Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
metta bhavana meditation
i am just being introduced to metta bhavana practice but one question arise to me I know that to cultivate compassion, you must start with yourself and others. when everything is perfect and in a very perfect world by showing compassion you may receive compassion back .
However how must you react in the face of very negative or distressing situation such as theft or violence , should you act as a doormat ? or should you react in any way you want ?
However how must you react in the face of very negative or distressing situation such as theft or violence , should you act as a doormat ? or should you react in any way you want ?
0
Comments
Metta is not about compassion (compassion is karuna, and the steps on each meditation change a little), metta is loving kindness. In metta you wish happiness, in karuna you wish to be away from suffering. They do conect to each other, and with sympathetic joy and equanimity (one helps the others to arise) but you don't wanna get them mixed in early stages.
I suggest you just start with yourself and only move on to other categories of people when the previous one is well grounded.
Metta is unconditional, you don't do it expecting compassion or metta back. There are many benefits to practicing metta though, but the biggest one is to diminish ill-will.
Metta bhavana is a meditation, it takes place in a given space of time. It will change how you see other people, and how you act towards them naturally, don't need to worry about specifics.
First of all, compassion is different from metta. It's important not to get them confused. It's important not to start with cultivation of compassion. Serious imbalances can develop, that way. The other immeasurables can help with resting in the experience of discomfort, fear and pain associated with compassion. On an "external" level, compassion is the wish to end suffering. On an "internal" level, it is the full awareness of experience. By contrast, metta is love for all things "externally" and opening to all experience "internally." It's also worth noting that these practices are not really "cultivation" in the sense of growing something which wasn't there before. There is a level at which you already open to all of experience, and are already fully aware. One perspective on what these practices do is that they bring to light the patterns of thought and behavior which get in the way of responding to the world out of that natural openness and awareness.
Secondly, Buddhist practice has very little to say directly about the kind of ethical dilemma you raise. However, there's no dichotomy between the doormat and the licentiousness. A response arising from openness and awareness would necessarily be appropriate. Such a response can't be codified: I can't tell you what that response would be. Too much depends on the particulars of the situation. It may mean submitting to aggression, or (extremely rarely) it may mean a vicious murder.
It seems as though the practice is developing well for you, because with this post, you have already brought to light a pattern of thought which stands in the way of metta: you worry that by abandoning hostility, you will lose the power to protect yourself from negative or distressing situations. When facing a similar pattern in my own practice, I have found it very fruitful to switch the focus of the metta bhavana away from any person, and to the hostility and fear itself.
You just have to do the best thing in a situation. You do the best thing with a good heart, a good mind and a good moral compass.
Joe
this is how I would deal with the issue, but I'm no authority
it wouldn't be compassion to allow a small child to rampage through the house breaking things. A compassionate response would be to stop the destructive behavior first and then teach a more skillful way. Doing both those things are acts of loving-kindness.
The same is true if someone is being aggressive to you. Your first duty is to stop or limit the destructive behavior--defend yourself (or others) or remove yourself (or them) from the situation. Your second duty is to help the aggressive person if you can. If you can't help them then understand that they want to be happy and don't want to suffer just like you. Wish them well and stay away from them. Your own behavior is your first responsibility.
In that moment when you are angry, or afraid, or depressed, or utterly destroyed, it might be helpful to remember that countless other people have had exactly the same experience as this. That recollection can provide a basis for developing compassion.
Sometimes we might be a doormat. Sometimes we might react in any way we want. Sometimes we might lash out. Sometimes we have to make hard choices. In that moment, as that is occuring, regardless of what it is, it can be fuel for understanding.
Mettaanussati
Having compared oneself with others,
one should practice loving-kindness
toward all beings by realising that
everyone desires happiness.
May I be free from sorrow and
always be happy.
May those who desire my welfare,
those who are indifferent towards me and
those who hate me, also be happy.
May all beings who live in this vicinity and
those who live in other kingdoms in this
world-system be happy.
May all beings living in every world-system
and each element of life within such a system
be happy and achieve the highest bliss.
Likewise, women, men, the noble and the
ignoble ones, gods, men and those in woeful
states and those living in the ten directions --
may all these beings be happy.
this is more or less what i conclude yesterday during my meditation.
thank you
this is what i meditate yesterday . this question arised when i was looking at someone you dislike and the ethical dillemas i was facing when faced in such situation .
for that i look at previous example when i was upset and trying to see how a good friend of mine will deal with this particular situation . i came to the conclusion that you should have after all their welfare in mind and this is the basis for metta i think .