Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The Breath of Love - Radiating Love to a Spiritual Friend

The Breath of Love
Author
Most Venerable Bhante Vimalaramsi Mahàthera





Radiating Love to a Spiritual Friend

After sending loving and kind thoughts to yourself for about ten
minutes,  then  begin  sending  loving  and  kind  thoughts  to  your
“spiritual friend”. A “spiritual friend” is someone who, when you
think of them and their good qualities, it makes you happy.
This  is  a  friend  who  is  of  the  same  sex,  they  are  alive,  and  not  a
member of your family. This is for right now. Later, you will be able
to send Loving-kindness to all of the members of your family. But
for  this  training  period  please  choose  a  friend  that  you  love  and
respect.
Once  you  start  sending  Loving-kindness  to  your  spiritual  friend,
please don’t change to another person. Stay with the same spiritual


friend until you get to the third meditation stage (Jhàna). As you are
sending a sincere wish for your own happiness and then, mentally
you say, “As I wish this feeling of peace and calm (happiness, joy,
whatever) for myself, I wish this feeling for you, too. May you be
well, happy and peaceful.” Then start radiating this feeling of love
and peace to your friend. It is quite important for you to feel the
sincere wish and that you place that feeling in your heart.
Visualization
You also visualize your friend in your mind’s eye. For example, you
can visualize your friend as if they are in a photograph or you can see
them moving around as if in a movie. For some people visualizing
can be somewhat difficult because they don’t realize that one can
visualize with words as well as pictures in their mind. Saying your
friends name and using some words that help to see that person in
your mind’s eye is fine! The exact visualization doesn’t matter. But
when you see your friend, see him or her smiling and happy. This
can help to remind you to be smiling and happy too!

The  visualization  can  be  somewhat  difficult.  It  can  be  cloudy,  or
fuzzy, or a long distance away. It can be there for just a moment and
disappear. That’s all right. Don’t try too hard because it will give
you  a  headache.  You  want  about  75%  of  your  attention  spent  on
the  feeling  of  Loving-kindness,  20%  (more  or  less,  depending  on
what is happening) on making a sincere wish and feeling that wish
in your heart. This helps the feeling for your friend’s happiness to
grow. Only about 5% of your time should be spent on visualizing
your friend. As you can see, the Feeling of Loving-kindness is by far the
most important part of the meditation, and the visualization is the
least important part. But still put a little effort into the visualization.
Eventually, it will get better and easier.


Smiling
This is a smiling meditation. While you are sitting and radiating love to
your spiritual friend or to yourself, smile with your mind. Even though
your eyes are closed during the meditation, smile with your eyes. This
helps to let go of tension in your face. Put a little smile on your lips and
put a smile in your heart. Smiling is nice and most helpful to practice
all of the time, but especially when you are sitting in meditation. The
more we can learn to smile the happier mind becomes.
It  may  sound  a  little  hokie,  but  scientists  have  discovered  that
the corners of our mouth are very important. The position of the
lips corresponds to different mental states. When the corners of
your  lips  turn  down,  your  thoughts  tend  to  become  heavy  and
unwholesome. When the corners of your lips go up, mind becomes
more uplifted and clear so that joy can arise more often.
This  is  important  to  remember  because  a  smile  can  help  you  to
change your perspective about all kinds of feelings and thoughts.
So  try  to  remember  to  smile  into  everything  that  arises  and
everything that you direct your mind’s attention to. In other words,
smile as much as you can into everything.

Dullness of Mind
The more sincere and enthusiastic you are in sending Loving-kindness
to  yourself  and  your  spiritual  friend,  the  less  you  will  experience
sleepiness or dullness of mind. When sleepiness or dullness occurs,
your body may begin to slump. This is the only time that you can
move your body to straighten up. But don’t do this too often, either.
If you see your mind starting to dull out, then take more interest
in  your  friend;  see  him  or  her  doing  things  that  you  truly
appreciate. For example, you can visualize times that they were


helpful and generous, or times when they made you happy and
you laughed with them. This can help to increase your interest
and energy, and then the dullness will subside.
Please,  once  you  begin  this  meditation,  start  by  sitting  for  30
minutes.  The  first  ten  minutes  you  send  Loving-kindness  to
yourself. The rest of the time, send love to your spiritual friend
(remember  to  use  the  same  friend  all  of  the  time).  When  your
meditation becomes better and you feel more comfortable, you
can sit for a longer periods of time (whatever is appropriate for
you  with  your  time  constraints).  But,  don’t  sit  for  less  than  30
minutes a day in the beginning! Sit more if you have the time.
Active Meditation
This is not simply a passive meditation to be practiced only when
you  are  sitting  in  a  chair  or  on  a  cushion.  It’s  a  meditation  to  be
practiced all of the time, especially when you do your daily activities.
So many times we walk around in a mental haze of random nonsense
thoughts.  Why  not  try  practicing  Loving-kindness  Meditation
whenever we can possibly remember? When you are walking from
your house to your car, or your car to your job, what is your mind
doing? Ho-humming probably about more nonsense thoughts.
This  is  the  time  to  notice  what  your  mind  is  doing  in  the  present
moment and to let go of these distracting thoughts. Relax the tightness
in your head/mind and wish someone happiness! It doesn’t matter
who you send loving thoughts and feelings to in your daily activities.
It  can  be  to  the  person  walking  next  to  you,  your  spiritual  friend,
yourself, or all beings. The key words here are to “send love”, smile,
and feel that sincere wish. Try to do this as much as possible during
the day. The more we focus on sending and radiating loving and kind
thoughts, the more we affect the world around us in a positive way.
As a result, your mind becomes uplifted and happy. Nice!


Benefits of Loving-kindness
There are many benefits to practicing Loving-kindness:
1. You sleep peacefully.
2. You wake up peacefully, easily, and mind is very alert.
3. Disturbing dreams do not occur. 
4. People like you.
5. Animals like you.
6. You are protected by the Deva.
7. You are not affected by misfortune from, fire, poison, and 
weapons.
8. Meditation progress is faster with this meditation than any 
other meditation.
9. Your face becomes radiant and beautiful.
10. You die with a mind free from confusion. 
11. If the stage of sainthood if not reached during this lifetime, 
one will be born in a Brahmà world.
When  you  practice  Loving-kindness,  your  mind  goes  deeper
in  meditation  and  more  quickly  than  with  any  other  type  of
meditation.
Actually,  the  Buddha  mentioned  Loving-kindness  Meditation
well over 100 times and he taught the “Mindfulness of Breathing”
meditation  only  8  times  in  the  suttas.  So,  you  can  see  just  how
important he thought it was.
Loving-kindness and Nibbàna
The  practice  of  Loving-kindness  Insight  Meditation  can  lead  you
directly to the experience of Nibbàna if you follow all of the Brahmà
Vihàras precisely. The Brahmà Vihàras include the practice of Loving-
kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity. This is mentioned many
times in the suttas which are the original discourses of the Buddha.


Many times other teachers will say that this practice alone doesn’t
directly lead the meditator to the experience of Nibbàna. But, when
Loving-kindness  Insight  Meditation  is  practiced  as  part  of  the
Brahmà  Vihàras  (the  heavenly  abodes),  it  will  take  the  meditator
“automatically”, without changing the meditation instructions, to
the material (Råpa Jhànas) and immaterial realms (Aråpa Jhànas) up
to the realm of nothingness. All of the Brahmà Vihàras actually arise
by themselves.
This  opens  the  path  for  you  to  experience  the  realm  of  “neither
perception nor non-perception” and “the cessation of perception,
feeling,  and  consciousness”  which  happens  right  before  you  see
and  truly  understand  how  the  impersonal  links  of  Dependent
Origination  and  the  Four  Noble  Truths  occur.  When  this  is  seen
and  fully  understood  it  is  such  an  eye-opening  experience  that
Nibbàna takes place.
There is a very special sutta called “The Simile of the Saw” (sutta
number  21,  Majjhima  Nikàya)  which  shows  the  usefulness  of
practicing  Loving-kindness  in  your  daily  life.  In  order  to  attain
Nibbàna you must decide to change old unwholesome habits of acting
and speaking into the wholesome habits of having equanimity and
Loving-kindness  towards  everyone  you  see  or  think  about.  This
sutta  shows  how  to  practice  your  meditation  during  your  daily
activities and this simple instruction leads to true happiness all of
the time.
It says:
“There are these five courses of speech that others may use when
they address you: Their speech may be timely or untimely, true or
untrue, gentle or harsh, connected with good or with harm, spoken
with a mind of loving-kindness or with inner hate. When others
address you their speech may be timely or untimely; when others
address you their speech may be true or untrue; when others address


you their speech may be gentle or harsh; when others address you
their speech may be connected with good or with harm; when others
address you their speech may be connected with loving-kindness or
with inner hate.”
“You should train thus: “My mind will remain unaf fected, and I shall
utter no evil words; I shall abide compassionate for their welfare,
with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate. I shall abide
pervading that person with a mind imbued with loving-kindness;
and starting with them, I shall abide pervading loving-kindness to
the all-encompassing world with a mind that is abundant, exalted,
immeasurable, without hostility and without ill-will.”
“If  you  keep  this  practice  in  mind,  do  you  see  any  course  of
speech,  trivial,  or  gross,  that  you  could  not  endure?  Therefore,
you  should  keep  this  advice  in  mind  always  and  that
will lead to your welfare and happiness for a long time.”  
This is a good reason to remember to smile all of the time. There are
many advantages to smiling and one of the main reasons is because
smiling  will  show  you  what  true  mindfulness  is.  Another  reason
is when you smile a lot, joy arises very easily while you are doing
your daily activities. When joy arises, mind is exceptionally bright,
clear, alert, and agile. It is easy to see when mind starts to get pulled
down into unwholesome states and with that mindfulness present
it becomes very easy to 6R and come back to smiling.
I hope these instructions are helpful and that by practicing in this
way  you  will  benefit  greatly  and  lead  a  truly  happy  and  healthy
life.

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