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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 16 2007 : 11:58:05 PM
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With a boundless heart
Should one cherish all beings:
Radiating love over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths
[buddha meant this literally] |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Apr 17 2007 12:50:30 AM |
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Scott
USA
969 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2007 : 2:02:17 PM
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| This means a lot to me. Great quote, Jim. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2007 : 11:30:08 PM
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Hey, don't credit ME! :)
Finding this was a big synchronicity for me. I've been having problems with nightmares. And I've discovered that the solution is to love the monsters. And this injunction was given by the Buddha as a means to handle evil spirits (though, of course, evil spirits include the guy honking his horn outside your window, the door you stubbed your toe on, and everything else that leaves you feeling the universe is less than optimally lovable).
Call me hopelessly bhakti, but I'm not sure much else is really needed ever than this. Again, it's essential to remember that it's literal, not metaphorical. Love can be cultivated and radiated. Pure love, stripped of the presence of any specific beloved. Many of you can relate to the notion. If so, I suggest you don't hesitate to cultivate it and use it excessively and inappropriately.
Love the monsters. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Apr 17 2007 11:30:48 PM |
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Scott
USA
969 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2007 : 11:53:45 PM
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| I agree with you...this is the summation of yoga. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2007 : 12:45:03 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Scott
This is the summation of yoga.
If so, i'm an idiot. I've known since childhood how to do this. Just never particularly went with it. We devalue the things we know and can do (especially as children). We suppose that the thing that feels missing is something that's missing. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Apr 18 2007 12:46:47 AM |
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Katrine
Norway
1813 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2007 : 05:02:57 AM
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quote:
Love the monsters
I found the biggest monster to be myself.
Embracing this monster, instead of disowning it, is by far the hardest thing I "do".
Thanks for the boundless message, Jim.
And I do credit you  |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2007 : 08:17:12 AM
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Something Shanti taught me: it's often best for people to find the last pieces of the puzzle themselves.
As for me, I'm not up to the me-monster yet. But Swami Satyananda told one of his students that "there are crocodiles lurking in the mind", and I just happen to adore crocodiles. So I actually remind myself of Satyananda's words when I need to soothe myself, perversely enough. Don't worry, Jim...there are crocodiles lurking in your mind!
This is what spurred the process that made my discovery of Metta Sutta (which, again, was offered as a way to "ward off evil", at least on the superficial level) a happy coincidence.
Directing love skillfully is a neat trick if you can do it, but it's a bit too clinical for my taste. As I reread the Metta Sutta, I get a big, huge, honking push toward wielding love with utter lack of discrimination or direction or calculation. "Upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths." That's pretty clear! I just gush it indiscriminately and wholeheartedly, with lots of faith that everything will take care of itself (including the me-monster). No need to direct or wield it. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Apr 18 2007 08:18:20 AM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Jun 27 2007 : 09:49:43 AM
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In the thread called "Resistance, fear and control issues" (<http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic...._ID=2684>), I explained the classical yoga issue of the drives, attachments, and little habits and stored impressions which exist in our our subconscious mind and which hold us back and tie us down without our directly perceiving them. As we insist to ourselves that we wish to surrender, it becomes gradually clear that other facets in the periphery are still holding on with great tenacity. These contrary self-facets are not to be eliminated, they are to be detached from. (note that in Eastern thought, the word "detachment" does not have the Western flavor of aloofness or bloodlessness. We detach into undulating love. So-called emptiness is a fullness of undulating love. Conventional love is full of attachment, and that makes it limited. When we sever attachments, love becomes limitless. Everything about yoga is subtraction - less me, less striving for attainment, less grasping and recoiling, less breathing, less thinking, less self image, less at stake. A yogi is like a sculptor...chipping away. The only thing which grows and expands in yoga is love. As there seems to be less of you, there seems to be more love. Truth of the matter is there's NO you at all, and infinite love. But we unfold this gradually.)
This sutra from the Buddha (and my note about nightmares and the crocodiles) is how it's done: detach into love. Love your subconscious tendencies...the crocodiles in one's depths. Love them like a small child capriciously and arbitrarily (but utterly) falls in love with a balloon or a stuffed animal. The "flavor" to aim for is childlike wondrous love. If you want to also inject some more grown-up sexually-tinged love, that's fine, but that's just an injection. Aim for child-like love - love with complete immersion and no reservations. You're not loving the subconscious crocodiles with desire to feed them or facilitate them, or to make them "do" anything. It's just pure love, without attachment or goal.
You can't consciously observe (much less adjust) the muck in your subconsciousness. But you can cultivate and refine love to send "back there". And results are surprising. But bear in mind that when you love one element or in one direction, you're artificially dividing things up. Do this against the backdrop of the Metta Sutta, which urges indiscriminate full-out loving upwards to the skies and downwards to the depths. Buddha didn't really mean "this plus that plus that plus that....times a trillion". He just meant.....bwaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.
The Advaita and Zen guys say that suffering equals pain plus resistance. Resistance equals attachment, and detachment equals love. So another way to write the same equation is that pain plus love equals no suffering.
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Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Jun 27 2007 4:17:33 PM |
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glagbo
USA
53 Posts |
Posted - Jun 27 2007 : 7:48:58 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
With a boundless heart
Should one cherish all beings:
Radiating love over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths
[buddha meant this literally]
Thanks for the quote, Jim.
I printed it, and posted it on the wall above my desk.
Peace,
B.R.V. |
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Ayiram
88 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2014 : 3:39:15 PM
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Jim,
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kembolini
United Kingdom
50 Posts |
Posted - Jun 03 2014 : 06:28:43 AM
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By jove I think he's got it. :):):)
"The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought."
Mahatma Gandhi
Tough little things though and being human and a family person doesn't make it any easier.
Enjoy the journey. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Jun 04 2014 : 3:17:19 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by kembolini
"The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought."
That's where all battles ARE fought.
If you watch really calmly and clearly when someone is raging at you, you'll notice that they're not raging at you, personally. They're raging at you as the latest representative of that nameless omnipresent thing that's always persecuted them. They're raging at the devils in their hearts. A driver with road rage, his face contorted into fury, has made you "Every Stupid Driver Ever". You're everything that's ever afflicted him.
If you watch yourself raging, you'll see you do the same.
Metta Sutta flips it. Rather than spew impersonal, inappropriate rage at the devils in your heart (or the latest external representation thereof), spew impersonal, inappropriate love indiscriminately....mindlessly over the entire world...upwards to the skies....and downwards to the depths |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Jun 04 2014 3:20:46 PM |
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kumar ul islam
United Kingdom
791 Posts |
Posted - Oct 04 2018 : 2:30:25 PM
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| great lesson jim thank you |
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Metta Sutta ("Words of Love")
