The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast for Sunday 7 October 2001
The topic of today’s broadcast is: Mandalas of Love
Let those
love now, who never loved before;
And those who always loved, now
love the more.
Thomas Parnell: Translation of Pervigilium Veneris
(circa.200), circa 1700. (1)
The word love is both a noun and a verb with an extensive etymology, including the Old English word lufu predating 1149, the Old Frisian luve, Old High German luba, Gothic, lubo meaning brotherly love, from Germanic, from weak grade of base representative also by Old Saxon lubig loving, Old High German gilob meaning precious, Old English, Old Saxon, Old Norse, lof, Old High German lob meaning praise, from Indo-European base, also Latin lubet, meaning it is pleasing, and lubido desire, Old Church Slavonic ljuba meaning dear, ljubiti meaning love and the Sanskrit, lubhyati meaning desires. (2 & 3)
Love is defined in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as: that state of feeling with regard to a person which manifests itself in concern for the person’s welfare, pleasure in his or her presence, and often also desire for his or her approval; deep affection, strong emotional attachment (followed by of, for, to, towards.) (3)
But the love we are talking about has little, if any, emotional attachment and pleasure is not conditioned by a desire for his or her approval.
Nor are we talking about ‘agape’ which is defined, according the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, as Christian love, charity.
The purpose of today’s teaching is to motivate persons to withdraw from the use of hate as a way of life and to cultivate what is know as metta in Pali.
According to the Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary, there are various definitions and explanations of metta. Metta is love, amity, sympathy, friendliness, active interest in others; the desire of bringing welfare and good to one’s fellow-men women; and kindly thought, a heart full of love. (4)
In his welcoming speech to the delegates at the International Conference on Religious Cooperation, in Taipei, Taiwan, September 2001, the Venerable Ching Shin said:
“The founder of every religion harbours a heart of love and a spirit of sacrifice for human beings.” (5)
As expressed in the paper Pontifical Council for Inter religious Dialogue in Italy by His Excellency Michael Louis Fitzgerald, the Christian view on love relationships is that, “God’s gift is everlasting. For the human person death is not the end of existence, but rather a passage to a new stage. As a liturgical text states: ‘by death life is changed not destroyed’. Death is followed by judgment. Those who die in God’s friendship will enter into God’s presence, seeing Him ‘face to face. This blessed state is called ‘heaven’. If at the time of death some imperfections remain which tarnish the friendship with God, the person will undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness required to be in the presence of God. This final purification is known as ‘purgatory’. Those who die in a state of enmity with God, unrepentant, refusing to accept His merciful love, will remain separated from him for ever. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God is what Christians mean by ‘hell’.” (6)
The Buddhist view steers away from such eternalism. They agree heavens and hells exist but they are impermanent. One of the most frightful hells is avici which lasts one world cycle or about 1036years. That is, one followed by 36 zeros - a fairly large number.
The Dalai Lama writes that, “The main theme of Buddhism is altruism based on compassion and love”. (7)
The Buddhist view is there are many kinds of love that can be developed:
At the
personal level, Love of oneself is to develop one’s mind
At
the family level, Love of one’s family is to bring prosperity
At the natural level, Love of one’s country is to develop
the community
Love of one’s temple and religion is to
maintain the temple and the religion from being run down
Love of
one’s country is to be a good and law-abiding citizen
In
terms of ecology, Love of forests leads to a fertile nature
Love
of lakes and creeks leads to abundant water creatures
Love of
farms and fields leads to abundance in farm produce
In terms of
good qualities, Love of one’s parents leads one to be always
grateful
Love of one’s teacher and master leads one to be
studious
Love of a Buddhist Monk or Nun is to listen to the
teachings of Lord Buddha as well as to carry out the teachings in
practice (8)
Religion upholds universal love and compassion. Its inner spirit lies in respect. Its manifestation is humility and tolerance. (9)
You cannot use love as a method until you have overcome your hate (in Pali Dosa). So all religions are designed to overcome hate.
You can not conquer hatred with hatred.
To conquer, you must stop playing with your hatred. When you stop playing enough, you will lose interest in your own hatred and it will die.
The world is full of hate, greed and ignorance. So if you stop hating it won’t make a difference to THE World but it will make a difference to YOUR World.
Your world is your stream of becoming. You remove hatred from your stream of becoming, you are then a freak who does not belong to the bulk of the human race.
You can not learn to love from most people you meet meaning the number of role models in the world today are few and far between.
Mara will deny your attainment, but wise people will know what you have attained.
You cannot love while you are greedy, so then you must conquer greed to display love.
When hate is overcome it is possible to use mandalas of love to get what you want. For this reason today’s teaching cannot be put into immediate effect by most persons because they have not conquered hate.
The Venerable Ajarn Chanhphy Panyanor Manivong writes in his book The Way You Are Looking For - A Manual of Insight Meditaion:
A key part of Buddha Dhamma teaches that we should develop our intellectual capacity, and realise more mindfulness, on the basis that both intellect and mindfulness are necessary to actualise real understanding of conditions.
One other integral part teaches us to develop 'love' towards other beings. But just how is this to be achieved?
It is often thought that 'love' with another person can be developed by giving them something, for example, money, the use of our car, flowers, a film ticket, or a paid holiday.
Your father, mother, son, daughter or other people who you love bring the kindness to them. Make them happy is the meaning and wisdom.
More in accord with Buddha Dhamma is the recognition that our giving must be done with awareness of our friend's real needs and with a clear intention.
The Metta Sutta method was taught by the Lord Buddha and should be practiced. To start, you must practice sending metta to persons you like. Later, you can send metta to persons you feel neutral towards. It is futile to start with loving your enemies because your mind is not ready to do such a practice. You may think that you are sending metta but in fact, your mind is only pretending to do so. It is not strong enough, not yet.
Thoughtless giving between people creates relationships based upon notions of obligation which lead either one or both persons to accuse the other of a lack of affection with such words as, "You should be more grateful... after all I've done for (given) you".
In such relationships, have not both persons been, more than to the other person, unfair to themselves?
Unfair in the sense that, whatever emotional security we can gain from others by giving them presents with an implicit demand that they love us, is based upon our own refusal to be loved at the present time.
Is it possible to offer the other person to respond to us with love if our gift is tied to some kind of obligation and not to loving intention?
Reciprocity of affection, of love as something developed by the mutual action and response between persons, is closer in meaning to the 'love' of Buddha Dhamma.
Principles of relations between persons may be extended, surely, to include the development of benevolence to all persons.
Buddha Dhamma shows this is possible because of the existence of needs common to all human beings.
When metta practice is well developed, it should be given to all beings, just as an upturned water jar gives water in all directions without bias. (10)
We do not see this quality in everyday life as very few persons can do this. Hence, we have entered into World War 3 and the hate will make it last 27 years. A whole generation will be nurtured on vengeance. The only antidote is to learn metta.
“Metta in Buddhism is a state of mind. Its object is the lovable being. It is the state of wishing to promote the welfare of the lovable being.” (11)
It would be nice if you conquer hate this life and attain the perfection of metta but this is unlikely under the present and future propaganda that will flood the world. When the war finishes, persons will seek more love. So if you practice metta for the next 27 years, you may be able to give persons drained by war operations, some solace.
At least, may you be happy hearted.
This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes, Anita Svensson, Julian Bamford, Evelin Halls, Vanessa Macleod, Julie O’Donnell and Pennie White.
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References
(1) Parnell, Thomas (c.200, c 1700), Tr. of Pervigilium Veneris, cited in Mencken (1991) A New Dictionary of Quotations, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p 723.
(2) Partridge, Eric, (1958, 1966) Origins A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, p 343.
(3) Brown, (ed.) (1973, 1993) Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, Clerendon Press, V1, p.1635.
(4) Rhys Davids, T.W. & Stede, W. (eds.) (1979) The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary, London; Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, p. 540.
(5) Ching, Venerable Shin (2001) The Significance of International Religious Cooperation, Welcoming Speech, cited in International Conference on Religious Cooperation (2001) Handbook, Grand Hotel, Taipei, Republic of China, p 13.
(6) Fitzgerald, His Excellency Michael Louis (2001) Pontifical Council for Inter religious Dialogue in Italy, cited in International Conference on Religious Cooperation (2001) Conference Materials, Grand Hotel, Taipei, Republic of China, p 115.
(7) HH the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (2000) Compassion and Wisdom, Singapore, Ad Graphic Pte Ltd, p 24.
(8) Manivong, Ajarn (2001) Personal Correspondence.
(9) Lee Teng-hui, Ex President of Republic of China (2001) Religious Tolerance and Cooperation, Keynote Speech, cited in cited in International Conference on Religious Cooperation (2001) Handbook, Grand Hotel, Taipei, Republic of China, p 29.
(10) Manivong, Venerable Ajarn Chanhphy Panyanor, (1996) The Way You Are Looking For -Part 1, A Manual of Insight Meditation, Melbourne: Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd, pp. 37-40.
(11) Sujiva, Venerable (1998). Divine Abodes - Meditation on Loving Kindness and other Sublime States, Petaling Jaya, Buddhist Wisdom Centre.
Document
Statistics
Totals
Words: 1920
Sentences: 94
Paragraphs: 90
Syllables:
2254
Averages:
Words per sentence: 20.4
Sentences per
paragraph: 1
Percentages:
Passive Sentences: 25
Readability
Statistics:
Flesch Grade Level: 8.6
Coleman-Liau Grade Level:
18.3
Bormuth Grade Level: 11.1
Flesch Reading Ease Score:
64.0
Flesch Kincaid Score: 8.0
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