Meditation #8 The Great Scope: LOVE !

The wish to escape samsara (cyclic existence), should be maintained day and night as this is the main path to liberation and the basis of more advanced realizations.

By eradicating all mental afflictions, we can attain liberation.  But, we can aim even higher.


We should not be content with seeking merely our own liberation; we must consider the welfare of others.  There are countless beings trapped in the prison of samsara and suffering.  Each one of us is just one person, other people are countless in number.  So, the happiness of others is actually much more important than our own happiness. For this reason, we enter the highest path, which offers the way to benefit all.

Feel your mind expand and enlighten as you consider this path to liberate all.  The first thing on this stage of the path is to develop equanimity.

Contemplation

Usually our attitudes towards others are unbalanced - we feel pleased to see a friend who is attractive and familiar.  A feeling of dislike may arise when we see someone who is unattractive to us.  A feeling of indifference may arise for a stranger.  Such unbalance impedes us from developing unbiased love and compassion which are essential for higher realizations.

Consider that in previous lives, a person who is now a friend may have been an enemy or vice versa.  Even within one life, a close friend may become a stranger.  There is no certainty.  In the past, people who were strangers may now be our closest friends.  Every being we meet is full of potential to be one thing or another to us.  So, it does not make sense in being attached to some and feeling aversion or indifference to others.  We must overcome such unbalance and cultivate a feeling of warmth for all beings.

Meditation

We meditate single-pointedly on these three resolutions that you may come to after the above contemplation:

1. I will free my mind from unbalanced attitudes
2. I will not feel attachment, aversion or indifference towards anyone.
3. I will develop and maintain a warm and friendly feeling towards all beings, equally.

Dedication: May all the virtue that I have collected in this meditation go towards the fast enlightenment of myself and everyone.

Subsequent practice: Maintain these three resolutions all day.  Keep warm feeling in your heart towards everyone you encounter.  Notice...does your mind remain at peace...