The Gentle Way of
Buddhist Meditation
Dhamma Talks by Godwin Samararatne
Hongkong, 1997
Day 5: 10th October 1997
Loving Kindness Meditation
~~~
Godwin:
I like to welcome you once again. As you know, the subject of the
talk is meditation on loving kindness. The words "loving kindness" come
from the Pali word "Metta". It is sometimes translated as loving kindness, as
compassion and it literally means friendliness.
Loving Kindness Begins with Ourselves
It is psychologically very interesting that the meditation of loving
kindness has to begin with oneself. So it is extremely important to learn to be
friendly to oneself. The phrase I like to use is: learning to be your best
friend in a most friendly way. To make this very important connection with
ourself. Feel at ease with oneself. Feel at home with oneself. So to feel
yourself as if you are coming home to yourself. So it is only when we make this
connection with ourselves that we can really feel friendly to others. It is
only then that we can really open our hearts to others. If we do not make this
connection with ourselves, what happens is we start to hate ourselves, we start
to dislike ourselves. It becomes a habit to give ourselves minuses. In this
way, you learn to become your enemy in a way and this can create a lot of
suffering for ourselves and also suffering for others. So this is one very
important aspect of loving kindness, learning to be friendly to oneself,
learning to open your heart to oneself and learning to open your heart to
others. When I speak, with what I'm going to say, you can relate to yourself in
your experience. Please make an effort to do that, then my talk will be a
meditation by itself.
Forgiveness & Wounds in Our Heart
Another important aspect of loving kindness is using forgiveness.
Human beings carry what I call "wounds". Wounds created by what you have
done to others and wounds created by what others have done to you. I think
everyone here, including myself, can relate to this. What happens with some
human beings is they carry these wounds within themselves. So if you carry
these wounds without healing them, again as I said earlier, we can create
suffering for oneself, suffering to others, without knowing that the suffering
is in relation to the wounds you have created. It can also affect our body in
two ways. We can be having certain tensions in different parts of our body. It
is related to these wounds, it is related to the repressed emotions. These
wounds also can create certain illnesses. Another way it can affect us is that
they can affect our sleep. Do we have fearful dreams, do we get angry in our
dreams or be crying in our sleep? So another way it can affect us is that
suddenly we can be affected by these emotions and we don't know why we are
affected by these emotions. Suddenly we feel like crying. Suddenly there is
fear. Suddenly there is sadness. And one cannot find the reason for it.
Another way it can affect us is that when we die the emotions, the
wounds can come up. It is interesting to find out why at the time of death they
should surface. While we are living, we may not look at them, we may repress
them, we may push them away, but at the time that we die when our mind and body
become weak, these wounds can surface. So it shows that we cannot live
peacefully, we cannot sleep peacefully, we cannot die peacefully. Therefore it
is extremely important to learn to heal these wounds. So meditation of loving
kindness can help us to heal these wounds by learning to forgive ourselves and
learning to forgive others. Forgive ourselves for realizing that we are only
humans. Forgiving others by realizing that they are only humans. Also learning
to let go of them by realizing that they happened in the past. We cannot change
the past, so why should we carry the past as a burden to create more and more
suffering for ourselves and others.
Make Friends with Unpleasant Situations
Another very important aspect of loving kindness is learning to use
loving kindness to relate to unpleasant situations, unpleasant emotions when
they are there. When we have unpleasant emotions, when we have physical pain,
mental pain, we don't like them, we hate them, we dislike them, we resist them.
In a way by doing that we give them more power, more energy. In such
situations, we can use meditation on loving kindness by learning to make
friends with these unpleasant situations. One very simple way of making friends
with them is by learning to say to yourself: it is OK not to be OK (i.e. say OK
to unpleasant situation).
See Positive Elements in Us
Another very important aspect of loving kindness is learning to see
the positive elements in us, to see the goodness in us, to see the Buddha
nature in us. One way of being our own enemy is seeing only our mistakes,
seeing only the negative things, only giving minuses to ourselves. So it is
extremely important to learn to see the positive elements in us, it is very
important to learn to give pluses to ourselves, learning to see our goodness,
learning to see our Buddha nature in us. And when we learn to do this, what
happens is we see the positive elements in others, we learn to give more and
more pluses to others, we see more and more the Buddha nature in others and
then you come to a stage where you won't see a difference between yourself and
others.
Be Kind to Others
Another very important aspect of loving kindness is learning to do
kind things, learning to do compassionate things for others. When you develop
more and more loving kindness within yourselves, then naturally your actions,
your speech, your words are related to the positive aspect of loving kindness.
And when we learn to be friendly to others, when we learn to be kind to others,
when you learn to feel for others, this can also give lots of joy and happiness
because when you see others happy because of your own actions, this can bring
lots of joy, lots of lightness in ourselves.
But Not Allow Others to Exploit You
Having loving kindness is not allowing others to exploit you, not
allowing others to do what they like to do. It is very very important to learn
that there are times when we have to assert ourselves, when we have to learn to
be firm with others. In this connection, I like to relate a story that I like
very much and relating on the story I will end my talk.
The story is about a cobra who was practising loving kindness. So
there was this cobra in a forest practising loving kindness saying: may all
beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be free of suffering.
There was an old woman who could not see properly. She was collecting fire wood
and she saw the cobra, she thought it was a rope. She used the "rope" to bundle
the fire wood she had collected. As the cobra was practising loving kindness,
the cobra allowed the old woman to do this. The old woman carried the bundle of
fire wood home. Then the cobra escaped with some difficulties, with lots of
pain, with lots of wounds in the body. And the cobra went to meet the cobra's
master. So the cobra told the master, ÔSee what has happened. I adopt your
loving kindness. See the wounds, see the pain that I'm experiencing in my
body.Õ So the master very calmly, gently told the cobra, ÔYou have not been
practising loving kindness, you have been practising foolish loving
kindness. You should have just shown, hissed, that you are a snake, you are a
cobra.Õ So it is very important that in everyday life we also have to learn
what the cobra should learn.
So now it is time for questions. Any questions relating to loving
kindness, specially in everyday life, any difficulties, problems you have.
Q&A
Audience:
Master, if we practise in giving
ourselves all the pluses, all the good sides in ourselves,
where is the line to be drawn?
Godwin:
When we
have got used to giving minus, when we have got used to
seeing the unpleasant elements in us, when we are relating
to ourselves as an enemy, how do we work with this
situation? So this is the important issue. So in such
situation, just to realize: I'm only giving minuses to
myself, aren't there good things that I've done? So we are
learning to also see the good things factually, objectively,
without of course being conceited about it but simply as a
fact. So we learn to see the goodness, we learn to see the
positive side so you see, learning to see things as they are
as the Buddha said. This is the important thing. Then as I
also said, we learn to see the goodness in others which also
helps us to appreciate. Also when we see goodness in others,
learning to be happy when you see goodness in others. So in
this way, you learn very important spiritual qualities which
are helping our practice.
I like to ask a question and I ask this whenever I visit a country.
Which is easier to do: to forgive oneself or to forgive others? So please
reflect on yourself and give an answer from your heart.
Audience:
It's
not easy to forgive oneself.
Godwin:
Does
everyone agree?
Audience:
No.
(By show of hands, audience indicated who considered it easier to
forgive oneself and who considered it easier to forgive others).
Godwin:
Thank
you. What does it indicate? It indicates in a way those who
find it difficult to forgive themselves, it means that they
are very hard on themselves. So they are too stone-hearted
on themselves to say: I don't deserve to be forgiven. And
then others who find it difficult to forgive others, they
can be very very hard on others. So you see the importance
of developing softness, you realize the importance of being
gentle, you feel the importance of feeling tender to oneself
and to others. So when you develop these qualities,
naturally, you can forgive yourself and you can forgive
others. So as I said, what we have to learn and I think it
is extremely important, is to learn to accept our humanness,
learn to accept we are imperfect human beings, that we still
have shortcomings. In the same say, we have to realize that
we are living in a world where people are imperfect, where
people are humans, so you're bound to see the shortcomings,
human frailties arising from others and from yourself. So
according to the Buddha's teaching, we have greed, we have
hatred, we have delusion in us and in others. So because of
greed, hatred and delusion, we shall have shortcomings and
make mistakes. Only someone who are completely enlightened
will not have these shortcomings but as long as we are not
enlightened, we are human, we are imperfect. So I feel that
it is extremely important to learn to realize this, to
accept this and learn to forgive ourselves and to forgive
others and then when you can see in these terms, as I said,
you will be able to forgive yourself and forgive
others.
Any questions?
Audience:
Due to
the impermanence in life, there are all kinds of suffering.
What can we do about it?
Godwin:
Actually
I would like to discuss only loving kindness because it is
the subject that we are discussing. So I will give a very
brief response to the question of impermanence. We suffer
from impermanence because we don't accept impermanence, we
don't accept change. We will take one example. We are
healthy and then because of the law of impermanence or the
law of change, we become sick. So we suffer because we have
expectations: I should not fall sick. So in this way, when
we have this resistance to change, to impermanence, there
will be suffering so the way out is to be open to change, to
be open to impermanence, to accept that as a fact of life.
So this is where again the Buddha said: Learning to accept
things just as they are, and not as they should or should
not be.
Audience:
You
said we should learn to love this friend, but when we see
the bad thoughts or bad desires in us, how can we love this
friend when this friend is so bad? Isn't that like covering
ourselves in a way?
Godwin:
Very
good question. We again take a couple of practical examples.
Take the example of anger, when we get angry, what happens?
We are angry about our anger. We start sometimes, hating
ourselves because we are getting angry and then we suffer
from guilt because we have got angry. So because of this
anger and because you are relating to this in this way, you
can suffer for days. So in using loving kindness you relate
to the anger in an entirely different way. So rather than
beat yourself, rather than giving yourself a minus, rather
than suffering and feeling guilty, in a very friendly gentle
way, as I have been saying so often, you'll find out: How
did I get angry? So as I have been saying a few times, we
can learn from that anger, we can use that anger for our
spiritual growth. This is what I mean by being friendly. The
way I'm suggesting helps us to work with the anger in an
entirely different way, rather than giving in to them. It's
not really pampering ourselves, but by learning to work with
the anger in a different way, in a more effective way rather
than suffering too much as a result of that anger. And
another point is, when you are friendly to yourself and when
you are open to yourself, you'll be also realizing when
you're not angry, which is also very important. So then we
come to a stage when we are livid, we know what to do with
the anger and when we are not angry, we know we are not
angry.
Any other question?
Audience:
Learning to practise forgiveness
is easier to say than to do specially when it comes to
people who are close to you like parents, very very good
friends, brothers and sisters. It is very difficult to
forgive them. When it comes to friends who are not so close
to you, not so friendly, then it's easier to forgive them.
What can we do?
Godwin:
Very
interesting question which I think all of us can relate to.
It is interesting actually to reflect why with people to
whom we are close that they can create wounds. The simple
reason is because they are close to us, maybe friends,
relations, then we have an image expecting how they should
behave. A good simile to understand this is that we put them
on a pedestal by saying he's my best friend, so therefore my
best friend should behave this way. She's my mother so
therefore she should behave this way. So you see the demands
we are making from them because they are close to us and
poor people, they fall from the pedestal that you have put
them on, and when they fall from the pedestal we don't
realize that we are the persons who put them on a pedestal
and we get disappointed, we suffer. And someone can carry
these wounds throughout one's life. So one should really see
what it does to yourself because of your ideas about how
others should behave. To put the same thing another way, we
forget that they are also humans.
There is time for one last question.
Audience:
Do you
mean we should not have any expectations of others or should
we not be attached to people?
Godwin:
I think
it is natural that we have expectations but what we forget
is how far our expectations are realistic. How far are you
prepared to meet up with your expectations about yourself?
How far others can meet up with your expectations? How
realistic are your expectations? This is what one has to be
clear about. I know some people who are very idealistic.
Very idealistic about themselves, very idealistic about
others and they live in a very idealistic world. This
idealistic world that we have created is one thing and what
we are realizing is another thing. So as one has to hold
into this idealistic world, as long as we hold onto this
perfect world, we are bound to create wounds in relation to
your own behaviour and in relation to the behaviour of
others. According to the Buddha, until and unless we are
enlightened, we are all crazy. Crazy in the sense that we
can't see things as they are. The problem with us is we take
this crazy world seriously. And also a reminder of a very
interesting saying in Tibetan Buddhism: Enlightened people
behave like ordinary people. Ordinary people try to be like
enlightened people.
I'm very happy that you asked very good practical questions on loving
kindness. So now we take a small break and after the break, we will be having a
meditation on loving kindness. So during the break I would suggest to please
use a few minutes just to learn to be friendly to:
Learning to open your heart like opening a flower.
And can you feel yourself as your best friend?
Can you really feel it, feel it in every part of your body, your
whole being?
Feeling yourself as your best friend, can you really say these words
with some feeling: May I be well?
Really wishing yourself, that you will be well physically and
mentally.
May I be happy. Feel happy that you are learning to do meditation of
loving kindness.
May I be peaceful. Can you really feel the peace and the stillness in
this room?
Feel the peace in every part of the body.
Let us now look at our wounds. Look to the wounds in relation to what
you have done to others, we try to forgive us by feeling that you are your best
friend, by accepting we are humans. And those who do not have such wounds, feel
happy that you do not have such wounds.
You can feel the area of your heart and say to yourself: I forgive
myself. I forgive myself.
Those who have wounds in relation to what others have done to them,
let us think of them and forgive them. Those who don't have such wounds, feel
happy that you don't have such wounds.
I forgive you. Forgiving you, may you be well, may you be happy, may
you be free of suffering.
Can we really say these words from our heart?
When we are leaving our wounds, may we experience more joy, more
lightness, more friendliness.
I understand this is a day for ancestors, let us think of the
ancestors and especially our parents whether they are alive or whether they are
dead.
Can we live with thoughts of loving kindness to our parents?
Can we feel grateful to our parents?
[End of meditation]
Let us do some chanting. I'm happy that the chanting is improving
every day, both the Pali chanting and the Chinese chanting.