hottie.

I would also suggest that following the way, not just cerebral stimulation aka meditation, leads to an 'increase in Love/Metta'.

Buddhism - what's not to love? :thumbsup:

Citta

Jeffrey said:

I find it in the right speach and right action and livelyhood. My reason is that in order to have the inspiration and energy to treat each individual fairly and kindly we have to have some sense of love. I guess by love I might mean metta.

Do you find love in other areas of the eightfold path? (not sure if this thread will develope into anything??)

Define 'love'.

Jeffrey

I don't think love can be defined, so it relies on intuition. I could mean metta.

Lazy_eye

I'm finding the question in the thread title is a bit more complicated than it looks at first sight. From what I understand, metta is actually one of the brahma viharas (divine abodes), rather than a part of the eightfold path per se. Same goes for karuna (compassion) and mudita (sympathetic joy).

So we might first need to answer the question "what is the relationship between the brahma viharas and the eightfold path"? I.e. what path factors are supported by these "abodes"?

upekka

one is with Right View means one knows every living being is suffering

Metta (loving kindness) is a bi-product of knowing 'this reality'

fivebells

Metta is what you get when you successfully do metta practice. The Metta Sutta or the Snake Charm sutta are good examples of metta practice. It is a soft, warm, open appreciation of the current circumstances.

Cultivation of metta can be Right Effort or Right Concentration.

Understanding that metta is a fabrication like all other mental states, and therefore accessible in all circumstances, is part of transcendent Right View. The mind then naturally inclines in this direction, because it is pleasant.