BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism Loving Kindness (metta)

To all,

The source of this text is from Belief net,the author is Sharon Salzberg.Below is part of the text she wrote:please enjoy it.


From "Lovingkindness" by Sharon Salzberg. Copyright 1995 by Sharon Salzberg. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, Mass.


What unites us all as human beings is an urge for happiness, which at heart is a yearning for union, for overcoming our feelings of separateness. We want to feel our identity with something larger than our small selves. We long to be one with our own lives and with each other.

If we look at the root of even the most appalling violence in this world, somewhere we will find this urge to unite, to be happy. In some form it is there, even in the most distorted and odious disguises. We can touch that. We can connect to the difficult forces within ourselves, and to the different experiences in our lives.

Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasure and its pains. We feel neither betrayed by pain nor overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation.


Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: Our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.

In cultivating love, we remember one of the most powerful truths the Buddha taught--that the mind is naturally radiant and pure. It is because of visiting defilements that we suffer



Hope you enjoy this text

loong

Thanks for sharing looong, Sharon Salzburg is a favorite teacher and writer of mine, and in fact I have a book of hers (along with a few others) that I was going to give away in a give away quiz here in the forum soon...just have to get it organized.

This reminded me of an interview I did awhile back here at Bellaonline with Sylvia Boorstein, a peer of Ms. Salzburg's. She talks about the connection between mindfulness and metta, you may like it: Interview with Sylvia Boorstein

"If we look at the root of even the most appalling violence in this world, somewhere we will find this urge to unite, to be happy. In some form it is there, even in the most distorted and odious disguises. We can touch that. We can connect to the difficult forces within ourselves, and to the different experiences in our lives.

Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as parts of the world."

This sounds very, very hard to do.

Yes, but like everything we do it in baby steps. Each moment of self- or other-forgiveness or compassion, each moment of honesty where we face a difficult truth about ourselves or others, and then forgive ourselves and them for it while at the same time committing to doing better in the future, we take a step an all-embracing metta. It is moment-by-moment, like any shift.

I am too emotionally fragile to take on the pain of the world. I cry and I hurt for everyone's pain. I can't watch the Animal Planet channel. I started to cry at Long's Taxi Driver post. I am very tired of crying over man's inhumanity to man and cruelty to the animals and careless treatment of the planet.

In order to decrease my suffering, right now I need to distract myself from observing pain. Not my time to embrace and accept it. I hope this is making sense.

Dear Jilly,

Like I told you ,this is a giant task.Like Lisa said .

Baby steps.Do not try to understand everything at the same time.Impossible.Today ,again,I learned from Lisa.Do not make yourself unhappy by trying to hard to be happy.

friend to friend.
loong/norm

That, yes. Thank you.

Yes, great answer looong. Jilly, believe me, I know just what you mean. It can be so overwhelming sometimes. I think one way to think of it is less that you are taking in the pain of the world, and more that you are simply emanating out healing and compassion. When I do metta meditation, this is what I focus on. Emanating outward healing and compassion, and it does whatever it does - I don't judge how small or large it's impact is. Every little bit helps. And I usually feel better that I at least tried. It shifts you. This is metta practice.

It is really hard to do. By hating evil, we only escalate and feed it. I like this idea of Metta, and that it isn't something to grapple with instantly.

Loong.....this was beautiful to read. Thank you.

Lisa.....great comments.

Jilly.....I am like you....I am very sensitive to others' pain. For now little steps in the amounts that I can handle is what works for me while I work on healing from my own pain. Lisa has the right idea in that it does not matter the amount of impact, just that the ideals are embraced.