Notes From a Fellow Traveller

A larger Love

    Separateness, as an individual or as a couple, is not the actual nature or final goal of our being. It is learned and limiting. The truth or fact is that we are not merely connected to one person or to a small group of people. That is what appears as truth but that is not how it actually is. We are interconnected beings. We can neither survive nor flourish without the help and assistance of others. Opening our heart to one individual is only preparation for a universal embrace that is the full expression of the open heart.

    The fully open heart does not know the ordinary boundaries of our conventional interpersonal relationships. As our consciousness expands so does our reach. Our capacity for open heartedness, sensitivity, generosity, and emotional intimacy spreads to all our relationships. To see another, acknowledge another, hear another, be present with another, and feel one with another—a lover, a partner, a friend, a stranger, and even an enemy – is a profound healing gift for oneself and the world. Attaining a full life and health requires that we extend these capacities beyond our close group of loved ones.

    The development of universal loving-kindness is the final leap in our inter-personal development. This essential step in expanding the reach of our heart extends beyond our immediate close ones to those we have no feelings about as well as those we dislike. We ordinarily categorize our relationships according to how they feel to us – pleasant, neutral or unpleasant. We care for our family, friends, and lover, are unconcerned for strangers and others that we are neutral about, and avoid and disparage those that we find unpleasant. We cannot extend the reach of our heart to all unless we see all individuals as equally worthy of our care and affection.

    Equalizing is the process of abandoning our learned preferences and seeing all beings as we see our closest ones. Because we have spent our life learning how to categorize others as friends, neutral, or unpleasant this will take some time. Be patient, equalizing is not an easy process. It requires developing new understandings and undertaking supportive practices. The following understandings may assist you in beginning this process. Consider the following:

1. All beings without exception want to be happy, healthy, and free of suffering. All suffering has the same quality. What is so special and deserving of concern about my suffering and the suffering of my loved ones when all individuals suffer in the same way? Why should I care for my suffering more than that of others? In wanting happiness and freedom from suffering we are all equal.

2. What we consider pleasant or unpleasant in another is largely the result of personal or cultural preferences. As a result, any individual can be considered pleasant by some and unpleasant by others. The individual is not different. What’s different is our individual perceptions. As we begin to erase our learned preferences and tendency to make distinctions all individuals increasingly become more equal to each other and thus worthy of our affection and care.

3. No individual is all bad or all good. We all have some of each quality. One aspect or another may show at one time or another but they are both there. No permanent statement can be made about the benefit or harm caused to us from a particular person. This can change over time. We must be willing to see that we are all equal in containing a mixture of qualities.

4. Individuals who are friends today may lose our affection and become enemies tomorrow. Our enemies may become friends tomorrow. As ordinary emotions love, hatred, affection, and rejection are impermanent and fickle qualities. Others do change but so does our perception of them.

5. We are all interconnected in many ways. Beyond the discrimination of our mind there is little that separates us. At the core of our being – an open and present awareness – we are all precisely the same.

6. Health happiness, and wholeness arise from learning to love and care others rather than seeking and demanding to be loved.

    Each of these points deserves considerable reflection. With time we will see that in actuality we are more equal than we are different. As this understanding progresses our heart will open in a more universal embrace. As we increasingly feel equal to others the boundaries that define others as friends or enemies will soften and collapse. When this occurs we are ready for the practice of exchanging.

    We are now able to wish for all people what we initially desired for our self and then learned to equally desire to our close ones – happiness and freedom from suffering. In time we discover that to give to another is to give to our self. To heal another is to heal our self. And this recognition places us directly on the path to a far-reaching health, happiness, and wholeness. Consider the following words of Shantideva:

                 Whatever joy there is in this world
                 All comes from deserving others to be happy,
                 And whatever suffering there is in this world
                 All comes from my desiring to be happy.

                 What need is there to know more?
                 The childish work for their own benefit,
                 The Buddha works for the benefit of others.
                 Take a look at the difference between them

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Mother's Day and a Universal Embrace

Today is mother’s day. My mom passed some 10 years ago so the phone call doesn’t get made in the usual sense. But there is a new connectedness to my mom that I wish to share on this day. It’s a heart connection that unexpectedly arose and subsequently maintained itself while working in retreat with a traditional loving kindness practice.

There are two such major practices in the Buddhist tradition. The first called The Seven Point Mind Training has its origins with the great master Atisha, and the second called Equalizing and Exchanging comes through the lineage of Shantideva.  Here, I’ll be referring to the first practice.

Although I’d been familiar with and had been taught this practice on several occasions it never touched me as it did several years ago. I think it’s because of the time taken, almost 10, days to work through the entire practice in detail. Its two central steps are the ability to generate within one self and then abide in the unconditional and tender love of a mother for her child. As the Tibetans know this is a particularly difficult point for Westerns who often look back on their developmental years and touch into feelings of animosity rather than tender love. So they are careful with this part of the teaching, and although it is difficult to find a love equivalent to mother-child love they offer the option of substituting another relationship for this primal one. Although this option was left open, in the case of this specific teaching the issue was approached in a much different way that I will discuss below.

The second major point is learning to equalize our love for all beings. We usually take one of three positions towards others ¬ neutrality, attraction, or aversion. And these positions often switch from one to another over time with the very same person. This aspect of the teaching is designed to show us another way of seeing others – seeing them at a deeper level beyond our fragile emotions where all beings are the same and equally deserving of love and care.

The first point is connecting with a tender love towards ones mother. What was special for me about this teaching is that the teacher did not focus on the developmental years but started much earlier in our journey towards life. He asked us to imagine what it was like to carry a baby for nine months. How would our life change? He asked us to consider the physical discomforts, the career placed on hold, the medical attention to the pregnancy, and mother’s concern for the pregnancy. Could we imagine the delivery itself with the pain and joy, the first holding against the breast, the nurturing and the care? Can we imagine the first year ¬ – our dependency on mother, the sleepless nights, the necessary care, and the worry about illness? Can we imagine our mother’s hopes and dreams for us? He then asked us to go back to our rooms and meditate on the sacrifices that each mother makes for her child in this early phase of life. And when we felt a sense of tenderness and care arise within our heart we were instructed to meditate and abide on this feeling of love and gratitude, allowing it to grow into an orb of warm light in our heart space.

Much to my surprise – as I perceived my relationship to my mother as not particularly intimate – feelings of great tenderness and appreciation began to rise within me. And not only for mother, but also for my father who I rarely saw but who worked 24/7/365 to support his family in a traditional way with little personal joy or achievement to show for it. Even though, he worked on until illness overtook him. On the surface I had a limited relationship with my sister who was five years older than me. But as I looked at her through a new perspective I could also see and feel her love and care. So what started as a simple practice ended with tears and a very open heart. As instructed I sat in meditation with this feeling and allowed it to take hold of me as I moved to the second central point in this practice.

Now it was time to confront the partiality of these feelings. Yes, ones family is different in terms of our specific relationships. But don’t we all share blood? Don’t we all share a desire to be love and cared for, to be free of suffering, and to be happy? Aren’t we all the same in this sense? Isn’t it true that our strange mind will turn friends into enemies and enemies into friends and then back again? Is anybody all good or all bad or don’t we all have mixed qualities? And anyway do our feelings for individuals reside in the other or in the conditioning and mental perspectives that are within us? And if we believe in former lives isn’t it true that everyone has been our mother or father at one time or another? Choose what works best for you and when you see the truth that all people, at the level of their basic humanity, are the same and equally deserving of love and care then you have found the route to a larger, non-exclusive, and impartial universal embrace. When this feeling arises within us we were told to meditate on it allowing it to settle in more deeply.

Finally it comes together. If one has given rise to the feeling of love and tenderness in the first step and a universal embrace in the second step it is then both natural to extend these feelings to all beings. And when you feel love and tenderness for others compassion follows as we do not want to see harm occur to those we care for. This is how we open our heart and feel our love and care within and without.

There can be no argument that an open heart and open mind go together – unconditional heart and unconditioned mind. They co-exist at precisely the same moment. That’s how it is. So not only are we learning to open our heart larger and larger but also how to open our mind. And together, an open mind and heart are the foundation of a profound and enduring well-being of body, mind, and spirit.

So mother’s day is a day not only to touch into the tender love of mother and child but to expand this love into a universal embrace every day. That is a path to a beautiful life.

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Integrating Inner and Outer

A month has quickly passed since returning from teachings in India and Nepal. The time has been spent enjoying home, sustaining daily practice, and integrating it into daily life. It’s always a challenge to hold and expand what has been learned in retreat when confronted with day-to-day life in our hectic and outer oriented culture. But it’s been going well. My sense is that this is a consequence of years of practice, devotion to the inner way of life, and well considered preparations for the transition back home. There is always a drop off in the stability of innerness, but this time there seems to be more stability, spaciousness, ease, patience, and understanding.

Shortly after returning I began teaching three meditation classes each week at the local hospital. This is the sixth such course with about 50 participants attending the current sessions. It’s a 10 week program. We meet two hours each week. A third of each session is allotted to reviewing the participant’s meditation practice over the previous week, another third presenting a topic, and the last third practicing meditation together. Topics include: the unique and precious opportunities of human life, the mind/body connection, the three types of suffering, transforming afflictive emotions, knowing what to cultivate and what to abandon when seeking a larger life and health, integral health, healing relationships, finding meaning and authenticity in work, and the dual meaning of life. There is a CD to help with meditation practice and an extensive course manual.

This “work” is very meaningful to me. I get an opportunity to be with individuals over an extended period of time during which we learn and practice the understanding and skills that place us directly on the path toward a far-reaching health, happiness, and wholeness. Week to week we tackle the challenges to developing the inner life and share the insights and realizations gained along the way.

What is so moving to me is how much can be accomplished in such a short period of time when we are committed to redefining what is possible for each of us. Individual experiences are related with excitement and enthusiasm. Group discussions often have tearful and joyful offerings such as “ I’ve never experienced myself or other people from such a feeling of peace, ease, and subdued reactivity.”  “There is more spaciousness and openness in my life.” “I’m feeling more care and compassion for others.”

It is difficult to look around at all pervasiveness of day-to-day angst and distress when you know it’s needless and reversible. If we can see where we went astray, understand the root cause of suffering and distress we can apply the correct and permanent remedy. Once suffering is undermined the clouds part and the sun shines through. The profound and vast experience of life and health is revealed in its glorious freshness and firstness.

When this openness to live becomes increasingly stable with its unsurpassable peace, love, wisdom, and power there seems little left to do with life than to bring this great possibility into the world by working to benefit others. Service becomes a natural consequence of deep seeing. This can be a part of all of our lives beginning with our immediate friends, acquaintances, and coworkers.

More and more the preciousness of human life becomes increasingly apparent and this brings with a much more expansive understanding of what it means to live the well life.

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