Accessing Love, And Other Challenges

Are we “cultivating” love, compassion, and joy,
or do we already have plenty and just need to access it? 

If we have plenty, and just need to learn how to access it, 
what’s in the way of doing that?


For me, it’s wanting to hold onto the things that are working,
and wanting all the really awful moments to end:
 all that wanting for things to be different, 
instead of learning to be “in” love right in this (imperfect) present. Which makes me wonder: 
if that’s true for me, is it true for everyone? 
And if so, then does that mean everyone?
 And if it does, then is compassion the right response, 
for all the everyone’s who just don’t know, yet,
 how to access their love?

Transcript

Hey everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 487.

Welcome,

Nice to see so many friends.

So I was listening to a teaching recently,

Yesterday actually,

And I wanted to share something that really resonated for me about metta,

Loving-kindness or unconditional friendliness.

And of course,

Metta is one of the four Brahma-viharas,

Or they're sometimes called heavenly abodes.

And these four states of mind or maybe states of heart are called the heavenly abodes because they're the spaces that we probably want to live in,

Right?

So we want to live in a space of love or of compassion or of joy or of equanimity,

Which are the four.

Or another way of saying that is we want this house of ours,

This body,

This life we live in to be a house or a life of love,

Of caring for others,

Caring for ourselves,

Of having and bringing joy into the world and of caring for ourselves and others and of balance and of ease.

And I know I'm using the word we here and not I,

Right?

So I'm not using the I,

But that's because I'm assuming that that's what we all want.

But we could also be forgiven,

I feel like right now,

For wondering whether that's true or wondering whether there are a whole lot of people who want something entirely different.

And I feel like we could also be forgiven right now for wondering how on earth,

You know,

To live in a life of love and care and joy and ease in this moment,

You know,

How on earth,

How on this earth,

In this moment when the earth herself has been relegated to a commodity in so many ways,

And actually in so many ways,

All other beings and human beings too have been relegated in that way.

So this practice of metta and of all four Brahma viharas,

It was always explained to me and I always learned it as a practice of cultivation,

Right?

And that feels right.

As I've spent time over the years cultivating loving kindness,

For example,

For myself,

For my beloveds,

For my acquaintances,

For strangers,

For difficult people,

For all beings,

For the earth,

You know,

As I've spent that time,

I would say that in this body,

In this container,

Love and friendliness really have grown.

And this is one of the fundamental axioms of mindfulness,

Right?

One of the things the ancient texts tell us is that whatever we think and ponder becomes the inclination of the mind.

And the mind is this whole package,

Right?

Or in neuroscientific terms,

We know that as we practice love and friendliness,

We're carving these deeper and deeper neural pathways in the mind,

Literally,

And those eventually become default pathways,

Which we then habitually use in more and more situations,

Right?

Or in plain English,

You know,

We practice friendliness and love and love becomes more accessible and eventually it becomes more automatic.

So we do that and we do it in our own ways.

And you know,

Maybe we do that in formal practice by repeating the phrases for all of the categories of beings and for the earth.

So,

And we include ourselves.

So may I be happy,

May I be healthy,

May I be safe,

May I live with ease,

And then may you be happy and healthy and safe and live with ease.

And,

You know,

We're pointing at our beloveds,

Our teachers,

Our acquaintances,

The strangers in our lives,

The difficult people in our lives,

All beings.

And I'm also hoping everybody's pointing at Mother Earth these days too,

Because she could use a little meds.

Or maybe we're doing that by summoning feelings of friendliness and love and then radiating those feelings out in all directions,

Right?

Maybe we're practicing three-second kindness,

One of my very favorites,

And wishing people well secretly,

You know,

Working with this really simple practice of bringing warm and loving and friendly attitudes to as many people as we can all day long,

Right?

And there are lots of ways.

Okay,

So that's that.

And then there's this inquiry that has come up for me right now,

Which is,

What does cultivation mean,

Right?

When we talk about metta and we're practicing metta and the other three vrāla-vihāras,

What do we mean by cultivation?

And I'll say,

When I first began practicing,

The very idea of the brahma-vihāras,

The heavenly abodes,

Was really foreign to me,

You know?

I mean,

I wasn't raised in a family that had a lot of fluency with wholesome emotions in the sense of intentionally bringing those qualities of heart,

Qualities of mind to the moment,

Or even in the sense of talking about their value.

So I was coming to the brahma-vihāras as a novice,

A complete novice,

And with,

You know,

Some skepticism,

Not really about their value so much as about my ability to cultivate them.

Like,

Could I do that?

And I still feel like a novice,

But I want to say that I've seen that it is possible to cultivate these beautiful qualities,

Right?

And so,

And then there's that word again,

Cultivation.

And I'm raising the word,

I'm posing it as an inquiry,

Because when I first heard about these qualities,

I thought,

You know,

I don't have them much,

But maybe I can listen and practice and study and learn them,

You know,

Kind of like I learned math,

A little bit of math.

I learned how to cook,

Learned how to practice law,

Right?

But now I wonder about that approach,

Because I wonder,

And this was the question that came up in the teaching I was listening to,

Not about our ability to cultivate,

But if all of those beautiful qualities aren't actually already always there,

Just waiting to be accessed.

And what I'm saying is,

I'm sure we can cultivate them if that means bringing them out and increasing them.

But I wonder if love and friendship and care and joy and equanimity are already there.

They're just waiting to be accessed.

Like,

Almost like the other elements of the body are already there,

Like water and air and space.

So I wonder if love and caring and joy and ease are elemental,

Right?

Just waiting for us to lift them up in our lives,

Lift them up into the world.

Like one of my students once wrote in their journal,

Showcase your love,

And I love that.

And I wonder if they're all for just residing almost internally,

Waiting to be showcased.

And I wonder about that because when I first heard about the heavenly abodes,

I remember they sounded foreign and they also sounded completely familiar.

Like,

Where have I heard that?

Or when has that happened?

Like deja vu?

So,

But for me,

You know,

Access,

Right?

There are these barnacles and the Brahma Viharas don't feel like they're always on the surface.

They feel like they can live deep down,

Kind of beneath.

Yeah.

And for me,

It's beneath my aversion and beneath my worry,

Beneath my exhaustion and doubt.

Beneath all the ways I want the world to be different,

Want my life to be different.

Beneath all the things that obfuscate them,

That obfuscate love and discourage compassion and impede joy and tip me over,

Tip me over,

Over and over,

You know,

Making it hard to stand in the fire of this world with ease.

Right?

So,

I'm wondering,

I'm inquiring,

And I'm offering this inquiry to all of us,

Right?

Is Metta already fully present and operating beneath these obstacles for all of us?

And,

And do we,

And I mean the big we,

Right?

I mean the all of us we,

Right?

And here's the tricky part for me.

Do the big we of all of us only need to get beneath the greed,

The hatred and the delusion for Metta and compassion and joy and equanimity to out?

Because if that's the case,

Then it's not just me,

It's not just us,

Right?

It's every,

And that includes a whole lot of folks who,

For me,

It's,

It's really hard to imagine are full of love and compassion underneath all those obstacles.

And it's hard for me to imagine,

Know how to be joyful in wholesome ways,

Who have true equanimity beneath those obstacles,

Right?

It's hard,

Or it's,

I don't know,

Sometimes it's impossible to imagine.

But still,

What if it's true?

So let's sit.

So finding,

Finding your seat,

Finding a seat that will support you just being here right now.

If you're sitting down,

Or if you're standing,

Or if you're lying down,

Feeling your connection to the chair or the couch or the bed,

Or maybe you're in a car and beneath that your connection to the earth,

Really tapping into that connection.

We're all connected to this earth.

We're all being held to the earth by gravity.

So that sense of just being connected in reality,

All to one,

To one place.

And then just taking a quick scan of the body and seeing,

Is there a little relaxation?

And can you invite a little more?

Or maybe you want to think of it as just letting go into this moment.

Can you,

Can you locate the breath and just begin to pay attention to each breath as it flows in and out,

Just the rhythm of breathing.

Just for these few moments,

Bring the attention to the breath,

To the body breathing,

And substitute that for putting the attention on anything else.

Just really being committed to just being right here.

And can you tap into your own heart right now and just invite some relaxation,

Some openness,

Some love just for this moment of being here and breathing.

Being here and breathing with this heart in this moment.

Whatever the moment folds,

Just being present.

And maybe even falling a little bit in love with this moment,

This breath,

This body connected to this earth and all these other beautiful humans and other beings.

And just let the rest go.

Thanks for being here,

Everyone.

Take that good stuff with you.

Love you all.