Another one. I wanted to remake my Metta, or Loving-Kindness one because I felt the other one was a little too complicated. I wanted a more minimalistic/symbolic version. I also like the idea of being able to draw them with minimal colors. Like if you wanted, you could graffiti them onto a wall somewhere with one or two colors.
So with Metta, one suggestion given by Ayyā Dhammadīpā in a retreat about the brahma viharas was to imagine something or someone that gives you an instant reaction of “oh, I wish that creature well” like a puppy or kitten. Usually the image I use is a small rabbit.
The first step is to settle into your meditation position and get in touch with the felt sense of your body. I like to start with the eyes, it pushes my awareness back into the center of the brain, like the thalamus/pineal gland area. This helps separate me from the idea that my body is self. Then I explore my eye sockets and nose with my awareness. Really feeling the difference between the left and right side of my skull. Then I travel up my forehead and around the top and back of my skull, then come around and feel my teeth and my lips covering them and my jaw, then I travel down my neck and down my body. I try to make sure I don’t slip into visualizing these things. I’ll sometimes start picturing the part of the body, but then I try to bring my awareness back into my brain and return to feeling the body part and where it is without creating an image.
After going over the entire body, I return to the breath, feeling the lungs filling and emptying on their own. By this time I’m still enough that I can feel my heart beating easily. I follow its rhythm and move just underneath it, just below and behind the sternum to the area commonly called the heart chakra.
Then I bring in that image of the baby rabbit and feel the metta. Bhikku Bodhi describes it as a warm, soft, fuzzy kind of feeling, but for me it’s like a valve being pulled open, like an aortic valve. When it’s open, the metta flows out from it and from the top of my head, the crown chakra.
Next I visualize the subject of the metta meditation. Usually you start with yourself. This practice has really helped me with my feelings of low self worth. The idea is that this metta is something that everyone should be given, regardless of deserving it or not. So, even if you feel like you don’t deserve love, which you do, you accept that each of these things are things that you can wish on anyone regardless of how they choose to act. So, with the image of myself in front of me and my valve open, I wish myself well, to be healthy. Then true happiness, like contentment, peace, stillness. This isn’t like the kind of happiness we usually think of, where you smile, but a real understanding of yourself and your needs and being content with your needs being met. Then, safety, just not wanting harm to come to someone. Then that all their good aims are fulfilled. If your subject is the worst person in the world and has no good aims, then you aren’t hoping that they get all they want, just that their good intentions happen. If they want to harm someone to protect someone else, then you’re wishing that they protect that person, not that they are able to harm the other.
I’m not sure how to know when to move from one subject to the next, but if my attention starts to drift after staying with a certain subject, I’ll usually move on.
The next subject is someone close to you. A relative, spouse, close friend.
Then you go to the casual acquaintance. Someone you know or have seen, but don’t know very well.
Next is expanding to the town or city that you live in. Everyone in the town is your subject. One suggestion to help hold open the valve is to imagine all the children, since it’s sometimes easier to wish them well.
One neat idea that the Buddha brings up is that since there are infinite rebirths in the past, every other person has probably been your father in a rebirth, or your mother, or your sibling, or your child. So, try to feel about any one person the way you do about your child, etc. because at some rebirth, they probably were your child.
Then you move to encompass the entire country you live in.
Then the whole world.
Then you include all the animals in the world.
Lastly, you include all the realms of existence. The entire universe, other planets with life, the confused spirit realm, the hell realms, the heavenly realms, including the devas and maras, brahmas and nagas, etc.
Finally you let all the visualizations fall away and return to the felt sense of the body and then take a few mindful breaths and open your eyes.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to write out an entire meditation session, but I think it’s good.
I had the opportunity to attend an online meditation retreat with the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi and others from Buddhist Global Relief this weekend. It focused on the Brahma Viharas, which translates to The Divine Abodes, and are sometimes called ‘The Four Sublime States.’ They have also been called ‘The only emotions worth having.’
Mettā, or loving-kindness. This is a deep, gentle, heartfelt concern for the wellbeing of others and is the basis of the Brahma Viharas.
Karuṇā, or Compassion is what happens when Loving-Kindness encounters Suffering. It is the sincere wish that others’ suffering is relieved and empathizing with their pain to the point where you feel it as well.
Muditā, or Sympathetic Joy, or Altruistic Joy is what happens when Loving-Kindness encounters wholesome Happiness or Joy. It is the celebration of others’ wholesome happiness and joy, sharing in their happiness and being happy that they’re happy.
Upekkhā, or Equanimity is what balances the others. It sees the larger picture and the sameness and equality and unity of all living beings.
The four work with each other and connect to each other. If you only practice one, you will become unbalanced. If you only practice loving-kindness you can become attached to the people you direct it to. If you only practice compassion you can be overwhelmed by the suffering and the compassion can turn to pity. If you only practice sympathetic joy you can lose sight of the suffering of others and become hypocritical. If you only practice equanimity you can become indifferent to the others because everything’s the same and eventually going to end, so they become unimportant.
The real benefit to meditating on these feelings and practicing them often is that you can change your character. What you think becomes what you say and what you say becomes what you do. So, the more you think about things from these points of view and feel these emotions, the more they will saturate into your everyday life until they become your instinctual reactions. When you encounter a situation that you would normally feel anger you will feel love, compassion, and equanimity with the other person and be able to calmly and wisely approach the situation.
Overall, the retreat was a really good experience and I enjoyed it greatly while learning a lot. It gave me a lot to add to my daily meditation practice and I can’t wait to continue exploring these concepts.
The Six Principles of Cordiality or How to live in a group harmoniously (note that this works only if everyone has this same mindset and follows these principles)
1. Maintain bodily acts of loving-kindness (lovingly do nice things for your group-mates) 2. Maintain verbal acts of loving-kindness (lovingly say nice things about/to your group-mates) 3. Maintain mental acts of loving-kindness (think nice things about your group-mates) 4. Share all things with your group-mates equally 5. Follow the 5 precepts (no killing, no stealing, no lying, no sexual misconduct, no intoxicants) 6. Maintain a noble perspective that leads to the elimination of suffering (make it your goal to reduce the suffering of everyone, you and your group-mates)
Bitch I see you. You’re a yoga teacher, (and my mom), so you know about the concept of “loving kindness”. Why don’t you be more kind to me, your tiny baby, and share some of that doughnut?
“ Monks, there are these five kinds of loss. Which five? Loss of relatives, loss of wealth, loss through disease, loss in terms of virtue, loss in terms of views. It’s not by reason of loss of relatives, loss of wealth, or loss through disease that beings—with the break-up of the body, after death—reappear in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. It’s by reason of loss in terms of virtue and loss in terms of views that beings—with the break-up of the body, after death—reappear in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. These are the five kinds of loss.
“There are these five ways of being consummate. Which five? Being consummate in terms of relatives, being consummate in terms of wealth, being consummate in terms of freedom from disease, being consummate in terms of virtue, being consummate in terms of views. It’s not by reason of being consummate in terms of relatives, being consummate in terms of wealth, or being consummate in terms of freedom from disease that beings—with the break-up of the body, after death—reappear in the good destinations, in the heavenly world. It’s by reason of being consummate in virtue and being consummate in terms of views that beings—with the break-up of the body, after death—reappear in the good destinations, in the heavenly world. These are the five ways of being consummate.” ”
Since moving to the spiritual mecca of Crestone, Colorado in March of 2020, my wife and I have made pilgrimages to many of the areas sacred sites. At 7,923 feet in elevation and located next to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Crestone is both beautiful and isolated, subject to extremes of weather, wind, and temperature. It includes an astonishing array of spiritual sites – more than two dozen ashrams, monasteries, temples, retreat centers, stupas, shrines, labyrinths, and other sacred landmarks. Although pilgrimage may seem an antiquated religious ritual, it remains a vibrant activity in the modern world as pilgrims combine traditional motives – such as seeking a remedy for physical or spiritual problems – with contemporary searches for identity or interpersonal connection.
Our most recent pilgrimage was to the Tashi Gomang Stupa, located about two miles by trail from our home. Since the time of the Buddha’s (566-485 BCE) death, Buddhists have constructed stupas to contain the relics of enlightened teachers. Stupas have become places of veneration and pilgrimage in Buddhist cultures throughout the world. A stupa is an architectural rendering of the Buddhist path, the stages and aspects of enlightenment. When a great Buddhist teacher leaves his or her physical existence, the body that remains is considered to be permeated with the very essence of awakened mind, possessing tremendous intrinsic power and blessings. The appropriate vessel for containing these relics is a stupa. Through its design and contents, a stupa is regarded as having the power to transmit the essence of awakened mind, on the spot, to anyone ready to receive it.
Within the Tibetan tradition there are eight kinds of stupas representing eight major events in the life of the Buddha. The Tashi Gomang Stupa commemorates the Buddha’s first teachings in Benares (Varanasi) when he expounded the Four Noble Truths and the Twelve Links of Interdependence. These teachings reveal the truth of suffering, the cause of suffering and the skillful means to bring about the cessation of suffering (enlightenment).
The stupa itself is completely enclosed and contains many special objects inside. A depository of offerings was placed underneath it in tribute to the goddess of the earth and local deities. It was considered essential to ask their permission before construction could take place. The base, or throne of the stupa was filled with juniper which has special powers of purification. Treasure vases were placed in the juniper along with musical instruments, medicines, herbs, food, precious jewels, silks, brocades, perfumes, gold, and silver. Through the blessings of the stupa, these substances will work to bring good health, harmony, peace, and prosperity to its surroundings.
The stupa has been filled with 100,000 tsa-tsas (or miniature stupas) made by volunteers. Within each tsa-tsa is a roll of prayers, and mantras. The tsa-tsas were blessed and consecrated by visiting lamas before being placed inside the stupa. Also inside the stupa are earth, water, and stone from the eight great pilgrimage sites in India; wood from the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment, water from a cave of Milarepa, and other sacred objects.
The tsok-shing or “life force” pole was placed in the center of the bell-shaped body of the stupa and reaches to the top of the spire. It was carved from a juniper tree into the shape of an obelisk, with a half dorje (vajra - thunderbolt) at the bottom and a small stupa at the top. Precious relics were placed in the life-force pole and then it was painted, inscribed in gold with the Buddha’s teachings, and wrapped in silks and brocades. It rests on two mandalas, also covered with offerings.
The statue of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, wearing his Black Crown, was placed at the front of the stupa. Artisans in Nepal made the statue and its encasing niche and frame, as well as the ornamentation on top of the spire. The gold leaf finish and additional ornamentation was done on site in Baca Grande. Inside the statue is another tsok-shing, rolls of mantras, and relics from all sixteen Karmapas and other saints.
The Tashi Gomang Stupa embodies His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa. In the words of H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: “Within the stupa the teacher remains unchanging. The Buddha said that whoever sees the stupa will be liberated by the sight of it. Feeling the breeze around the stupa liberates by its touch. Having thus seen or experienced the stupa, by thinking of one’s experience of it, one is liberated through recollection. As our world increasingly adopts a secular and atheistic perspective in many domains of experience, pilgrimage, for many like myself, remains a potent force.
CYCLE OF BIRTH AND DEATH (SAMSARA) IN THERAVADA BUDDHISM - 01
According to Buddhist scriptures, it is believed that through meditation, the Buddha gained first hand knowledge of rebirth and the cycle of birth and death (samsara), before declaring it to the world. During the process of attaining full enlightenment through deep meditation on that night, the Buddha is said to have developed three special types of supreme knowledge, two of which revealed the knowledge of rebirth. During the first watch of the night, the Buddha developed the supreme knowledge (pubbenivasanussati nana) through which it was possible to recollect the past lives that the Buddha Himself had gone through during the cycle of birth and death including the details of where He was born, name, occupation, etc. in each previous life. During the second watch of the night, the Buddha developed the divine eye (cutupapatha nana), which revealed how from an inconceivable beginning, other beings were reborn into happy or unhappy existences dependent on their previous skilful and unskillful actions, based on the natural law of cause and effect (kamma).
The literal meaning of the word “Samsara” both in the Pali and the Sanskrit language is “wandering on” and “continuing on”. According to the Buddha, we have been wandering on in this cycle of repeated birth and death (samsara) with no evident beginning for an inconceivable length of time. Samsara is not a place or a particular plane of existence, but a process fuelled by ignorance (avijja), craving (tanha) and the volitional actions we perform (kamma) through which we continue from one existence to another. All existences in the cycle of birth and death bear three universal characteristics of existence; impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and lack of substantiality (anatta).
The cycle of birth and death (samsara) can also be described as the process of re-becoming of the five aggregates of clinging (pancha-upadankkhandha) from one existence to another. The five aggregates of clinging are the constituent parts of the Psycho-physical unit of name and matter (nama-rupa) known as an individual, a being or a personality.
Seated to one side, King Pasenadi said to the Buddha, “Just now, sir, as I was in private retreat this thought came to mind. ‘Who are those who protect themselves? And who are those who don’t protect themselves?’
Then it occurred to me: ‘Those who do bad things by way of body, speech, and mind don’t protect themselves. Even if they’re protected by a company of elephants, cavalry, chariots, or infantry, they still don’t protect themselves. Why is that? Because such protection is exterior, not interior. That’s why they don’t protect themselves.
Those who do good things by way of body, speech, and mind do protect themselves. Even if they’re not protected by a company of elephants, cavalry, chariots, or infantry, they still protect themselves. Why is that? Because such protection is interior, not exterior. That’s why they do protect themselves.’”
“That’s so true, great king! That’s so true!” said the Buddha. And he repeated the king’s statement, adding:
The thangka painting of life of Buddha narrates the most relevant episodes of the life of Siddhartha Known as the “Twelve Great Deeds of Buddha’s Life”. The twelve deeds carried out by the Buddha Shakyamuni are:
1. Transferring to the Southern Island- continent from a Pure land of Tushita, after having transferred his throne to the next Buddha for the eon, Maitreya Buddha.
2. Entering his moms womb.
3. Taking Bath
4. Becoming skilled and learned in the arts
5. Enjoying himself with his wife and his circle
6. Setting forth from family as a renunciation
7. Undergoing difficult ascetic practices
8. Proceeding to seat for enlightenment under a Bodhi tree.
9. Taming the demonic forces (Mara).
10. Manifesting full enlightenment
11. Setting flow rounds of transmission of the preventive measures of Dharma (Turning the wheel of Dharma)
12. Demonstrating a total release from all suffering (Nirvana) by passing away.
“ At one time the Buddha was staying near Vesālī, at the Great Wood, in the hall with the peaked roof.
Then the Buddha robed up in the morning and, taking his bowl and robe, entered Vesālī for alms.
Now at that time around five hundred Licchavis were sitting together at the Sārandada shrine, and this discussion came up among them, “The appearance of five treasures is rare in the world. What five? The elephant-treasure, the horse-treasure, the jewel-treasure, the woman-treasure, and the householder-treasure. The appearance of these five treasures is rare in the world.”
Then those Licchavis sent a man out on to the road, saying, “Mister, please tell us when you see the Buddha.”
That man saw the Buddha coming off in the distance. He went to the Licchavis and said, “Sirs, the Blessed One, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha is coming. Please go at your convenience.”
Then those Licchavis went up to the Buddha, bowed, stood to one side, and said to him, “Please go to the Sārandada shrine, out of compassion.” The Buddha consented in silence.
Then the Buddha went up to the Sārandada shrine, where he sat on the seat spread out, and said to the Licchavis, “Licchavis, what were you sitting talking about just now? What conversation was unfinished?”
“Well, Master Gotama, this discussion came up among us while we were sitting together: ‘The appearance of five treasures is rare in the world. …’”
“You Licchavis are so fixated on sensual pleasures, that’s the only discussion that came up! Licchavis, the appearance of five treasures is rare in the world. What five?
The appearance of a Realized One, a perfected one, a fully awakened Buddha.
A person who explains the teaching and training proclaimed by a Realized One.
A person who understands the teaching and training proclaimed by a Realized One.
A person who practices in line with the teaching.
A person who is grateful and thankful.
The appearance of these five treasures is rare in the world.” ”
“ “Mendicants, there are these seven kinds of wealth. What seven? The wealth of faith, ethical conduct, conscience, prudence, learning, generosity, and wisdom. These are the seven kinds of wealth.
Faith and ethical conduct are kinds of wealth,
as are conscience and prudence,
learning and generosity,
and wisdom is the seventh kind of wealth.
When a woman or man
has these kinds of wealth,
they’re said to be prosperous,
their life is not in vain.
So let the wise devote themselves
to faith, ethical behavior,
confidence, and insight into the teaching,
remembering the instructions of the Buddhas ” “ ( Saṁkhittadhanasutta - AN 7.5. Wealth in Brief )
Friends saw a different Huxley than critics did. To Sybille Bedford, Aldous was a man transformed; he had developed a godlike assurance, a serenity. He gave a sense of peace and a natural sweetness mixed with an Olympian calm: a saint without the unctuousness. Huxley’s evolution from an agitated pacifist to a calm, clear-minded mystic—[D.H.] Lawrence would have enjoyed this—was noticed by others. When Cyril Connolly interviewed Huxley for Picture Post, he remarked, “What is much more remarkable … is the radiance of serenity and loving-kindness on his features; one no longer feels ‘what a clever man’ but ‘what a good man,’ a man at peace with himself.”
David King Dunaway, Huxley in Hollywood (Bloomsbury, 1989)
