In a time of physical isolation it is essential to know how to generate love from the inside. The Brahma Viharas, or The Four Immeasurable Minds, are the Buddha’s teachings on love. The four qualities of friendliness, compassion, resonant joy, and equanimity offer a time-tested path that anyone can follow to nurture the deepest love for all beings, including ourselves.

This week's practice: 

Continue with last week's practice, in reverse:

Several times a day pause and ask yourself, "Is there something to celebrate here? Can I rejoice? Is there suffering here? Can I care for it? "

 

Resources 

Mudita Phrases:

I appreciate your good qualities

I take joy in your good fortune

May your joy continue, may it grow.

May it lead you to full liberation/awakening.

 

"If I am only happy for myself, many fewer chances for happiness. If I am happy when good things happen to other people, billions more chances to be happy!" ~ H.H. the Dalai Lama

Song: Your Joy is My Joy

 

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This course is offered by Dharma Pathways, a collaboration of dedicated Buddhist monastics whose aspiration is to support individuals and communities on the path of awakening, service, and wellbeing. Click here to sign up for our Newsletter and be informed about future offerings.

As monastics we share the Dharma freely and live from what is offered.  We rely solely on donations to support our basic needs, our outreach, and our studies.  You are welcome to make a donation to the teacher or the whole organization here to help us continue to make courses like these possible.

This guided meditation on experiencing unpleasant sensations for the fourth week of the course entitled "Teachings on Love" with Sister HaiAn (Sister Ocean.)

Offered to you by Dharma Pathways

We are happy to offer these teachings and practices freely.  If you'd like to support our work and the monastics, please make your way to our donation page.

In a time of physical isolation it is essential to know how to generate love from the inside. The Brahma Viharas, or The Four Immeasurable Minds, are the Buddha’s teachings on love. The four qualities of friendliness, compassion, resonant joy, and equanimity offer a time-tested path that anyone can follow to nurture the deepest love for all beings, including ourselves.

This week's practice:

Practice this or a related meditation on Karuna

Several times a day pause and ask yourself, "Is there suffering here? Can I care for it? Is there something to celebrate here? Can I rejoice?"

 

References

Metta, [kindness] the love that connects, is an antidote to all forms of aversion. It is not attachment. If it slides into sentimentality, karuna [compassion] brings the heart back into balance. 

Karuna, the love that responds, is an antidote to cruelty. It is not pity. If it slides into sorrow, mudita [appreciative joy] brings the heart back into balance. 

Mudita, the love that celebrates, is an antidote to envy. It is not competitive. If it slides into agitated excitement, upekkha [equanimity] brings the heart back into balance. 

Upekkha, the love that allows, is the antidote to partiality. It is not indifference. If it slides into disconnection, metta brings the heart back into balance.

~ Caroline Jones and Paul Burrows

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a covenant between equals. Compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship, of true kinship.

~ Father Greg Boyle

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to places where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.

~ Henri Nouwen

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This course is offered by Dharma Pathways, a collaboration of dedicated Buddhist monastics whose aspiration is to support individuals and communities on the path of awakening, service, and wellbeing. Click here to sign up for our Newsletter and be informed about future offerings.

As monastics we share the Dharma freely and live from what is offered.  We rely solely on donations to support our basic needs, our outreach, and our studies.  You are welcome to make a donation to the teacher or the whole organization here to help us continue to make courses like these possible.

This guided meditation on experiencing unpleasant sensations for the fourth week of the course entitled "Teachings on Love" with Sister HaiAn (Sister Ocean.)

Offered to you by Dharma Pathways

We are happy to offer these teachings and practices freely.  If you'd like to support our work and the monastics, please make your way to our donation page.

This guided meditation on feeling a pleasant experience for the fourth week of the course entitled "Teachings on Love" with Sister HaiAn (Sister Ocean.)

Offered to you by Dharma Pathways

We are happy to offer these teachings and practices freely.  If you'd like to support our work and the monastics, please make your way to our donation page.

In a time of physical isolation it is essential to know how to generate love from the inside. The Brahma Viharas, or The Four Immeasurable Minds, are the Buddha’s teachings on love. The four qualities of friendliness, compassion, resonant joy, and equanimity offer a time-tested path that anyone can follow to nurture the deepest love for all beings, including ourselves.

This week's practice: 

Take care of yourself. Seriously.

 

Poems

 

Kisagotami

 

A child dead.

And a mad search for a magic seed.

 

It's a story as old as dust.

 

Brave up, my sisters.

 

The day will come

when you run

from house 

to house.

 

People will meet you at the door,

look you in the eye,

and they won't let you in.

 

I'm sorry, they'll say.

But we can't help you. 

Listen.

 

When everyone you love is gone,

when everything you have

has been taken away,

you'll find the Path

waiting

underneath

every rock

on the

road.

 

These are the words of Kisagotami.

 

~ "The First Free Women" translated by Matty Weingast

 

 

Please Call Me by my True Names - Poem by Thich Nhat Hanh with his introduction

 

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This course is offered by Dharma Pathways, a collaboration of dedicated Buddhist monastics whose aspiration is to support individuals and communities on the path of awakening, service, and wellbeing. Click here to sign up for our Newsletter and be informed about future offerings.

As monastics we share the Dharma freely and live from what is offered.  We rely solely on donations to support our basic needs, our outreach, and our studies.  You are welcome to make a donation to the teacher or the whole organization here to help us continue to make courses like these possible.

This guided meditation on offering loving kindness to oneself is part of the practices for the second week of the course entitled "Teachings on Love" with Sister HaiAn (Sister Ocean.)

Offered to you by Dharma Pathways

We are happy to offer these teachings and practices freely.  If you'd like to support our work and the monastics, please make your way to our donation page.

In a time of physical isolation it is essential to know how to generate love from the inside. The Brahma Viharas, or The Four Immeasurable Minds, are the Buddha’s teachings on love. The four qualities of friendliness, compassion, resonant joy, and equanimity offer a time-tested path that anyone can follow to nurture the deepest love for all beings, including ourselves.

This week I invite you to to:- Practice the radiating and suffusing styles of metta meditation. Before the next class see if you have a sense of what style(s) of metta towards the self work best for you - visualizing yourself as a child, saying your name, using phrases, patting the body, radiating in all directions...- Notice your hindrances to self-metta (and when you find them, see if you can meet them with kindness as in, "Oh! Hello shame! So good to see you! Thanks for showing yourself.")- Set a timer and every hour, or at least three times a day, send yourself micro-metta!

Hindrances (not an exhaustive list)- thinking that happiness/peace lies somewhere else so metta brings up longing- thinking that happiness/peace is not possible so metta brings up aversion and shame- thinking we’ve already found happiness but we’re really numbed from dissatisfaction, stress, and trauma- when shame is involved there’s usually a “should” involved (as in, "You can't even find love for yourself! What a bad person!" rather than simply noticing "Wow. It's hard to find a sense of care for myself today. That's how it is.")

This guided meditation on offering loving kindness to an "easy being" and a "neutral being" is part of the practices for the second week of the course entitled "Teachings on Love" with Sister HaiAn (Sister Ocean.)

Offered to you by Dharma Pathways

We are happy to offer these teachings and practices freely.  If you'd like to support our work and the monastics, please make your way to our donation page.

In a time of physical isolation it is essential to know how to generate love from the inside. The Brahma Viharas, or The Four Immeasurable Minds, are the Buddha’s teachings on love. The four qualities of friendliness, compassion, resonant joy, and equanimity offer a time-tested path that anyone can follow to nurture the deepest love for all beings, including ourselves.

 

This week we dove into Metta-Maitri-Loving kindness meditation. We started off by listening to a jazz version of the Discourse on Love, found here.

Week 2 Practice

- Practice a daily meditation on love, either the recording here or any practice that you enjoy.

- Practice "stealth metta", sending well wishes to people at the grocery store, that you pass while walking, or even on TV and Facebook if you can't get outside.  Make it a game.  play with it for at least 10 minutes a day, as best you can

- At some point, reflect on which words "work" best for you in doing metta.  There's no need to use the words that I use.  Anything that opens up connection and care is appropriate.  Make a list and bring it to next week's session.

 

Text from the class

 

Metta, [kindness] the love that connects, is an antidote to all forms of aversion. It is not

attachment. If it slides into sentimentality, karuna [compassion] brings the heart back into balance. 

Karuna, the love that responds, is an antidote to cruelty. It is not pity. If it slides into sorrow, mudita [appreciative joy] brings the heart back into balance. 

Mudita, the love that celebrates, is an antidote to envy. It is not competitive. If it slides into agitated excitement, upekkha [equanimity] brings the heart back into balance. 

Upekkha, the love that allows, is the antidote to partiality. It is not indifference. If it slides into disconnection, metta brings the heart back into balance.

~ written by Caroline Jones and Paul Burrows

 

 

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This course is offered by Dharma Pathways, a collaboration of dedicated Buddhist monastics whose aspiration is to support individuals and communities on the path of awakening, service, and wellbeing. Click here to sign up for our Newsletter and be informed about future offerings.

As monastics we share the Dharma freely and live from what is offered.  We rely solely on donations to support our basic needs, our outreach, and our studies.  You are welcome to make a donation to the teacher or the whole organization here to help us continue to make courses like these possible.