Here’s a bit of the metta (loving kindness) meditation:
May all beings be happy, may they be peaceful.
May they be healthy and strong.
May they be free from inner and outer harm.
May they care for themselves easily in the world.
This is part of a longer post I edited substantially.
The responses were to that.
The metta meditation is one of the brahmana viharas
(divine abodes). People concentrate on it for
days until they get blissfully concentrated.
Often they come away radiating loving kindness,
which they can beam at people. This is a
traditional Buddhist meditation in the
Theravada tradition, which goes back
to the classical teaching of the Buddha.
now you know how christians feel when our fellow christians act like monkeys’ behinds. doing the right thing is always hard, no matter what your faith. i don’t know much about being a buddhist but i do know about being a person. if this bothered me and i thought there was hope, i would ask him about this.
Buddhism consists substantially of techniques
or methodologies meant to purify the mind
of hatred, craving, and delusion.
Mindfulness meditation–you watch the mind body
process and do nothing else. An hour and a half
a day for lay folk. On retreats you do nothing else
for ten days, for weeks, sometimes for months.
Some people do this meditation and
nothing else literally for years. It’s supposed
to lead to enlightenment.
In the metta meditation, which I described above,
you wish happiness and peace to yourself,
then to a benefactor, then to somebody neutral,
then to someone you don’t like. Then you extend
this loving kindness to the fish in the sea, the
birds in the sky, to all the beings to the north of
you, to all the beings to the south of you,
and so on. There are retreats where you do
this meditation and nothing else for a week straight.
The Buddha was dealing with sane, sweet indians
who grew up in these super nurturing extended families. The methods
are meant to free such folks from the suffering
inherent in the human condition (losing what you love,
getting what you don’t want, sickness, old age and death)
and from the cycle
of rebirth.
That’s it. The effort to shift this into a remedy to
the problems that most Americans bring to it
is a failure. Better, faster, safer, more effective
means available.
This may or may not apply to the post. That said, in my Internet experience, often times if the other person gets to tell their version of the story, the complainer looks as bad or worse. I fear this may be the case here.
Again, this may or may not apply to this story, but as a rule of thumb, it applies to about 90% of these kind of stories. If it is the latter, there is a lot more meditation and letting go of ego needed for all persons involved. Posting the story seems to me an act of ego, looking for outer approval. As I have written many times, the complaining habit is among the most corrosive things to mental health and spiritual well-being, that a person can engage in.
Another point, acting rude at times seems to be elevated to the level of heinous crime. If the worst that the person did that day was act rude, or strange a couple of times, the person did well that day.
We are not heroes, saints, or angels, just average people in human bodies with human failings, in a spiritual experience.
My original post, and the following ones, may be close to
violating board policy on mental health discussions,
so I’ll edit it. It’s actually helpful to have
written this stuff down.
Here is the sutta on which the metta meditation is based.
What should be done by one who’s skilled in wholesomeness
To gain the state of peacefulness is this:
One must be able, upright, straight and not proud,
Easy to speak to, mild and well content,
Easily satisfied and not caught up
In too much bustle, and frugal in one’s ways,
With senses calmed, intelligent, not bold,
Not being covetous when with other folk,
Abstaining from the ways that wise ones blame,
And this the thought that one should always hold:
‘May beings all live happily and safe
And may their hearts rejoice within themselves.
Whatever there may be with breath of life,
Whether they be frail or very strong,
Without exception, be they long or short
Or middle-sized, or be they big or small,
Or thick, or visible, or invisible,
Or whether they dwell far or they dwell near,
Those that are here, those seeking to exist-
May beings all rejoice within themselves.
Let no one bring about another’s ruin
And not despise in any way or place,
Let them not wish each other any ill
From provocation or from enmity.’
Just as a mother at the risk of life
Loves and protects her child, her only child,
So one should cultivate this boundless love
To all that live in the whole universe
Extending from a consciousness sublime
Upwards and downwards and across the world
Untroubled, free from hate and enmity,
And while one stands and while one walks and sits
Or one lies down still free from drowsiness
One should be intent on this mindfulness-
This is divine abiding here they say.
But when one lives quite free from any view,
Is virtuous, with perfect insight won,
And greed for sensual desires expelled,
One surely comes no more to any womb.
Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
Philippians 4:8
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders, but after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of all, then accept it and live up to it.
Shame on you, Walden. As a Chiffmaster you are responsible to keep medical, religious or political content and flames out of these here hallowed halls of Pubdom. Instead, I see you fanning the fires.
Jim’s earlier post illustrated the difficulties of dealing with folks who have one set of professed religious views and an entirely opposite method of actual behavior. Although this does indeed happen in many different religious circles, it is especially surprising (at least to me) to see it in Buddhists.
Jim, years ago, I dated a guy for a long time that was very much into meditation and the like (part of what attracted me), but had real trouble actually living his life according to the principals he seemed to value. He apparently was more influenced by things that made honesty, loyalty, respect for women, non-violence, etc. sit just outside his grasp. I finally figured it out and became one of his ‘ex’s’. (that was, of course, all my fault, LOL!) I think he was much more confused than he cared to consider.
Thanks, you’ve pretty well expressed what’s on my mind.
The fellow I wrote about has some personal issues
which I’m pretty sure explain his behaviour,
and I guess I’m struck with the fact that the practice,
whatever its benefits, doesn’t help with them.
As to the ex you aptly described:
I was at the gym this morning and somebody there
was obnoxious to me. I responded skillfully
but coming home I sat for awhile and
watched anger, fear, arising, thoughts of the
snide thing I could have said that would have
really put down that individual, anger, fear…
It’s still going on.
Suzuki Roshi said that meditation
consists in seeing everything as it is and letting
it go as it goes. So there it is, the whole unpleasant
fight or flight thing, unpleasant visceral sensations causing thoughts/fantasies causing more visceral
sensations.
The idea is to have lots of inner space, to see this
stuff without identifying with it, but gee
I do wish I didn’t have a baboon brain-stem!
Buddhism is, simplistically, at least, about keeping one’s own doorstep clean and welcoming, and one’s windows on the world clear and open. You observe all without getting caught up in it, live an honest and open life, and earn your living in a manner that does not take advantage of another.
It is not about pointing out anything about another’s doorstep or windows. You may invite others to stand in your doorway or look out your windows … to enjoy what you enjoy. You work for a betterment of the world as a whole. Your living is both a prayer and an example, but by its ‘doing’, not by its ‘showing’.
It is an exceptionally personal practice that can be felt even by those outside it as a calm, aware, loving, protective - yet open handed, feeling/attitude… it’s not ‘not valuing’, but ‘not possessing’…
Oh-oh… I have fallen… Whoa is me!
It is also a practice of working for that same calm and understanding for others.
One of my favorite lessons was the practice of focused prayer for others, in which we were directed to ask for 5 benefits for ourselves - safety, health, sustenance, inspiration and fulfillment, and then to ask for the same things for the person we most love, then someone we know and like, then someone we don’t know well, and then, especially, for the person we have the most difficulties dealing with. … The premise being that anyone who genuinely feels safe, is not struggling with health issues, does not fear at all for their continued survival, who has genuine inspiration, and finds their efforts in pursuit of that inspiration fulfilling … is going to be someone happy in their own life, and therefore, a much more pleasant person to deal with all the way around.
… kind of a “win-win” attitude toward life.
It is almost palpable… if you happen to be in the presence of a person, or especially several people, practicing their meditation, you can feel the calm, almost a glow. It’s pretty amazing, really.
Of course, there are many who only put on the trappings, and some who try but do not achieve, as in any other cross-section of humanity. For something so genuinely simple, it is not easy.
I claim no expertise, and certainly do not practice as I should.
It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to conclude that because this Buddhist approach did not seem to be helping this particular man at the time of the behavior, it cannot help those in the American condition who make whatever committment is required to practice this meditation. How can we know for certain what sort of people the Buddha was talking to? They must have been feeling some sort of spiritual emptiness or a need for something more in their lives. Their lives were different, sure, but I don’t think they were probably any saner or sweeter than humankind in general. I imagine many of the people the Buddha talked to fell by the wayside or failed in their goal and had to try again or else gave up. I understand your shock (I read the entire post earlier), but I think that you should just judge the meditation by what help it has given you in living the sort of life you wish to live. And maybe you could look at it more as something that has the potential to help people reach a better life and but better might not be perfect and it might be a slow process. Maybe that meditation has helped this man—perhaps he would have punched you out before he started meditating! Maybe those who can just totally and instantly let go of things have gone through a long process of gradually decreasing the magnitude of their responses to things.
There are Buddhist communities that have been divided
geographically from one another for a thousand years or more,
sometimes. The Tibetan practice is removed from
the Japanese, and the Southern School in Sri Lanka,
Burma, Thailand, Cambodia was entirely out of
touch with these others for the longest time.
But the people are doing, with some variation, the same
meditative practice, and for those who do, it
tends to produce the same sort of personality:
a bland, uncharismatic individual who is kind, compassionate,
and has very little to no ego. The Dalai Lama is
a good example. So good practitioners
in most every Buddhist tradition tend to resemble
one another. You could easily mistake the abbot of
the Chinese buddhist monastery in Augusta MO
for the gardener. He wouldn’t mind.
He’s now doing a two-year meditation retreat,
living in a trailer behind the meditation hall.
But I think you’ve really got to have very few
serious personal problems. Asians seldom have them, and if you
do, these are probably more effectively addressed
by other means. Meditation isn’t a panacea.
Also you have to practice so much
that it transforms you–as it’s labor intensive, that
means it’s a major commitment.
The standard advice I’ve received from Theravada
teachers is an hour and a half to two hours meditation a day,
and a long retreat in the summer. That’s for lay people.
