Lovingkindness

by Introspection 2 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  Introspection

  Taken from Insight Meditation - The Practice of Freedom by Joseph Goldstein:

  In his book Love's Executioner, the well-known Stanford psychiatrist Irwin Yalom writes: "I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy. I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love's executioner."

  Is there a kind of love that does not crumble on inspection, that is compatible with and enhances illumination? Is there a difference between the enchantment of falling in love and that quality of being when we are standing in love? This special quality in Pali is called metta, lovingkindness.

  Metta is generosity of the heart that wishes happiness to all beings, both oneself and others. Lovingkindness softens the mind and heart with feelings of benevolence. The mind becomes pliable and the heart gentle as metta seeks the welfare and benefit of all. The feeling of lovingkindness expresses the simple wish "May you be happy."

  Because we react less and remain more open when we cultivate metta, the softness and pliability of love become the ground for wisdom. We see with greater clarity what is wholesome and skillful in our life and what is not. As this discriminating wisdom grows, we make wiser choices that lead us again to greater happiness and more love.

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  The feeling of metta makes no distinction among beings. When love is mixed with desire, there is some energy of wanting, and therefore the love always remains limited. We may desire one, or two, or perhaps three people, but I think there has never been desire for all beings in the world. Unlike desire, metta has the capacity to embrace all; no one lies outside its sphere. People with this feeling of love are always blessing: "Be happy, be healthy, live in safety, be free."

  The principles of lust
  are easy to understand
  do what you feel
  feel until the end
  the principles of lust
  are burned in your mind
  do what you want
  do it until you find
  love...

  -Enigma
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  cellomould

  Thanks for the quotes, Intro...
  No, love is not a feeling. But it is sure a noble concept.

  cellomould

  

  "In other words, your God is the warden of a prison where the only prisoner is your God." Jose Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
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  Introspection

  More on metta, from "The Vision of Dhamma" by Nyanaponika Thera:

  Love, without desire to possess, knowing well that in the ultimate sense there is no possession and no possessor: this is the highest love.

  Love, without speaking and thinking of 'I', knowing well that this so-called 'I' is a mere delusion.

  Love, without selecting and excluding, knowing well that to do so means to create love's own contrasts: dislike, aversion and hatred.

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  Love, but not the sensuous fire that burns, scorches and tortures, that inflicts more wounds than it cures - flaring up now, at the next moment being extinguished, leaving behind more coldness and loneliness than was felt before.

  Rather, love that lies like a soft but firm hand on the ailing beings, ever unchanged in its sympathy, without wavering, unconcerned with any response it meets. Love that is comforting coolness to those who burns with the fire of suffering and passion; that is life-giving warmth to those abandoned in the cold desert of loneliness, to those who are shivering in the frost of a loveless world; to those whose hearts have become as if empty and dry by the repeated calls for help, by deepest despair.

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  And what is the highest manifestation of love?

  To show to the world the path leading to the end of suffering.