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modern world.
1. Loving Kindness: Unsealing the Spring
When we believe that we don't have enough love in us, there is a method for
discovering and invoking it. Go back in your mind and recreate, almost
visualize, a love that someone gave you that really moved you, perhaps in
your childhood. Traditionally you are taught to think of your mother and her
lifelong devotion to you, but if you find that problematic, you could think of
your grandmother or grandfather, or anyone who had been deeply kind to
you in your life. Remember a particular instance when they really showed
you love, and you felt their love vividly.
Now let that feeling arise again in your heart, and infuse you with gratitude.
As you do so, your love will go out naturally to that person who evoked it.
You will remember then that even though you may not always feel that you
have been loved enough, you were loved genuinely once. Knowing that now
will make you feel again that you are, as that person made you feel then,
worthy of love and really lovable.
Part II - The Bodhisattva Vow - Producing the Mahayana Motivation 120
From The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Let your heart open now, and let love flow from it; then extend this love to
all beings. Begin with those who are closest to you, then extend your love to
friends and to acquaintances, then to neighbors, to strangers, then even to
those whom you don't like or have difficulties with, even those whom you
might consider as your "enemies," and finally to the whole universe. Let this
love become more and more boundless. Equanimity is one of the four
essential facets, with loving kindness, compassion, and joy, of what the
teachings say form the entire aspiration of compassion. The all-inclusive,
unbiased view of equanimity is really the starting point and the basis of the
path of compassion.
You will find that this practice unseals a spring of love, and by that
unsealing in you of your own loving kindness, you will find that it will
inspire the birth of compassion. For as Maitreya said in one of the teachings
he gave Asanga: "The water of compassion courses through the canal of
loving kindness."
2. Compassion: Considering Yourself the Same as Others
One powerful way to evoke compassion is to think of others as exactly the
same as you. "After all," the Dalai Lama explains, "all human beings are the
same--made of human flesh, bones, and blood. We all want happiness and
want to avoid suffering. Further, we have an equal right to be happy. In other
words, it is important to realize our sameness as human beings."
Say, for example, you are having difficulties with a loved one, such as your
mother or father, husband or wife, lover or friend. How helpful and
revealing it can be to consider the other person not in his or her "role" of
mother or father or husband, but simply as another "you," another human
being, with the same feelings as you, the same desire for happiness, the same
fear of suffering. Thinking of the person as a real person, exactly the same as
you, will open your heart to him or her and give you more insight into how
to help.
Part II - The Bodhisattva Vow - Producing the Mahayana Motivation 121
From The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
If you consider others just the same as yourself, it will help you to open up
your relationships and give them a new and richer meaning. Imagine if
societies and nations began to view each other in the same way; at last we
would have the beginnings of a solid basis for peace on earth and the happy
coexistence of all peoples.
3. Compassion: Exchanging Yourself for Others
When someone is suffering and you find yourself at a loss to know how to
help, put yourself unflinchingly in his or her place. Imagine as vividly as
possible what you would be going through if you were suffering the same
pain. Ask yourself: "How would I feel? How would I want my friends to
treat me? What would I most want from them?"
When you exchange yourself for others in this way, you are directly
transferring your cherishing from its usual object, yourself, to other beings.
So exchanging yourself for others is a very powerful way of loosening the
hold on you of the self-cherishing and the self-grasping of ego, and so of
releasing the heart of your compassion.
4. Using a Friend to Generate Compassion
Another moving technique for arousing compassion for a person who is
suffering is to imagine one of your dearest friends, or someone you really
love, in that person's place.
Imagine your brother or daughter or parent or best friend in the same kind of
painful situation. Quite naturally your heart will open, and compassion will
awaken in you. What more would you want than to free them from their
torment? Now take this compassion released in your heart and transfer it to
the person who needs your help: You will find that your help is inspired
more naturally, and that you can direct it more easily.
Part II - The Bodhisattva Vow - Producing the Mahayana Motivation 122
From The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
People sometimes ask: "If I do this, will the friend or relative whom I am
imagining in pain come to some harm?" On the contrary, thinking about
them with such love and compassion can only be of help to them, and will
even bring about the healing of whatever suffering and pain they may have
gone through in the past, may be going through now, or have yet to go
through.
For the fact that they are the instrument of your arousing compassion, even
if it is only for an instant, will bring them tremendous merit and benefit.
Because they have been responsible, in part, for the opening of your heart,
and for allowing you to help the sick or dying person with your compassion,
then the merit from that action will naturally return to them.
You can also mentally dedicate the merit of that action to your friend or
relative who helped you to open your heart. And you can wish the person
well, and pray that in the future he or she will be free of suffering. You will
be grateful toward your friend, and your friend might feel inspired and
grateful too, if you tell the person that he or she helped you to evoke your
compassion.
5. How to Meditate on Compassion
The simplest ways are the best and the most direct. Every day, life gives us
innumerable chances to open our hearts, if we can only take them. An old
woman passes you with a sad and lonely face, swollen veins on her legs, and
two heavy plastic bags full of shopping she can hardly carry; a shabbily
dressed old man shuffles in front of you in line at the post office; a boy on
crutches looks harried and anxious as he tries to cross the street in the
afternoon traffic; a dog lies bleeding to death on the road; a young girl sits
alone, sobbing hysterically in the subway. Switch on a television, and there
on the news perhaps is a mother in Beirut kneeling above the body of her
murdered son; or an old grandmother in Moscow pointing to the soup that is
her food for today, not knowing if she'll have even that tomorrow; or one of
the AIDS children in Romania staring out at you with eyes drained of any
living expression.
Part II - The Bodhisattva Vow - Producing the Mahayana Motivation 123
From The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Any one of these sights could open the eyes of your heart to the fact of vast
suffering in the world. Let it. Don't waste the love and grief it arouses; in the
moment you feel compassion welling up in you, don't brush it aside, don't
shrug it off and try quickly to return to "normal," don't be afraid of your
feeling or embarrassed by it, or allow yourself to be distracted from it or let
it run aground in apathy. Be vulnerable; use that quick, bright uprush of
compassion; focus on it, go deep in your heart and meditate on it, develop it,
enhance, and deepen it. By doing this you will realize how blind you have
been to suffering, how the pain that you are experiencing or seeing now is
only a tiny fraction of the pain of the world.
All beings, everywhere, suffer; let your heart go out to them all in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]