TLDR: In this post, we share insights on loving-kindness meditation, where we learn that within us, lies the mother who loves her child unconditionally.
Like many beginner Buddhists, I started my meditation training by paying attention to the breath.
At the time, I had no idea how to meditate. I was just watching the breath, and over-focusing on it brought on both tension and calm. Tension arose when I was unable to focus my attention on the breath and calm arose when I was able to pay attention to the breath.
It was after a very long time that I noticed I was meditating unskillfully because I did not want tension but I wanted calm (wanting and not wanting are causes of suffering in the second noble truth).
While training my mind, I learnt the loving-kindness chant, and also loving-kindness meditation. This meditation practice was a lot easier than focusing on the breath. It is very pleasant to practice and seldom did I feel the tension in loving-kindness meditation.
But when there is a narrow focus on loving-kindness as an object of attention for a sustained period of time, I clung to the pleasantness of this meditation and felt dissatisfied when I could not escape the tensions of daily life into this beautiful experience of inner conditioned love.1
An external understanding of loving-kindness
The entire loving-kindness chant is worth reading over again and again for reflection. When we become familiar with meaningful chants such as the loving-kindness chant, we may find ourselves experiencing some of the verses in daily life.
For instance, the verse: “Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways”, made me realise that I need to not surround myself with so many tasks or hobbies that I can’t practice mindfulness in my life.
There is also a portion of the chant that inspires me:
“Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings”
Love and wisdom are aspects of the Dhamma that are inseparable.
Love without wisdom is foolishness while wisdom without love is cold and selfish. I was inspired by the verse and wondered how I could cherish all living beings with a boundless heart as a mother who loves her child.
But I was blinded by arrogance as I was still very identified with my personality – my name, and my background – essentially thoughts I could not let go of. While clinging onto the thoughts of ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’, I thought about wanting to spread boundless, or unconditional love to all beings. But how could it be possible, when the type of love I understood, is a thought that has no permanence? Since thoughts are fleeting.
An internal understanding of loving-kindness
Whenever a habitual thought/feeling is solidified (seems real to the mind), we take ownership of it and defend it. The experience of a solidified thought/feeling or feeling/thought is tension in the body. There is a contraction which is a feeling of tightness somewhere in the body.
When we notice how tension (suffering) is caused by holding onto thoughts, and how one thought causes a chain of thoughts (psychological rebirth), we can drop thoughts as if we are dropping a lump of hot burning coal we have been holding onto all our lives.
Our society prize thinking as the gift of humanity, as shown in our knowledge economy, and so we cannot bear to part with it. Thinking has contributed to a better way of life for individuals but has also destroyed much of Mother Earth.
The result of dropping thoughts habitually causes an almost immediate letting go of tension in the mind and body. Upon letting go of the tension, there is deep relaxation and opening of the mind (which embodies the whole body).
Thoughts start to part like clouds in the sky, and the sky is the experience of a widened awareness, resembling the mother in the loving-kindness sutta, who loves her child (the fleeting thoughts and feelings) without being attached.
The child here can be unwholesome thoughts or feelings, as well as wholesome ones. There is that embrace of the mother with love and wisdom. She knows the child comes from her womb, but it isn’t her, and therefore she can soothe its pains and pleasures.2
Loving-Kindness in every object of meditation
Loving-kindness is a precious spiritual practice in our world where most minds are absorbed into the digital domain of endless thoughts – on social media, news apps and video streaming. Although most meditators begin their meditation journey with the breath, and practice loving-kindness separately, in reality, they aren’t separate.
We can see loving-kindness as the mother, that embraces the child, which is the breath. Every meditation object we use to train our attention is embraced by the mother, a spacious awareness that embraces the child. Within all of us, lies this mother who loves her child unconditionally, within or without.
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1 Conditioned love involves a person thinking about love. Unconditioned love is an experience without needing someone to think about love for it to arise.
2 We normally identify pain as suffering. But pleasures cause suffering too, when we don’t get what we want, or get what we don’t want.
Wise Steps:
Loving-kindness is an unconditional aspect of the dhamma. But to practice it, we need to condition our minds with regular guided practice.
Reflect on the loving-kindness chant, so that you can notice the verses become a reality in your life.
TLDR: Being in love with love is different from being in love with a person. Being in love with another brings sadness, excitement and passion. Being in love with love brings peace, joy and rapture.
This is a reflection piece as contemplated by the author based on the Buddha’s teachings. As such, it may not contain the truths as taught by the Buddha. The author hopes the reader takes away useful bits that may resonate and discard whatever parts (or the whole article) that make no sense without any aversion.
I have not listened to popular music for quite a long time. I wouldn’t know what are the most popular songs of the last decade. I also have not had that intense rush of passion or interest in another person for that same amount of time. Recently I decided to listen to songs of my youth. I don’t know if it is the right choice because these songs brought up particular memories for me.
It is interesting how most of my strongest memories have to do with my youth. I am guessing raging hormones of youth brought about stronger emotions that led to deeper impressions made on the mind. According to Buddhist cosmology, we have been reborn countless times–however, as the music carried my mind to the past, experiences of my youth still seem so fresh in my mind as if I’ve lived them for the first time.
What is love?
Love is too big a word for anyone to express. In Western movies, characters who express love toward one another make it seem like a big deal. But still, that is not love.
The word, “love”, is used too frivolously in our society.
We romanticise feelings for another person just as we romanticise love itself. Love in its true meaning is unconditional. Unconditional love is hard to find on earth.
The closest would be that of a mother’s love towards her child. Therefore love would have the elements of sacrifice, forgiveness, compassion, perseverance and faith.
The mother is also able to let the child go because of love. But she is readily available when the child needs help.
Attachment not love
If you are unable to wish your other half happiness and goodwill if s/he leaves you, what you have is not love but attachment.
Also, if you are unable to accept and forgive your partner’s bad habits with patience and compassion, that is not love. What we have is attachment and a sense of responsibility towards our partners.
I found that in all of my relationships, I have never really loved anyone. I would do things to make myself feel better and make others feel bad in the name of love. There is an egoic possessiveness towards all of them. Looking back now, I can only feel compassion for my own ignorance and for the ones who had to suffer me.
Our obsession with love
The human race is always looking for love. This is evident from the many popular romantic and breakup songs in pop culture.
We seek happy endings in love. Many years ago, a friend’s father passed away. The only wish he had not fulfilled was finding true love. This is even after being married, begetting children and divorcing. That is because I was judging my friend’s father from my perspective. I would not marry unless I love the other. Therefore I was surprised he was still seeking true love on his deathbed.
I have not consciously looked for love with another person for the longest time. Although that thought did pop up every now and then. Listening to songs of my youth reminded me of my first love and despite it being such a long time ago, I still cherished that relationship and have goodwill towards my first love. The relationship brought up bittersweet memories. But the relationship is not something I would like to experience again.
Recently, I witnessed a friend’s misery and happiness from her attachment to her partner and it reminded me of the pitfalls of romance.
Romance brings about happiness only when the other meets our conditions and vice versa.
Being in love with love
There is a way to be in love and be happy without involving another person. That is to be in love with love itself. In all religions, from Christianity, Buddhism, Sufism to Sikhism, there are practices on the contemplation of love. Love is universal as taught by all religions, and we seem to have misunderstood love by trying to find it in another person.
Jesus and the Buddha (two of whom I am most familiar with), both taught and possessed unconditional love. These two great teachers were themselves unconditional love and so they did not need to seek it from elsewhere.
It makes sense why they need not seek love from others. If we feel that we are enough and full of love within, we will have lots of love to share and there will be no need to get it from others.
In Buddhist practice, the Buddha taught us to cultivate love in our hearts and to share it with all beings. I think the difficulty lies in cultivating love in our own hearts because we are so used to romantic love which is dependent on the sight of another. Though love itself and our ‘love’ for another differs in quality. Our “love” for another is narrow because we only can love the object of our affection and depend on this object to further grow this love in our hearts. Love, in reality, is wide and does not depend on others to do certain things or be a certain way for us to have love in our hearts.
How to cultivate love in our hearts?
Buddhist meditation teaches us various ways to develop love in our hearts. One way is to think of a person we love and respect and to pay attention to the love that arises in our hearts.
We then radiate it throughout our bodies and spread it out in all directions.
You can also spread the love by thinking of various people, animals, the earth and the universe. It helps to smile when doing this meditation because smiling relaxes oneself and helps to develop love and kindness.
Similarities between being in love with love and with another
When we are in love with another person, we can’t help but think of that person. We feel drawn to that person, we yearn to understand them and to know their secrets. We want to be united with that person, to be intimate and to relate to him or her. We also hope to be able to please our partner.
When I was doing a home retreat on loving-kindness, that was how I felt. I enjoyed thinking about love. That love in my heart contained elements of joy and lightness. I wanted to draw close to it and was not interested in others. However, I did not go deep enough to become intimate in that love or to know its secrets.
Thinking of the Buddha to cultivate love
For those who need the image of another to bring up love, you can always think of the Buddha or other religious teachers.
I thought of the Buddha’s immense love and compassion for all those around him. This exercise managed to cultivate those qualities in my mind during meditation.
However, I am not spending enough time thinking about the Buddha’s qualities of love and compassion in daily life. I wish it would occupy at least two-thirds of my mind at all times.
Being in love with love is indeed different from being in love with a person. Love that depends on a person includes elements of sadness, longing, discontentment and excitement.
One could even get depressed when ignored or rejected by the object of attraction.
But love itself is different. There is no rejection, no longing, no sadness or excitement. Love includes feelings of joy, peace and rapture.
Since it is virtually impossible to find love from another person, perhaps we can only love another when we ourselves become love by being in love with love.
Wise Steps:
Love begins from the self. To be able to love others, we have to love ourselves. Love is like a fire on a candle that lights up the room. Start to love yourself by first forgiving yourself.
Bring to your mind a living spiritual friend whom you admire and think of his or her qualities of love.
Contemplate the loving kindness, compassion and equanimity of the Buddha. Thinking of these qualities can also help to bring up these feelings within yourself.
