Mettavalokanaya_Buddhist_Magazine_March_2019

The Validity of
Present life….
One who truly seeks one’s
spiritual well-being and welfare
should put “metta” into action
in all spheres of life. First of all,
he should develop the skill of properly
managing, with full awareness, every
aspect and every moment of his life,
from the time he gets up in the morning
till he retires at night. He must be skillful
in everything that he does, thinks and
says. These three modes of action should
be so oriented, so influenced and so
imbued, by metta or universal love, by
the wish for all beings to be happy. So,
one quality or virtue that one has to
imbibe and cultivate in order to walk the
spiritual path and live according to metta
which is to say one has become skillful
in whatever one does. Life is a very
complex thing.
We have our individual life, than we
have our family life, than our professional
life and then we have our social life. So,
there are so many different levels of life
and metta must guide us at all these
levels. Metta in action must be expressed
in the form of skillful management of
every aspect, moment and level of our
lives. We should know how to manage
ourselves with metta in our personal life
and how to do the same in our dealings
with our family members, with the group
or community that we live with and in
our professional life. In order to make
our interactions with others meaningful,
we must develop the necessary skills
so that we are competent and are not
dependent on others to do things for us
that we can do ourselves. For this, one
has to be absolutely straightforward
and upright. A person who is not
straightforward, who is crooked in his
outlook, crooked his actions, crooked in
his behavior, cunning and hypocritical,
can never practice universal love in
any form. One has to be honest and
upright and only then can one develop
skillfulness in managing one’s life.
Uprightness requires that you
do what you say and practice what
you preach. In this way, there must be
no conflict in your life in any manner,
whether in your personal life or your
family life, your professional life or
your social life. Straightforwardness
or uprightness is the beginning of the
practice of metta. To be straightforward,
one must have some kind of idea of
rightness or properness, that which is
right and proper so that one lives by
it and becomes upright. You become
upright when you have an idea about
what is right. If you don’t have a clear
notion of what exactly is right and wrong,
how can be upright? And, if you are not
upright, how you can really practice
metta? How can you skillfully manage
your life? One has to think very deeply
about these matters and be honest to
oneself. People love to find fault with
others. Everywhere, you keep seeing
faults in others. But, the honest person
sees the faults first within himself. He
realizes that he has plenty of faults of his
own.
Metta or loving kindness is very
opposite of finding fault with other
people. Being negative, always finding
with others these are terrible qualities
that make your life miserable. So,
we should consciously try to stop
ourselves before we fall prey to the
temptation of seeking faults in others.
The Metta consists of unbounded and
unconditioned thoughts of love towards
all living beings for their well-being and
happiness, without any discrimination.
It embraces the entire world of
sentient beings alike. It is mixed with
kindness. There must not be any kind
of attachment mixed with it. It is pure
love, free from attachment. Therefore, it
is not easy to practice. As unconditional
love, it is completely different from the
love involved in sensual matters. In fact,
sensual love is the indirect enemy of
true loving kindness is a very effective
antidote for anger. The kindness is
compassionate loving thoughts towards
those who are in distress or sorrow.
It should embrace beings faced with
troublesome situations. Those who
cultivate such noble thoughts will try
their best by world and deed to alleviate
those in need to free them from those
miserable situations.
Those who possess real kindness
are not concerned with the ethnic or
religious background of victims or their
social statues, education, economic
situation, color or any such barrier when
helping others. They will just focus their
attention on the problems faced by the
victims. Brutality is the direct enemy
of compassion. Its indirect enemy is
misery involving emotional feelings,
when seeing hapless being in pain. Being
emotional just does not help anyone.
The Sympathetic Joy is the feeling of
genuine happiness at other’s joy and
happiness. It is not at all easy to be happy
about other’s success or achievement
if one’s mind is full of jealous thoughts
about others success. One should be
able to appreciate the gains, fame
and reputation, honor and success in
various matters in connection with the
lives of others. Most people are happy
with the success of their dear and near
ones, not with those of others. However,
there should not be any limitations
or boundaries in the practice of this
virtue. It is important to train oneself
to feel happy with the success of others
whether they are one’s relatives, friends
or otherwise. Jealousy is known as the
direct enemy of sympathetic joy. Elation
is known as its indirect enemy.
The Equanimity is mental
composure. It is not easy to acquire
equanimity if one’s mind is easily
occupied with the extremes of
attachment for again, good reputation,
blame and pain. A mind with equanimity
will embrace all good or bad and positive
or negative phenomena, without any
distinction. The ability to maintain
serenity of mind, without being effected
by those two extremes is genuine
equanimity. This works in different levels
at different stages. When other virtuous
qualities are pervaded with equanimity,
they will get matured soon. The direct
enemy of this is attachment to the good
and resentment of the bad. Its indirect
enemy is lack of concern due to delusion.
The learnt a method of leading a
meaningful life, they no longer cared
about the past. They certainly did learn
important lessons from the past, but
they didn’t wallow in thinking about the
past. If you are not captive to the past or
to the future, but live constantly in the
present. The past has gone, never come
back again. The future is yet to come.
So, why obsess about both that don’t
exist at the present moment? Worrying
or repenting about past won’t change
the past one bit. It will only make you
more depressed and angry. Likewise,
obsessing about the future won’t help
you at all. After all, no one knows for sure
what’s going to happen in the future, not
even in the next second. Nothing at all
about the future is really predictable
and so all the fears and fantasies you
wallow in about the future may well
turn out to be completely unfounded.
Right vision or right understanding
is the knowledge of the four Nobble
Truths: unsatisfactoriness, the cause
of unsatisfactoriness, the cession of
unsatisfactoriness and the path leading
to the cession of unsatisfactoriness.
Right thought consists of dispassionate
thoughts, loving thoughts and
compassionate thoughts.
You’re agonizing about it can only
lead you to fear and sorrow. Life itself
is unpredictable, uncertain. You don’t
know what is going to happen after half
an hour you may die, you may continue
to live, all kinds of things can happen. So,
it is as absolutely useless to brood over
the future as it is to wallow in guilt and
remorse for the past. Live in the present.
“Forget
the past…
Live in the
present”….
Metta is universal loving kindness that
we have been discussing. It is said that
numerous benefits accrue from the
practice of metta. What are these? It
is said that one who practices metta
sleeps well & happily, wakes up happily
does not suffer bad dreams, is dear to
human beings, is dear to non-human
beings as well, the gods protect him, no
fire or weapons or poison injures him,
his mind gets quickly concentrated his
features are bright, he dies unperturbed.
So, the regular practice of metta brings
several practical benefits to one in her
or his daily life. They are very important
benefits. Metta can neutralize all these
negative tendencies completely. So, in
this manner, metta both is freedom of
the mind and it can also bring about
freedom of the mind. When you cultivate
unselfish love and universally apply it
towards all creatures, you develop a
mind which is benevolent, loving, kind,
forbearing and forgiving. You don’t
remember the past. Metta saves you, so
practice it ardently and sincerely.
Taiwan
The Former President of
Chinese Young Buddhist
Association in Taiwan
(CYBA) & the Honorary
Vice President of the World
Alliance of Buddhists (WAB)
and Former President of
the Outstanding Women in
Buddhism Awards
Most Venerable Bhiksuni
Dr. Ming Yu
24 l Mettavalokanaya l March l 2019 l www.mettavalokanaya.com www.mettavalokanaya.com l 2019 l March l Mettavalokanaya l 25