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Benefits of a Loving Mind
august
New
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.
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Comments
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
Hi August,
Hope you enjoy the forums!
I find practicing metta is best done in the morning after a small extra snooze. For me, metta is part of my nature that comes after sleep, and gradually dissipates after my morning coffee.
So if I practice metta at that time I kind of naturally fall into it and it comes to me easily.
If I practice metta in the afternoon I typically start with thinking about cats and dogs, objects of affection that warm the heart.
Hi August! Welcome to NB
My opinion is that as one deepens his or her practice and the mind begins to "settle" and slow down, one can reflect on one's thoughts and patterns and, unfortunately, I have a lot of very egoistic decisions and nasty thoughts against others (including myself).
With the study of the Four Noble Truths and Right View & Right Effort, one realises how the three poisons can be countered through observation, patience and loving-kindness. It is like that quote which states the best revenge is not to become like your enemy.
Recently I saw a Zen talk that explained how metta is the most important and guides us through the rest of the other brahmaviharas (karuna, mudita, upekkha). I will try and find it and share it through here!
Really?! I never knew this about you, my friend, you always seem so upbeat and committed. But then maybe metta is the right recipe for you. A lot of ego and nastiness is thought-stuff that is curled in upon itself, it begins with inner impulses from a remembered emotion, quite small, and once you get the habit of looking deeply into your own motivations with honesty, you can start to straighten out these thoughts and disempower them.
I’d appreciate that, I’m a great fan of how the brahmaviharas (four divine abodes) carry through our lives.
I sometimes fall into the trap of: not following my way, not correct or react poorly to injustices. For example, I noticed that some of the workers from the hotel that is next to my house have noticed I'm cleaning so they literally dump all their coffee cups and bags there...like expecting me to clean it. They also laugh at me. It makes me really angry to the point of thinking what is the point. If I fly to India or some other south Asian country I will be flabbergasted by what irresponsibility and ignorance multiplied by 10000000000000 can do.
I started this mini metta mantra which is: "Poor them. They aren't aware of what they are doing. Poor me. Intoxicating myself with these poisonous thoughts."
I like to read the Dhammapada when I have a particular hard day. I think it is the metta manual by excellence.
"197. Let us live happily then, not hating those who hate us! among men who hate us let us dwell free from hatred!"
I’d be tempted to dump a day’s plogging on their front doorstep…
@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. 🤗🫡❤️
Thank you! Kindness is very refreshing
Going back to the original thread, how refreshing to be able to generate from within!
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.
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
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.
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.
Beneficial acts when done with "intent" indicates a self-other mindset.The act, though prima facia beneficial, is often more ego, "I am doing a beneficial act because I want the reward from the act." It is a act of selfishness in the guise of a beneficial act.
A Beneficial act performed without expectation of reward, the selfless act, is the act generating true reward, the reward neither sought nor expected.
It will be interesting to see how some of the crew here reflect and or expand upon this.
Peace to all