Love Without A Lover | Ven Canda

In this short talk, Venerable Candā reflects on love and how it can become a general attitude in our lives and condition how we relate to life's various experiences. A relationship of kindness, gentleness, and respect, which leads to wholesome states of mind and is connected to the second factor of the noble eightfold path - right thought/intention. It doesn't matter what the object of our love is - what matters is love itself. The main emphasis is on developing our own heart.

Transcript

So tonight's little Dhamma reflection is about of course metta,

Or loving-kindness.

The title is a bit cheeky really,

I sort of like to play on words.

There is a Buddhist Sutta that says,

In the seen,

Only the seen,

In the heard,

Only the heard,

In the cognised,

Only the cognised,

And in the felt,

Only the felt.

And that really means there is no self involved with that.

It's just phenomena being seen.

The seeing sees,

Not I see.

But seeing sees,

Feeling feels,

Cognition cognises.

So I thought in a similar way,

It's love that loves.

In the love,

Only loving.

Sounds quite nice.

But that's not actually original to the texts.

But I wanted to talk about this because it brings in the aspect of non-self.

And that's an aspect of the Buddha's teaching which is often misunderstood and perhaps a little bit intimidating at times.

Because obviously here we are,

We have to deal with conventional reality.

We have this body and mind and it gives us a lot of trouble.

There is a lot of identification around it.

But we can also learn a lot by learning to relate to ourselves in wholesome ways.

But one thing that helps to lessen the sense of self is to realise that when we do generate loving-kindness,

The more the self fades away,

The more we can open to love.

Because the things that block love are selfishness.

That sort of tight clinging to what we think of as me and mine.

Anybody who we know who gets criticised.

If it's a love person,

We can't bear that.

It's very difficult.

If it's someone we don't like,

No problem.

But if it's somebody we identify with,

We take it so personally.

And especially ourselves,

If we get criticised.

Especially if we consider ourselves,

For example,

A very kind person and someone says,

You're really unkind.

That's really difficult because that's attacking our view of ourself.

The same with our belief systems,

Our values.

My family,

I don't mind saying that they're very upset with the political situation.

I think it's a really heartfelt sense of being personally attacked.

Their value systems and everything they believed as being.

.

.

It appears to be falling apart.

Of course it's not really because many of us still hold those very beautiful,

Humane values.

But as long as there's a sense of self there,

It can block love.

So as we start to dissolve this sense of self,

It releases love.

But also,

By understanding non-self,

The only thing to do is to love.

Because non-self is the teaching of conditionality.

So when we realise that we are the way we are through causes and conditions,

We don't have to take our failings personally.

Then we can start to learn acceptance for ourselves.

And we learn to accept others too for their shortcomings.

So understanding others is a huge way to overcome the horrible judgemental mind.

And that releases us to love as well.

The other reason I think the Buddhist perspective on metta practice is very interesting is because it makes us very independent in love.

Love is something we can cultivate within ourselves,

So it doesn't necessarily depend on another.

It's something we can actually practice.

And the Buddha said,

Whatever we incline our mind towards becomes almost like our character.

If we have an intention and repeat that intention again and again and again,

Our mind starts to actually lean in that direction with the metta phrase as we plant the phrase.

But then if you listen carefully,

It's pointing in a certain way.

It feels good.

And after a while,

We start to get a felt sense of what loving kindness is about.

So we can develop a kind of love that is quite independent of whether somebody approves of us or gives us what we need or accepts us.

And in that way,

We stop clinging to other beings to provide something that we lack in ourselves.

So when we're really able to love ourselves,

We're able to be more fully aware,

More fully present for other people.

So this is a very empowering kind of love.

And of course,

There's the kind of love that projects a lot onto others too and expects an awful lot in return.

You know,

Some relationships are incredibly healthy,

But it's difficult to cultivate healthy relationships.

Quite often we look for things we feel are lacking in ourselves in another person.

You know,

We blame another person when we don't get what we need from them.

You know,

When they make us feel good,

It's very easy to love.

But are we really loving that person or are we loving the feeling?

Are we loving the way they make us feel?

And you know,

The difficulty sometimes in romantic love is that in the beginning there are very strong pleasant feelings,

You know,

Because it's tied up with sensual pleasure also,

It's very hard to separate from that.

But after a while in any relationship,

That sort of settles down.

And then what are you left with?

You know,

Maybe you also have quite a bit of irritation and anger coming up towards that person.

You know,

Because we project so much onto each other.

But the Buddha said,

You know,

We have to develop loving kindness even towards the difficult,

The difficult people and the difficult situations in life.

So for me personally,

In my life,

The most beautiful kinds of relationships I've had are probably platonic ones with like a best friend.

I'm really fortunate to have a best friend since I was four years old.

And we've always been there for each other as just an incredible support.

You know,

Through my teens when I felt that my mother's love seemed to become a little bit expecting me to move in a certain direction in life.

You know,

And of course,

A mother's love is always a mother's love.

But again,

There's a lot of ident,

Identification with your children.

You want certain things for them to make them,

You know,

That you feel will make them happy.

And as a 15 year old rebellious teenager,

I didn't really know.

So I do feel for my mom because she had to watch me at 19 go to India with like no money,

No return ticket.

I had 200 pounds,

No return ticket.

And it must have been really incredibly difficult.

And it was actually one of the things that made me think perhaps I won't have children because I guess my daughter or my son might be similarly rebellious and questioning.

But in the Buddha's suttas,

You know,

He prays the love of a mother.

He said that loving kindness is just as a mother would protect with her life,

Her child,

Her only child.

So with a boundless heart,

We develop loving kindness to all beings.

So he's using a mother's love as an example of a very beautiful,

Protective,

Benevolent,

Well-wishing to a child.

And we don't all have that experience with our parents.

So this can be a difficult thing to discuss.

But it is an example.

And he's not saying a mother's love in itself is meta.

He's saying we have to develop that same sense of protection and wishing to see a person safe,

A person well,

Flourishing,

Fulfilling their potential.

Develop that feeling towards all beings,

Not only our child,

But extend and widen this circle.

So the idea of meta is that it's a very wide,

Expansive,

Measureless state of mind that includes everybody and everything.

So in the Buddhist suttas,

I guess we don't have a lot of time to go into it,

But I sort of see it as two different ways of practice,

Which kind of mutually feed into each other.

But one is learning about loving kindness as a kind of attitude to life,

Like a way of relating to life,

To others,

To situations,

To our experience in meditation,

To sickness,

To whatever is right in front of us in this moment.

So loving kindness is a kind of attitude.

We can choose to react with anger,

Hatred,

Aversion,

Frustration,

Despair,

Even to things when they don't go the way we want them to in life.

Or we can understand,

OK,

The Buddha did say life is suffering and not getting what we want is a cause of suffering.

But we can do something about our attitude towards that situation.

So my teacher,

Ajahn Brahm,

He has a very nice kind of dichotomy to describe this relational aspect of loving kindness.

He said it's almost like what you put between you,

The knower,

And the known.

So here's the mind and here's,

For example,

The breath in meditation.

The breath may be a bit rough or it's kind of wandering away or you're just quite bored with it.

Is that a problem with the breath or is that a problem with what you expect?

Is that a problem with the way you're relating to the breath?

So what's in between you and the breath?

Is it this sense of controlling it,

Trying to grab at it,

Trying to pull it back when it goes away?

Or is there this lovely sense of patience,

Gentleness,

Loving kindness,

Even giving to the breath,

Giving something rather than expecting this breath to calm my mind quickly?

Instead we think,

Okay,

This breath is here.

It's coming in,

It's going out,

It's keeping me alive.

It's my very sustenance.

It comes from the atmosphere,

It comes into my body and then goes out.

The carbon dioxide that I breathe out goes to feed the plants and they feed me with the oxygen.

We have this beautiful relationship of loving kindness,

Of respect,

Of gentleness.

So this is a wise way of relating and this is where the change is made.

This is where we have some influence about whether we suffer or whether we start to come out of suffering and start to relate in a wise way that leads to wholesome states.

So it's very difficult sometimes to talk about exalted states of love which can embrace everybody and everything as impartially as the sun shines on all beings.

Can we really feel that way towards all beings?

It's a very,

Very exalted state and it takes a lot of development.

At least when we're looking at this right intention or right attitude as part of the noble path,

We can learn not to dwell in aversion.

So this is a beginning.

Avyapada is a synonym for metta.

It means non-ill will.

So we can at least make this our first aspiration,

Not to dwell in a mind of aversion and to learn to relate to things wisely.

And you know you're relating wisely when it's leading to a calming,

A lessening of suffering.

It's leading in the right direction because the whole point of the Buddha's teachings is to lessen suffering.

So we gradually align our thought words and actions with the best of our intentions as opposed to the intentions which are a little bit crooked or mixed motives.

Perhaps wanting something,

Expecting something out of the situation.

So this is moving more towards unconditional acceptance and kindness.

So this is a kind of attitude which we can practice towards every and any situation.

So you can practice loving kindness even towards immaterial things.

And I saw a study the other day on the internet which apparently there was some,

It was a really huge number of studies that have been done.

Like millions I think,

A couple of million.

It might have been a couple of hundred thousand.

On whether or not thoughts,

Positive intentions can influence the working of machines.

And there was a really high statistic that was beyond chance to show that actually it can.

The mind can influence even inanimate things.

So you can even learn to have a good relationship with your meditation cushion or with your chair.

Or whatever it is,

The point isn't really the object.

The point is the love.

It's developing the love.

However you can do that,

However you can learn to relate to life,

To the things you use every day,

The food you eat every day in a positive and wholesome way.

To bring that sense of gratitude.

Gratitude is so close to love.

It's another way that I find quite easy to get into metta.

Like choosing an object for example as a person who's helped me a lot in life and then I bring them up as my metta subject and send them a lot of loving kindness.

It's so lovely because you feel you're giving something back to this person who's helped you.

Can you help the appliances work better?

I've noticed this.

Appliances?

I mean it's Jammy.

She said just bless everything,

Bless everything.

And her son is in IT.

And I'm so happy.

Every time I just send love to him it starts working again.

It's oncoming.

I don't really want to be so absystic.

It can be a danger.

But I've noticed this.

Just realising that everything is alive means that when people have been linked intrinsically with their patient bodies and they can reach out and affect.

It doesn't mean that I can change the actual mould or the physicality of the laptop.

It doesn't necessarily turn it into an SSD drive.

It's a smoothness.

It's sort of sorting things out that I've noticed.

I think it's lovely when we just notice this.

I'll just say for the sake of the recording that you were talking about you've noticed that sending good intentions can almost have an energetic resonance and that things start to work better.

And I think that may be the case.

And it's of course the case that when we send other beings loving kindness they can feel it even on the other side of the world sometimes.

It's quite incredible.

I used to feel it in Burma when my teacher would come back to the monastery.

I would know he was back and I would check it with my friend who was meditating with me.

We'd say to each other,

Did you feel something somewhere halfway through that sitting?

And we'd be like,

Yeah,

I felt it.

I think Sayadaw is back.

And it would be the case.

But then there's a very fine line between sending the matter to beings to try to help them but then wishing that through doing that they will change.

Because then it turns into something conditional again.

Because we're not actually sending matter to other beings in order for them to change or in order even for the computer to work which I would love to be able to do,

I can tell you.

It's actually to transform our own heart and to cultivate what we call the Brahma Viharas which is the next part I wanted to discuss.

Because these things in the Buddhist text,

We've talked about the attitude,

About the intention and the wise way of relating.

But the next stage or the next another way to practice loving kindness is to actually use it as a main object in your meditation.

Whether you want to do it sometimes or even take it as your main vehicle.

Metta actually does take you into deep states of samadhi and that's one of the benefits the Buddha talked about.

He said that one who practices metta has all these worldly benefits like you sleep well,

You wake up happy which is big worldly benefit.

Which I'd quite like to have more of.

And you have good dreams and then the heavenly beings look after you,

You're dear of course to animals and humans.

Because I mean you're harmless right,

You're full of metta,

People feel safe around you.

So these are some of the benefits but another benefit he said was it protects you also from fire,

From snakes and poison and this kind of thing.

Whether or not that's literal or whether it's the fires of anger and the poison of people's words.

People don't want to harm you,

You know,

When you have a lot of loving kindness.

So you feel like this force field almost around you.

But yeah and I have the experience of at some point in my monastic life actually.

I felt quite,

I was in a very difficult relationship and it was as though I was starting to feel undermined and weakened.

And probably the relationship wasn't very healthy,

It was a bit of dependency on each other.

Because we were just two nuns and we were very much the only nuns,

We had to leave Burma and travel together.

And I could feel this sort of dwindling and my friend actually did attack me at one point physically.

And a couple of years later or maybe even only a year later I was practicing metta intensively in a retreat in Italy.

And I was doing a lot of metta to the love person,

Not really thinking about this person because it would trigger a lot of trauma for me.

So I just left that aside until I was resourced enough.

But then one day I remembered her and I just had this really clear sense that if she would be here now,

It wouldn't be possible to harm me because I felt so incredibly resourced.

I just had this feeling of really strong protection.

And actually that was part of my healing process throughout that incident.

Because I realized that when I was very resourced,

Firstly I couldn't really get affected by that sort of anger and ill will.

But also just realizing that I wouldn't have been affected either.

Because metta gives you this kind of protective force field I can only say.

But even more than that,

Another of the qualities of metta is that it makes the mind easily calm.

I mean often this is translated as concentrated but I think it's a bad word.

Your mind easily gets into samadhi when there's a lot of loving kindness.

And this is because the power of loving kindness overcomes ill will.

There's a very nice sutta in the text which says,

There's like this little demon is talking to,

I forget who,

I think the Buddha actually,

Talking to the Buddha.

And he says something like,

It is always good for the mindful one.

The mindful one lives happily.

It is better each day for the mindful one and they are free from enmity.

And then the Buddha says,

It is always good for the mindful one.

The mindfulness one dwells in happiness.

It is always good for the,

It is better each day for the mindful one but he is not free from enmity.

And then the next verse which I forget basically says,

It's one who dwells with loving kindness who is free from enmity.

So of course we want to be free from aversion.

It's one of the biggest hindrances probably universally I would say.

But I think especially in the Western world we have a lot of ill will towards often ourself.

It is very internalised or states such as depression are a kind of internalised anger and internalised frustration or lack of,

What's the word,

Lack of self-determination.

Is that right?

When things feel hopeless and you feel like you don't have,

I mean kind of similar to how a lot of us feel in the political situation I think,

Or the climate situation.

Like this sense of it's out of control,

It's hopeless and then we internalise this.

And it makes us very disempowered and quite depleted in energy.

And so this ill will is really a hindrance and the Buddha is saying that as long as these hindrances are present you cannot enter the deeper states of samadhi,

Of calm.

And so metta helps us overcome these and it helps us to cultivate calm within ourselves.

And there are two different ways to do this in the suttas.

One is mainly from the Pali Canon,

So the Buddha's original word.

And he talks about sending metta out into the different directions.

So this is literally love without a receiver,

Love without a giver at the deeper level.

But love without a receiver,

Just all beings in this direction or in that direction.

So he says it's like you blow a conch shell and the sound is heard throughout the whole region.

It just goes everywhere.

The power of metta just goes out in all directions.

So it's measureless and it's unlimited.

But then in another,

In the commentaries,

There's a different way to get into this.

And this is where we start to like break the boundaries between self and other by going through categories.

So this is where we start,

For example,

Traditionally you start with yourself.

But you'll notice I started with the loved one and then the self because a lot of us don't have that feeling for ourself.

And then we go to the loved one or the,

I think the benefactor is a different category.

So this is like somebody,

Say a spiritual teacher or somebody who's really helped you.

Or it could be someone say,

I don't know who anybody feels aligned to here,

But maybe someone that you've never even met like the Dalai Lama or maybe a Kuan Yin or whoever it is that's like a supercharged object for you.

You can send it to this person too.

But then the interesting part is it gets onto the neutral person and the disliked person.

And when you get to the neutral person,

Most people find it's quite difficult to maintain the interest and to maintain the feeling of metta.

So this is when we're doing metta practice over a long period as a main object and the metta is really building.

So then you turn it to the neutral object.

And it's really interesting to me that it tends to drop at that point simply because we don't have a lot of self-interest connected with that person.

They're the kind of person that we may see in the supermarket once in a while on the tail or maybe they're even our neighbour.

We're quite removed from our neighbours these days and maybe we don't know them at all,

But we don't really have a strong feeling for or against.

So they're a neutral person that don't really affect our lives very much.

And the interest level drops.

So this shows that there is a difference between our love for someone who's giving us quite a lot and our feeling of the same well-wishing,

The same intensity of well-wishing to somebody who doesn't have a lot of effect on our life.

We're not going to miss them when they die.

And then of course when we move to the difficult person,

This is where you really start to see your own obstacles to metta.

Like the anger may come up or even fear may come up.

And so this is kind of a sequential way to develop metta in a way that can start to break the boundaries between these categories.

I mean one way it does that is that after a while if you give the metta to the neutral person you actually start to feel quite fond of them.

And so when you see them next time they feel quite familiar and then you realise,

Oh,

Then maybe they respond in a similar way.

And then you realise,

Oh,

They're actually now a friend.

I don't have a neutral person anymore.

I need a different neutral person.

Or even a friend can become an enemy,

Right?

Or a lover can become a,

What do you call them when they've been divorced?

An ex.

An ex that you're taking to court and whatever.

So it all changes.

These categories are not the same.

So that's one way of seeing that these are malleable.

They're not fixed things.

And they very much depend on our relationship to them.

So that's of course not a very pure kind of love.

But later on when you go through all these categories you start to even it out and send it to the different categories.

And if it's dropping a bit with the difficult one you go back to the loved one until the feeling of metta is the same for all.

So this is a really beautiful way to start getting into deeper meditation.

And when the mind is more in that state where it's just love and there's no sense of me giving the love and the person receiving the love.

But just the process starts to happen quite naturally at that point.

There's no obstacles anymore.

So then we have a chance to enter into deeper meditation.

And it's through that deeper meditation that then we start to see through wisdom.

That there is actually no separation between self and other.

But also that this illusion of a self is exactly that.

It's a delusion.

There is actually nobody in here.

This is just a conditioned process.

And so it's only with that deep wisdom that we really open the floodgates of metta.

And in the suttas it says at that point,

When you've had these deep experiences of samadhi,

Then you can send it to the four quarters easily and naturally.

And it's really beautiful to be around teachers who've practiced a lot of metta and who've attained high stages on the path.

They have no ill will or very little ill will.

I've seen a trace of ill will.

And I've known him closely for eleven years or ten years.

And being around these people,

There's just a feeling of being incredibly accepted.

You don't have to be or anybody.

You don't have to prove anything.

He set me up with this incredibly difficult project.

Just believing in me,

Even though I've done nothing to prove that I'm worthy of that at all.

But he just sees people's potential and gives you that feeling that there's a confidence there.

There's a confidence in our potential.

And of course that brings out your potential too.

Because you feel accepted.

You feel that somebody believes in your goodness.

They see beyond all this other stuff,

All our little ego limitations.

And it's just incredible to be around these beings.

It's incredibly healing.

And apparently my teacher's teacher,

Ajahn Chah,

Had a disciple once.

I think it was after a rains retreat.

And after the rains retreat,

Ajahn Chah asked everybody,

So has anybody here got no more defilements?

And this is a really big question.

Because if you say,

Yeah,

I've got no more defilements and you're a monastic,

You actually have to disrobe.

Because you can't deceive others.

So it's a really quite serious offence to make a claim like that.

So he went round and everybody said,

Oh yeah,

I've still got,

Oh yeah,

He knows,

Still struggling.

But then this one monk said,

No,

I've got no more defilements.

And Ajahn Chah said,

Come here,

Come up to my room.

So everybody was like,

Oh,

What's going to happen?

And he went up to talk to Ajahn Chah.

I don't know if it was straight afterwards or later,

But of course people asked what had happened there.

And Ajahn Chah must have felt pretty confident because apparently the teaching he gave him was that now it's your job to develop metta.

It's your job just to cultivate metta because that's how you'll be able to teach and how you'll be able to share the Dhamma.

So that's all you have to do now.

So that's all you do do and that's all that's left to do if you really have seen through the delusion of a self and actually come to the end of suffering or come close to the end of suffering.

There's nothing much to do anymore but to help others.

And there's no self-interest there anymore because you're fulfilled,

You're content.

You know the suffering and you know the way out of suffering.

So what is there to fight anymore?

What is there to attain anymore?

So then these people just spend their whole life serving others,

Serving others with incredible amounts of energy.

It's just incredible.

I think my own teacher will just collapse while he's teaching.

He almost did that this time.

He almost fell over actually.

But I don't want to tell everybody that really because then they'll worry about him.

He just teaches until he drops.

I think that's what he'll do.

So this is how the deeper we go in wisdom the more we're able to give to others and we're not depleted by that.

The more you give the more there is to give.

It matters something that doesn't drain you when it's really matter because it expects nothing back.

It doesn't have an agenda.

It doesn't need anything from itself.

It just loves for the sake of loving.

So this is the highest kind of love.

So that's all I want to say on loving kindness.

Reviews

Beautiful! Can’t wait to listen again. Thank you so much!

Wonderful reflection on Metta. Thabk you for your lovely and kind words