loving kindness

Devon stream

Practice of metta and the English Problem, by John Aske

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The metta practice rests on the basis of loving oneself, or at least liking oneself. Without this step, no further progress is possible, either in the metta practice or in the practice of any of the Brahma Viharas (the Divine Abidings). And with the English — the men at least — this first step was proving very difficult, if not impossible…

Flowers

Opening the Heart, by John Aske

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Life in the West is full or problems and traumas, and we move from one to the next like a blind person finding the way along a rope bridge. We can, it is true, refuse to see the ‘bad’ things, or simply live on the surface of life, but that merely produces another kind of unhappiness with the voice of our lost psyche calling us from a long way away, with not only the problem shelved but our humanity and the richness and colour of our lives as well…

Dartington Buddha

The Development of Loving-kindness

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Just as the radiance of all the stars does not equal a sixteenth part of the moon’s radiance, but the moon’s radiance surpasses them and shines forth, bright and brilliant, even so, whatever grounds there are for making merit productive of a future birth, all these do not equal a sixteenth part of the mind-release of loving-kindness…

Clouds. Artwork © Marcelle Hanselaar

Listening, by John Aske

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Listening is much less connected with organising or pushing things round in our minds, and in fact listening and the listened-to are much more linked than actor and acted-upon. Listening also tends to be more emotionally neutral.

The modern world seems driven to extinguish ­silence, as if it were a threat…