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.
Lovingkindness and fools
We are supposed to extend lovingkindness to everyone, but the Buddha teaches that we shouldn't associate with fools. Is there a conflict here? I can see having compassion for those who have much suffering. But wouldn't associating with such people present a danger especially for us who are beginners? Can lovingkindness be an intent that doesn't require personal association?
0
Comments
Yes. In fact, lovingkindness is supposed to be universal, and therefore extends to all sentient beings, much more so than just the ones we associate with.
To clarify, lovingkindness is extended to all sentient beings regardless of relationship. In the practice of tonglen, loving kindness is extended to those felt to be most remote from the person practice as much as those close to them. That's actually the whole point of lovingkindness practice- to generate the motivation towards all. If it were only toward people we liked or wanted to associate with, it would be far too easy.
Lovingkindness as described above is fundamental to both Vajrayana and Mahayana.
Thanks. That's a big help.:)
You gotta love 'em, but you don't gotta like 'em.
Isn't loving-kindness (metta) also fundamental to the Theravada tradition?
Oops. That's what I meant to write. Sorry.
Sometimes people can be hard to accept, although we can relate on a human level knowing that we all undergo the same basic trials and ultimately we all expire.
I think it's worth remembering that we want happiness for others. If anything it improves state of mind, and at the most the world becomes a better place for acting it out and cultivating action that reflects a simple wish for happiness and wellbeing.
No! You've got that all wrong.
Its not ok to "avoid" people. That is an expression of aversion. If you are specifically trying to avoid someone, in what way is that showing loving-kindness towards them?
You don't want people whom you consider to be "fools" to rub off on you the wrong way. You don't want them to corrupt you and make you give into heedless desires. Well, OK...don't let that person make you behave that way! Hold true to your own path, but don't seek to avoid any body!
Just calling them a fool and avoiding them is ignorant. To show them true compassion, be good humored about it. It actually IS kind of funny the stuff people will say and do, but don't put them down for it. Instead help them up by compassionately pointing out their foolish ways.
Or something. I have no friends anymore so don't listen to me.
A fool associating with a sage,
Even for a lifetime,
Will no more perceive the Dharma
Than a spoon will perceive the taste of soup. [64]
This is where skillful means come in. Being skillfully compassionate, you might be kind to foolish people without getting involved, or over-involved. So I'm agreeing with Cloud.
I sit opposite someone at work that I perceive to be a fool... a guy who is bright, but is too caught up in his own world to see the views of others clearly. He has an unskillfull mind.
Such circumstances test our path, our compassion and loving kindness. Sometimes I react with frustration...which makes me unhappy. But, knowing life as I do, he will help me to become more skillfull so its not a bad thing
In your heart if not in the world never give up on a friend. Thats the one thing I am convinced of.