Metta Meditation Reduces Suffering & Increases Peace

Samatha/calming practices related to the four Divine Abidings such as Metta & Compassion, reduce suffering, increase peace & support Insight Practice as well.

Transcript

I got a little bit confused I thought I made you sit five minutes extra but actually I let you go ten minutes early so we're gonna have to make up for this look at my timetable I'm interested to know when we did the contemplation of death this morning did anybody experience peacefulness after this did the mind become a little more peaceful if it did if you could raise your hand yeah yeah interesting yeah more focused so this is one of the methods recommended by Lord Buddha a Samatha technique that helps the mind to be still and because it's very closely related to the law of N.

H.

R.

It also ripens the mind weakens delusion and ripens the mind to have insights into not self at a deeper level so recommended very much by the Buddha can do a little shocking and very helpful so the Buddha recommends several practices we were imagining by the Teot that the Chinese came and took control of all the oil and then everybody starved to death and then the Americans released the virus that got the rest of them you know it's funny my generation I don't know about how it is in Malaysia but when I was 15 I wasn't sure you were gonna make it I wasn't sure it's gonna make it to 20 because you grew up with the threat of nuclear war and I remember being surprised that we made it to that I made it to 30 yesterday I made it to 40 and say oh wow I'm having quite a life because there are as we know a lot of threats at this particular point in the eon so this Buddha teaching Buddha foremost quality was a wisdom the Buddhas have three styles the bodhisattvas have three styles of becoming a Buddha three main kind of approaches the wisdom approach although it's incredibly long it's actually the fastest path to Buddhahood so but what it means is when the Buddha becomes a Buddha he becomes a Buddha at a point in the eon when things are getting darker and where humans have a life of approximately a hundred years and so we can see in our age about 300 million Buddhists out of six billion and of those Buddhists the Buddhists that actually really understand the teaching it's probably not that much maybe a hundred million out of six billion and he comes at a time and lucky for us he does come at this time because imagine the world without the teachings of the Buddha and without the presence of enlightened beings as we were talking this morning one of the reasons that more nuclear power centers haven't cracked open more bombs haven't gone off and all of those horrible weapons which have been created why to a large extent they haven't been used they stay somewhat dormant pacified subdued I'd say this is in no small part due to the meta of the enlightened beings on the planet so the the barami of the Buddha the barami of the Dhamma the barami of the Sangha is protecting the world to a significant degree according to the prophecy of Maitreya the next Buddha whose foremost quality will be metta the bodhisattva meteor had a different approach his approach was through effort and there's another approach through faith so we have effort faith and wisdom so wisdom is the fastest although it takes a very very long time face is somewhere between the effort and wisdom type taking longer I think twice as long and the effort style I think takes three times as long and the result of this is that the Buddhas that become enlightened having cultivated the barami with a style of effort they come at the peak of the aeon in the human world so if you can imagine the human world is kind of oscillating coming for periods where it's closer to the animals ghost realms and then for other periods coming up it's depending on the morality of the human beings and then coming up closer to a heaven realm so that's what they call the bright part of the aeon and at that time people have longer lifespans as less disease no wars no famines and at the point of the aeon when things are going down and it's getting darker more of these things more famines more wars more corruption more diseases so this is directly related to how many human beings are keeping five precepts and the kind of group karma so we have this very interesting tug-of-war at this point of the aeon where most human beings not keeping five precepts strictly on one hand on another hand enlightened beings still in the world spreading their loving-kindness embracing the whole world with their metta so there's that Chinese curse isn't there may we live in interesting times and we're living in interesting times so it's good to be optimistic but it's also good to be open-minded to the possibilities so all of us can observe that leaders in this day and age aren't very responsible tend to be a little bit corrupt and so it's just kind of understanding that that's normal that's a symptom of the age and it's actually related to the fact that most people don't keep the precepts so there is a rhyme and a reason in many respects we we get the leaders that we deserve in terms of the human overall situation but then it's good it's just good to have that perspective of knowing where we are in the samsaric picture so that we know what to expect and know what not to expect and generally when the world is in in this kind of state I think we have to be really determined to take care of our own minds and our own practice understanding that the general trend in the world is going the other direction so we have to be determined and we understand we take the Buddha's advice foundation for happiness is Sila at the end of the precept taking ceremony the Buddha is saying take Sila as your path to happiness and take Sila as your path to wealth and Sila as your path to liberation so it's the foundation and we have to be really determined if society doesn't agree with that and there's a lot of pressure on people to make adjustments that we take the Buddha's recommendation as our standard and not the societies pressures we're talking about just before how death meditation can help us focus can help the mind become calm and still death meditation is also taught in conjunction with meta meditation because these balance each other so a lot of death meditation could make the mind depressed pessimistic similarly a lot of meta meditation without death contemplation the mind could become that energy can go into lust affection and lust so these things balance each other it's going to talk a little bit about the benefits of metta from the suttas eleven benefits of loving kindness so people who practice meta sleep well so that's one benefit when you sleep well nice and deeply you don't need to sleep as much as well so that means you have more energy more time to do the things you need to do so people who practice metta sleep well fall asleep easily put the head down on the pillow and fall asleep also waking up in a good mood so having fallen asleep peacefully and slept well then waking up and feeling good how many people feel good when they wake up okay lots of better very good the third benefit is during sleep not having bad dreams so it has a protective quality bad dreams don't enter the mind fourth benefit is one who cultivates meta becomes loved by human beings dear to human beings so people like you if you have metta people like you generally I suppose it's possible that some people wouldn't like you because you have metta if they are anger types it's possible but generally if you have metta human beings like you this can be witnessed just have a look anywhere where the Dalai Lama goes and if people know sometimes he tries to travel in secret but if people know which airport he's landing at and when there'll be hundreds of people there just to see him and he once gave a teaching in Melbourne and the the facility was fully booked and so I think 15,

000 people stand outside in the rain to see him on a screen outside of the venue so there's that sense of just wanting to be close to meta wanting to feel the blessing of someone that people trust so you can see in this world people with a lot of meta become loved people love them so becoming dear to non-humans and this that's the fifth benefit so this means like animals or other creatures so I've been living in forests and forest monasteries for a long time and one often sees snakes very often and very occasionally there is a snakebite can't say that there never is I know of two in 17 years but I know for myself I've stood within 20 or 30 centimeters of poisonous snakes at least 20 times and haven't been bitten I remember once I'm not making claims about my meta I'm just saying that in general there's a combination here also of sila so sila also has a protective quality I remember once when I was in the jungle what Nana Chaatsa branch monastery in the jungle walking up the path and I stood next to a snake not a very big one snake but he he did strike and he went behind the ankle in the front of the ankle and behind the ankle for whatever reason he didn't make contact it's just kind of like oh that's interesting I'm glad and so meta but but more obviously the amount of monks who have practiced with tigers and I tell you a story now of one monk still alive Loposupar very special monk I think he's a hundred and no more hundred and sixteen years old living in Phuket very special monk just to give you an example of how special he is he once walked to Afghanistan from Thailand passing through India and stopping at Shaolin on the way back coming back to Thailand living in the jungle in Thailand for 40 years after which point apparently the Davis asked him please go and build a monastery for the sake of helping human beings so he built his monastery now he's a hundred and sixteen once he got lost in the jungle completely lost on one of his wanderings back in the days when northern Thailand and Burma was mostly jungle and he came across a herd of elephants and some of those elephants were upset about his presence and one was beginning to charge and he was radiating loving-kindness and one of the elephants came and stood between the elephant which was upset and him and so the other elephants backed off and Lomposupar he spoke to the elephant with his mind which is one of the skills people who become gifted at meditation can have just a consciousness to consciousness communication and he said I'm lost can you take me to a village and so sure enough the elephant turned around and started walking away from the herd and this monk followed him and I think they walked for a day and a night a night and a day something like that and the elephant took him to a path at the edge of the forest and not long afterwards he found a village so it's a interesting example of the fact that if one has met her other beings will be well disposed towards one interesting end to this story many years later Lomposupar he's quite gifted for being able to see his and others past lives so in his monastery in Phuket many years later as quite an old monk who's given up wandering in jungles now young man walked in and he recollected that's the rebirth of the elephant so the merit of helping the monk to get out of the jungle helped that elephant to attain human birth and then that elephant later was able to meet Lomposupar so that one of my favorite stories this same monk was once swallowed by a python up to his waist in his wanderings in these very thick jungles these big animals and it's probably related to Metta but also here I think the power of having the purest intention in the universe which is the intention to be enlightened so he woke up and he said to the snake he said I am intending to attain Nirvana with this life so if you can take me to Nirvana you go ahead and swallow me but if you can't take me to Nirvana you better let me go and the snake spat him out so a combination of Metta and pure intention pure sealer pure intention has a very protective quality and there's another monk in southern Thailand Arjun Jamnian this is probably related to the next one invisible deities protect those who cultivate Metta so that means devas we can understand this as a principle we can see it even in our life can't we that if someone is kind and loving and helps us if they're in trouble we'll go out of our way to try to help them if I know this is a really good person I want to help this person and so similarly this is a principle the good take care of the good and so I would say that that would go for the Davis the Davis would be aware of of who is a good being a particularly good being and they will have an affection so Arjun Jamnian is renowned for his amulets actually and not only his amulets for a particular quality of blessed string he is some special chance but more importantly than the chance the Samadhi and the meta that I've asked Arjun Anand well what is it that you actually put in amulets what does one put in amulets that makes them protective and he said it's meta so these monks put some of the meta into the amulet and the Buddha said it's imponderable one of the imponderables is to understand the results of of Jhana what is possible if one has it so apparently one can determine of the meta that one puts into things that it comes out to protect one's disciples and so during the communist era in southern Thailand a lot of fighting and many soldiers came to Arjun Jamnian and actually didn't want to kill and they didn't want to die but but they'd been conscripted to the army so he gave them this string to tie around their waists and apparently it really did make them bulletproof that bullet would hit them and it would not go in if one had this string blessed by Arjun Jamnian and apparently one person went back and told him yeah it really works and Arjun Jamnian asked but did it hurt when the bullet hit you did it hurt yeah it still hurt but it bounced off and he said okay I need to put some more in because if I really put enough in it won't even hurt so that's interesting he said I was listening to him teach I was present and I heard him say just as an interesting side comment he said if any being wanted to harm me he said they wouldn't even be able to come close and this is what I think he's talking about is that unseen beings beings that we can't see who have a protective power would be able to keep those people away somehow maybe their car would break down or fall down the staircase or something would happen but he was saying not possible that they could even come close if they had a harmful intention so this is the power of meta once again another thing about meta we all be interested in is that people who cultivate meta are able to enter Samadhi quickly so if one really has meta as a type of concentration it facilitates the mind entering into other types of concentration so the mind with meta should be able to concentrate on the breath more easily and other contemplation so having the meta as the foundation having a pacifying effect on those five hindrances the mind with meta enters becomes concentrated easily the next one doesn't matter so much people we love in kindness have attractive faces that can be a real problem actually anyway have to take the good with the bad who thinks I'm gonna ask you who thinks that to be born extraordinarily beautiful or extraordinarily handsome would be a good thing it's horrible people be following around like dogs all the time you know if they make the aspiration I do I've made the aspiration if I must be born again may I be ordinarily good-looking but not too good-looking it's a problem I've talked to some very beautiful women talked to you about how irritating that is to have the sense that everybody wants something from them and a sense of not knowing if you can really trust if a person is good-hearted because people become infatuated with the looks and then they give a very good impression of being a nice person but you it's difficult to see is this person really good so there are challenges that come with being too good-looking but anyway if you balance your metal with your death contemplation this is important tenth benefit is that people who cultivate loving-kindness die peacefully very helpful so with an unclouded mind having meta seems to have a direct effect on how much fear one experiences so I think that's a you know dying peacefully as a mind doesn't become overcome with fear as one's dying one has loving-kindness towards oneself having been able to establish that goodwill take care of your own mind as you go through that challenging experience Ajahn Kalyan once had he was telling me a very beautiful thing I'm gonna share with you I had assumed that this person had a lot of net because one Sri Lankan lady came to the monastery and it was one year since her husband died and I don't call you under said away here making special offering and she said yeah one year since my husband died I want to make the one year one year dana offering and he noticed he said we don't look like you're grieving you've you've let go you feel okay about his passing she said I can let me tell you about his death said we were sitting at the breakfast table when we were having a cup of tea and all of a sudden he said to me I can see Davis I can hear music and she said he put his cup of tea down and his chin fell on his chest and he was dead so that's very interesting isn't it death evidently death doesn't have to be traumatic painful long protracted letting go of the body with attachment experience probably that person had a strong faith faculty sensitivity to Davis had made certain types of merit at the time of death karma ripening Davis obviously aware his friends coming to get him and he's gone subsequently the wife didn't have any anxiety or worry about where he was they don't hear about many deaths like that but at least it's nice to know that there are some 11th benefit is that one can be reborn in a happy destination or even a blissful destination so in some sorrow there's always a choice and in your mental bow and there's always a choice you know if you decide that all of this looking at dukkha and knowing dukkha business it's it's too hard and maybe you want to break for an aeon you know you could be really really diligent about your metta bhavanah and master metta and then you could be pretty sure of going to a Brahma realm you can stay there for a very long time have a break it's not recommended by the Buddha but just to know that there's a choice the problem with being reborn as a dave is apparently the death of a Dave is very painful and I was asking our Juna none he said because Davis don't have to practice with very much dukkha their mindfulness gets weak so you know all of these little things that we think are just irritating the pain the frustration as the challenges the disappointments they're actually giving us something to work with to develop mindfulness and wisdom understanding about the way the world is but if you live in a seemingly endless blissful state for a very long time and then at the end of your life all of a sudden the body that never felt pain suddenly feels pain and the body that was never odorous suddenly develops an odor and the radiance starts to diminish and then you're aware oh the merit that produces rebirth is expiring I'm going to be separated from this bliss then many Davis fall into grief sadness at that time and apparently it's not uncommon for Davis to fall to a lower realm lower than human because of dying with a sad mind so there are some dangers to to being reborn in a day the realm that's why they say it's a human realm is very good place to be practicing the middle way because there's enough pain and enough frustration and enough suffering to keep us focused on the truth we can have a good look at the first noble truth in this realm constant reminders and read something more about the merit of metta vabana something that the Buddha relayed to Ananda because do not fear merit merit is a term for pleasure for the wanted the desired the agreeable and the loved I have had direct knowledge by experience for a long period of what is wanted desired agreeable and loved as the ripening of merit made over a long period and then he gives an example after maintaining in being the meditation of loving-kindness for seven years I did not return to this world for seven ages of world contraction and expansion in the age when the world was contracting I went to the heaven of the Brahmas of streaming radiance in the age when the world was expanding I was reborn in an empty Brahma mansion there I was a Brahma a great Brahma a transcendent being an all seer a wielder of powers I have been Saka ruler of gods 36 times I have been a king many hundred times as a righteous universal monarch turning the wheel victorious in all four directions with my realm stabilized and in possession of the seven treasures what need need I say of local kingship I thought of what action of mine is this the fruit is this the ripening that I am now so mighty and powerful and then it occurred to me it is the fruit the ripening of three kinds of actions of mine that I am now so mighty and powerful that is to say of Dana Sila and Bhavana being generous maintaining virtue and practicing mental cultivation so that threefold training the eightfold path is sometimes abbreviated to the threefold training of Dana Sila and Bhavana all of that produces merit and then merit ripens as being born in an abundant place in a good family having good teachers having an education having health care having opportunities being born in a place where one has religious freedom we can take these things for granted but we forget that many many people hundreds of millions maybe a couple of billion don't have those rights right now and we tend to think of it as a right actually it's not a right it's the result of merit and if we make too much bad karma that freedom will be removed will be born in a situation where we are oppressed and where we lack opportunity all of this is karma but it's good it's good to I think embrace this summer to practice of meta with some confidence and because obviously we all appreciate the benefits we have in our life and obviously we'd like to be able to continue to benefit from them and so I'm assuming that when the Buddha said he practiced loving kindness for seven years he's probably talking about to the to the level of Jhana I'm sure the bodhisattvas met above and it was was quite profound but even so if if the meta as a Jhana develops that kind of fruit a rebirth in Brahma realms born as kings then obviously it's very powerful it's very potent and less concentration never mind it will still produce merit merit being a force that supports sustains and protects as well as all these other wonderful benefits so in the eleven benefits the mind with meta all of these wonderful things falling asleep easily waking up in a good mood being generally well-liked being protected tell you an interesting story a couple of years ago I was in Ladakh and actually we were there during the ducks worst natural disaster in modern history the duck is a place with very high mountains and the Himalayas but the Himalayas were produced by these tectonic plates pushing against each other so many of those mountains are basically dust and stone piled very high they're not solid rock they're very steep the duck is a place where it doesn't usually rain it's above the tree line it's a place where it snows and traditionally that snow slowly melts when I was there there was an unseasonal storm when it rained all night now the villages in Ladakh are right against the rivers and those rivers are usually stream fed snow stream fed trickles beautiful crystal clear like postcards but when it rained all night there were floods and I think all over the nation's bridges washed away and many people died and there were mudslides so when snow melts slowly you have these small streams trickling but when you have a very large downpour that dust and stone and rubble becomes mud and moves very fast so many people in their sleep suddenly found themselves covered with two meters of mud and so my part of the story I was at a place called Lake Somereeri I have one long-term student who really wanted to go to Ladakh and he was the one I was talking about who had a problem with alcohol and I made a deal with him I said I will go with you if you promise me that you won't have a single drink and so and I decided if we're gonna go let's do it properly let's go for a month my main intention was to help him break this habit actually and my part of the deal was he was gonna help me get to Jeta Wana and we saw that slideshow last night where I got to do my pooja in the rain so we were at a place called Lake Somereeri which is an out at an altitude of 4,

700 meters a very beautiful lake huge lake where you can I think it's 20 kilometers long and you can see Tibet so a duck is joining that part of China and there's snow on the top of the mountains and the sky is beautiful sapphire color and hardly any dust and hardly any moisture in the air so you can see long distances as beautiful crystal clear quality but I noticed all these clouds and for me it didn't seem slightly strange at all because living in Thailand just like Malaysia large tropical storms are kind of just what happens and but we were there for three days and we had actually had a plan to stay five days some friends of mine from Australia were there they were treating nomads eyes because at that altitude the solar radiation is very strong and it damages nomads eyes so a friend of mine and some of her students Buddhist practitioners were came with doctors and were handing out sunglasses and giving treatments and even arranging for operations to some of these nomad people Buddhists ethnic Buddhists and so we had every reason to stay doing good things with good people and it did rain all night but it just manifested as a feeling and a very strong feeling I want to leave and I said to my friend I said you know what I don't know why but I just have this kind of feeling and I want to go and he said me too I said I have that feeling too and I said okay so how about we go tomorrow morning and then we can have this nice drive because on the way out we stopped by these streams it's just like wildflowers crystal clear stream it's just like pretty as a postcard we had a picnic and I did a nice chant at 5,

000 meters kind of a pooja to empty space and it was really grand and let's do that again and my friend said no we've prepaid for lunch so we'll be leaving after lunch so we did leave after lunch and we missed the mudslide that closed the road by half an hour and my friends the Australian friends had to climb over Himalayan passes and sleep overnight in sleeping bags and I had to walk for two or three days to meet another road and so we narrowly escaped that exploration of Dukkha and then we we saw that that beautiful little stream that was a stream as we were driving up the mountain was now at 20 meter wide swirling brown mess and then there were these rocks in the middle of the road big rocks and I remember driving up that road thinking aren't these big rocks in the fields are beautiful it's like some God has come and placed them elegantly and of course when you're driving out on a Himalayan road and the mountains are like this deep and then you suddenly have the obvious insight those rocks weren't placed elegantly those rocks rolled down the mountain and then you look to the right and you see that there's many more ready to go and they were starting to move and they were on the road and my friend said it was a bit like one of those computer games where you're dodging the obstacles because there were rocks all over the road and we actually had to stop and we helped I think 10 or 11 Tibetan men pull one of these big rocks off the road and so we made it safely back to this place called Lay and once again it rained at night at midnight and the roofs in Ladakh are made of twigs piled very high thick and then they have mud on top and that serves as insulation and as I said the snow builds up slowly and then the snow slowly melts so what happened was the roof started leaking and because it's just mud and sticks and the owner of the place where we're staying came and he was really concerned he said I've never seen this before in my life and we're like really?

Yeah it doesn't rain here and so we just had a few buckets around and we found out at midnight that night was the night when the mud slide just two kilometers away I think 200 people were buried in their sleep by mud so it's horrible but the point of that story is just that what was that feeling what is that feeling that intuition I think that that might be the way that these unseen beings protect us is that they give us a feeling a strong feeling get out I also heard something interesting I heard an interesting statistic that on the day that the world trade towers were blown up,

An un-proportional amount of people like really a lot of people didn't go to work that day lots of people called in sick lots of people just didn't go lots of people were away so you have this situation where I think 3,

500 people died but actually that's usually 5,

000 people in those buildings so it was one of these really interesting phenomena where you could see look just look how many people didn't go to work that day so something's at work there something's at play I would assume that many people had that feeling don't go to work today fortunately for them and I'm sure we all have these kind of feelings about things don't we so I think the more we keep our precepts and the more we meditate and the more meta we have there is this very clear protective quality something else about meta and being able to die peacefully I remember once people realized what had happened and we were in lay and there was panic a lot of people were very concerned everybody wanted to leave and the planes were booked and the roads were closed and the bridges were washed away and then the next night and it's a difficult thing you kind of have to be there to get the significance of how concerned people were but there's this little stream not very far away and and you could hear the boulders being moved in the bottom of the streams over this kind of roaring grinding noise and and they went to see that stream and you could see whole trees rushing past so a lot of water coming down and then the sky was full of clouds dark clouds this is during the time that Pakistan had all of those terrible floods so this is just on the edge of that in Ladakh Himalayan India some people were very concerned and my friend was he packed his bag and he put on his boots and he said oh don't we have to be ready to go and he said they're recommending that we go into the town everybody should come together in one place and I said to my friend you know here we are in a valley completely surrounded by very high mountains now when you land in lay the plane actually has to kind of do two full circles before it lands the mountains around the valley are so high the plane has to come in and actually go around twice to get down and land so they're very high mountains and I said to my friend I said you know if the mountains are sliding the mountains aren't safe and if the whole place is a valley well the valley isn't safe either I said where do you think you're gonna go and for me I just had this very clear sense of if we're gonna die we're gonna die it's that kind of occasion and I said to him I don't want to be with people who are panicking if I'm gonna die so if it's okay with you I'm gonna stay here and meditate and I said I you know had my little shrine and I lit candles and I lit incense and I sat in half lotus and I did some chanting and it was a little bit of fear but there wasn't any panic and I was sitting in front of my shrine and I was thinking this is one of the benefits of making merit as well is that you can recollect the merit that you've made and I was thinking well I did hope to have accomplished more this life I would like more Samadhi more wisdom I'd like to be established in liberation but then I thought I became a monk 22 23 paid respects to living enlightened masters hundreds of times I've been on pilgrimage many times attended teachings listened to teachings of enlightened beings many times been meditating every morning every afternoon every evening every day for many years and then I just had this thought I can leave this life was a really good life and what came to mind at that moment was a sense of contentment and gratitude I said okay what if this is the way I die if the mud's coming down on our heads if this is the time this is the time but I'm still here today so it didn't rain anymore the clouds went away what was interesting was that everyone else in the guest house decided to stay and they're like oh the monks name okay we stay too it's a sense if if one person doesn't panic the other people also calm down so I think that's also a benefit of many things a little bit of some sealer having done good things and then having met and having enough mindfulness as like where do they think they're gonna go in a big group if the way if the mountains start to cave in what are they gonna do that's what human beings do don't they well we'll work it out together and I just got a sense for the energy it's like I'm not going near that so our mindfulness practice and our meditation has many benefits protective qualities help us to stay peaceful and hopefully when the time comes to die to be able to go with some serenity good will and so we use the meta also it's just to understand it as a pleasant abiding here and now and one which is praised and recommended by the Buddha so as we as we were talking this sense of a growing awareness of dukkha and the deepening of a sense of weariness that occurs in practice and sometimes a tremendous sadness that comes over the mind about what the world is really like then we need to be able to sustain this growth in wisdom Lompo Panyawadho,

Ajahn Mahabuwa's most senior Western monk who was believed to be established in enlightenment he said it's actually good that we can't see the extent of dukkha straight away he said because if you could really see it all straight away when you started to practice you go mad because the mind can't take that much awareness of dukkha so it's actually good that we're slowly chipping away at the ignorance and the delusion and becoming more truthful about dukkha at the same time developing mindfulness and samadhi and faith and a refuge so that as you become more and more aware of dukkha got something to pull back into or go into as Ajahn Mahabuwa was saying to me as a very young monk he said it's as if you're in a burning house and there's nowhere to go but he says when you practice patience and you just bear with that feeling then the mind becomes more powerful and there is somewhere to go so this metta practice a divine abiding it's called by the Buddha a pleasant abiding here and now so it's a summer to practice and if you train yourself you could you can always have this as a resource no matter how bad things are okay just spread loving-kindness to yourself and if you've developed it as a habit if you have it there is one of your tools so you can do it you can just may I be well may I be happy may I be well may I be happy and that love is right there and whatever dukkha there is you can you can bathe the mind wash away some of that pain with your own metta also very powerful think about how much we suffer because we feel that other people don't love us as much as we'd like them to we have a lot of suffering about this this person said this thing and it's I really wish there's not the kind of thing I wanted to hear from that person and this person didn't say that thing and I really think they should have and how how painful that is but actually if you know how to take care of yourself and if you can give yourself the love that you need if it's right there well then if people love you or not doesn't matter as much if they insult you if they criticize you if they reject you you're gonna be kind to yourself you leave that with them okay you want to be unkind to me you want to be mean you want to be nasty I'm leaving that with you may I be well may I be happy I'm not rejecting myself you can try to reject me but I'm not rejecting myself you know blame is blame criticism is criticism you don't have to take their ill will and then pick up your own ill will and use it against yourself you set a boundary with it yeah this is a gift the example in the suit as the Buddha says and someone comes in insulting him he says you are bringing a gift and I don't accept it you can keep your gift so you leave that with them and you pick up your loving kindness may I be well may I be happy may I be well may I be happy and you bring this quality of goodwill be your own be a good friend to yourself you find that you'll suffer much less in this realm of praise and blame if you if you have loving kindness for yourself and this is a way of just nourishing sustaining our efforts as we know we become more and more sensitive to do come more aware of do because that's part of the process so we need some support and some nourishment to keep doing that developing that inner refuge and this is praised by the Buddha and has many benefits benefits now benefits in the future because at the very same time it's producing merit and that merit is going to be ripening in the next life and all subsequent lives to some degree especially if you do it a lot we having a lot of the benefits of matter in your future lives so just offer that as some encouragement we're gonna really embrace the meta practice very very healing re nourishing a very important part of the inner refuge may all be well may all be happy

Reviews

Beautiful

Kind

Lovely. Thank you 🤍

I have to look up some words, but it was beautiful and fully understood 💖 thank you ...

Most wonderful! Thank you!

Thank you a beautiful peaceful voice very uplifting 🙏🏻

Very good thank you

Anytime I am skeptical, Ajahn Achalo also comes with exactly what I need to here. Be well.

Grateful to be here listening to this talk. Thank you 😊.

Wonderful talk.
~ Namaste

Just love these talks. Thank u!

So grateful to have these talks from Ajahn Achalo.

Very enlightening, Thank you.

Lovely. Very helpful information for putting things in perspective. Thank you.

May I be well and may I be happy
You may keep your gift but I will keep my Wellness's and happiness and leave that gift w you.

I always enjoy your insightful talks, thank you. Namaste 🙏🏽

Always enjoy your talks 🙏 deep gratitude.

A charming and engaging conversation with exerpts from Buddhist scripture as well as fascinating personal stories which bring this talk to life. Left me feeling inspired to develop more metta.