The loving mind

1. DEFINITION

A loving mind (tâm từ), commonly called loving-kindness and compassion together (từ bi), is love without conditions, love that does not ask to be returned.

Strictly speaking, bi means feeling pity when we see living beings suffer. Only when we love someone do we ache to see that person suffer. Bi is the sign that proves từ is present, which is why we usually join the two into từ bi. But if we are careful, we should use only the word từ to be exact about the meaning.

Because the loving mind is love without conditions, it is not confined to a few people but always tends to spread without limit. To understand it better, we should compare it with the clinging attachment of the worldly mind.

Attachment is also the love of one being for another, but it must have one of the following conditions.

First, it is formed by bonds of karma and gratitude from past lives. We love a particular person because in a previous life we owed that person a debt and shared a bond with them. The relationship between parents and children, for example, is also formed from such mutual debts and bonds. Parents who owe more to a particular child will feel more love for that child. It is the same with the friends and companions we meet in life: we do not feel equal warmth towards everyone; some we love a lot, some we love a little. That is because the bond between each of them and us is not the same.

Gratitude from past lives creates love in this life very clearly. For example, we may owe someone a great deal from a previous life because that person favoured us and helped us much. When we meet again in this life, we naturally feel an inexplicable affection for that person and keep wanting to help them attentively. The other person feels at ease, because they were the benefactor and not the one in debt. We who are in debt are driven by a feeling in the mind that we must make that person happy. So we see that worldly affection is only illusory; it is merely an intermediary, a catalyst that lets beings repay one another, and it is not real. Worldly love is very fragile: once the debt is repaid, the love is finished too. When we love each other we imagine that love will be firm and lasting, but then, "so life goes, love affairs part, lost down paths with no way home…"

Love between man and woman is the most intense representative of this kind of worldly love. Because it is the most intense, it is also the most selfish. First of all, when in love, everyone thinks love will bring them happiness, because the feelings of love burn so fiercely. Through the ages, countless poems, prose, songs, paintings and statues have praised love. Love between man and woman and artistic creation are almost inseparable, because the feelings of love inspire artists to create. But when love breaks down, people find it is the most painful thing of all. Why? Because the nature of love is the most selfish, it also causes the most suffering.

The philosopher Schopenhauer said: "Only philosophers can live happily in marriage, but unfortunately a true philosopher will not take a wife."

Family life is very complicated, and husband and wife demand attentive care down to the smallest detail. Love's requirements are so high that almost no one can meet them fully. Only people who are both very intelligent and very ethical can do so. Such a person, both intelligent and ethical, is what Schopenhauer calls a philosopher.

People meet, develop feelings for each other, and like each other in some way, but that is not really love. True love is very powerful and calls for skilful conduct if it is to last, and to hold one's selfishness in check. Selfishness in love is fierce, and it shows most clearly as jealousy. When jealous, people can beat, kill, throw acid… every kind of cruelty. Because of selfishness, people also make demands of each other, bind each other, become jealous of each other and torment each other.

To live in warmth and happiness in a family, one would have to be an intelligent and ethical philosopher. But as Schopenhauer said, philosophers will not take wives. Most people are not happy in marriage. In one opinion survey, many elderly people shook their heads wearily over the married life they had lived. Love really is something illusory and fragile!

In the early stage, in the spring of life, driven by youthful instinct, people are impulsive and eager, and imagine that love is happiness. They seek each other out in the hope that the rest of their lives together will be full of happiness. But once they are together, the days that remain slowly become nothing but torment, suffering, resentment and dissatisfaction with each other.

A person with merit who becomes a monastic is one who escapes the disguised prison of marital happiness. Love and marital happiness gradually increase the selfishness in a person's heart. Because of selfishness, people make each other suffer. Therefore, if we want marriage to have less trouble and complication, we should reduce the selfish demands we make of each other and instead share some lofty purpose to turn towards. For example, if husband and wife both feel admiration for the Buddha's Teaching, they will naturally find things warmer and gentler. Many couples have found reconciliation when both turned to the Buddha's Teaching.

Happiness comes only from altruism, not from selfishness. When they come to the Buddha's Teaching, the two practise the altruistic mind together, and naturally things gradually become good.

Love is the consequence of gratitude from past lives. Love between man and woman is the clearest expression of this.

When we meet someone and feel affection for them, it is only because we share a karmic bond from a previous life. When the old debt is repaid, the love vanishes too, and no one knows why.

It is the same even with monastics. When followers hold them in favour and esteem, they should not think it is because they have some merit of their own, such as giving fine talks, having lofty practice and high virtue, or having a respectable appearance. It is all because of karmic bonds of gratitude from a previous life. If the gratitude runs deep, the attachment is firm and lasting; if the gratitude is slight, they will part for some trivial reason.

Understanding this, we remain at ease before the likes and dislikes of life, because they are not real; they are only karmic bonds from past lives. What we should concern ourselves with is forming good bonds with everyone so that we can advance in practice together.

Second, we love because of blood ties, as with parents, brothers and sisters… We say blood ties, but really it is also a bond from former lives that has now become a family of flesh and blood. Family affection is formed from days and months of living together, helping, worrying about and supporting each other. If we live in one family without caring for each other, there is no affection either.

Third, we love because the other person gives us a feeling of happiness.

Once, while at play, King Pasenadi asked Queen Mallikā:

"My dear, whom do you love most?"

"Of course I love Your Majesty most in the world."

The king was delighted, but the queen went on:

"But if Your Majesty permits me to speak the truth and will not be angry, I would like to put it more correctly."

"Speak the truth."

"In truth, I love myself most."

"How strange! You love yourself?"

"It is the truth. In this life, people love only themselves. If they love anyone, it is only because that person brings them happiness. In the same way, I love Your Majesty because Your Majesty gives me glory, wealth and happiness. If Your Majesty were a beggar, I would not love you."

The king found this reasonable, but it seemed so harsh and odd that he went to the Buddha to ask again. The Buddha confirmed that Queen Mallikā's words were correct: in truth, people love only themselves.

In this life there is no genuine love; people love someone only because that person brings them happiness. For example, we love a certain fellow practitioner because we feel that person can be good to us. Later we love a certain lay Buddhist because we see that this lay Buddhist supports us. The nature of love is only like that. Husband and wife are the same: the husband feels the wife is good so long as she brings him a source of happiness. When he sees his wife has grown old and plain, he will begin to stray and look for other girls. Worldly love is like that, not sacred, so we should never place any hope in worldly affection.

The Buddha's disciple spends a whole life searching for loving-kindness and compassion precisely because they are searching for a love that rises above the ordinary run of life. That love is not selfish; it is more sacred and more noble.

Fourth, we love someone because that person has a special quality that stands out among many. We want to possess them so that we can feel that we too are special. This is an ordinary psychological law. For example, girls crowned beauty queens at once become the pursuit of many men. Pop stars and stage and film stars are likewise the target of countless people. Once, when a rock singer in Japan died, three girls immediately killed themselves to follow him. When news came that the actor Jackie Chan was getting married, a girl killed herself at once.

The crowd's fanatical adoration of stars, almost to the point of madness, is also a kind of psychological sickness. That psychology is also troublesome, selfish and full of agitation. At present the world has not taken an interest in treating this sickness; on the contrary, many forms of advertising push such fanaticism higher. There are clips showing a forest of spectators waving their arms and jumping about in excitement to a singer's song. Many children think it is a good thing and imitate it one after another. The world seems to be thrown into confusion.

We know that the loving mind is the opposite of the attached mind, so it is not driven by karmic bonds, not created by a selfish mind and not born of desire. Precisely because nothing drives or creates it, the Loving Mind is very hard to arise. The attached mind floods this world because it has so many supporting conditions. The Loving Mind is very lonely, with nothing to help it.

Only people who are extremely ethical, extremely wise and extremely thirsty for truth go in search of this unconditional kind of love. Even many disciples of the Buddha remain indifferent to cultivating loving-kindness, let alone people who have never heard of the four immeasurables!

Vast, boundless love is the fundamental value of religions. A religion that does not speak of vast love is not a genuine religion. But each religion still differs a little in how it speaks of this kind of love. Islam calls for love among fellow believers, and permits killing people outside the faith. Christianity, following Jesus' words, loves even one's enemies. Confucius also upholds benevolence (Nhân). Only the Buddha spoke of a Loving-kindness and Compassion that loves all beings, down to plants, trees, birds and beasts.

The vast love that Buddhism aims at is almost absolute. The Buddha attained such love. Those who practise following the Buddha must also go in that direction, towards a love that covers absolutely all beings, including plants and trees.

Speaking logically, attachment belongs to the selfish mind; loving-kindness and compassion belong to the altruistic mind. Selfishness belongs to clinging to self; altruism belongs to no-self.

Clinging to self gives rise to selfishness and attachment; no-self gives rise to altruism and loving-kindness and compassion.

Because we cling to self, we are selfish. If we practise no-self, we will attain loving-kindness and compassion. The more we practise compassion, the closer we come to no-self; the more we practise no-self, the more fully we achieve compassion. Therefore an arhat who has fully realised no-self has also achieved limitless loving-kindness and compassion.

That is an extremely rigorous logic, and it cannot be reversed. Anyone who understands that an arhat does not yet have loving-kindness holds a wrong view, and may fall into hell.

There was a time when Northern Buddhist teachings flourished in northern India, and many people thought that arhats did not yet have the great compassion of bodhisattvas. That view should be corrected to accord with the Buddha's words and with modern logic.

Loving-kindness and compassion and no-self are one; each supports the other, each is the reflection of the other. If we practise no-self and do not yet see compassion appear, it means we have not yet attained no-self. If we practise compassion and our clinging to self has not yet lightened, it means compassion is not yet present.

When we practise compassion, we are also walking the road to no-self, just like meditative concentration. So a person who practises meditative concentration without also practising compassion cannot have great results in concentration. The compassionate mind helps meditation progress faster. The Buddha taught that whoever goes to the end of the path of loving-kindness also attains liberation (the Loving-kindness Discourse, Aṅguttara Nikāya).

Conversely, right concentration also opens up compassion. We stress the words right concentration, because if there is the power of concentration but it is not right, compassion does not open either. When our mind enters a little concentration, compassion opens a little further. For example, ordinarily we look at the people around us with indifference. But at some moment when our mind settles, calm and empty, we immediately and naturally look at everyone with a gentle, loving mind. When the mind is still and settled, it naturally spreads out and covers everyone and everything around, even plants, rivers and mountains. Love, too, then covers all beings.

That is why a saint naturally loves even plants and trees. We are not yet equal to the saints, but if our mind has a little meditative concentration, love too begins to be present.

Someone has said: "A Zen master is always an artist, but an artist is not a Zen master."

A Zen master is always an artist because they have vast love, feel the whole of heaven, earth, trees and grass, and can turn that into inspiration to compose beautiful poems. They also live a lovely, free and gentle life. An artist, by contrast, has overflowing romantic feeling, very different from the vast love of a Zen master. The artist's way of life is also unrestrained rather than free and easy. These shades resemble each other but are different. The artist follows the path of sentiment, and so gradually comes close to selfishness. Only when they follow the Buddha's Teaching to purify agitated and unrestrained sentiments will their life have less suffering.

Every religion upholds vast love, but only in Buddhism is there a very clear path: contemplating loving-kindness and compassion, combined with meditative concentration to remove clinging to self, after which compassion appears. When the Buddha and the arhats have realised absolute no-self, their compassion covers the whole universe.

The Buddha's compassion covers us at every second and every minute. We do not sense it because the door of our heart is shut too tight. We shut the door of our heart through countless forms of selfishness, attachment and agitation, and most terrible of all, clinging to self, so we do not know that we are always living in the Buddha's love. Let us listen to the contemplation verse chanted in Vietnamese and Chinese Northern-tradition liturgy:

The one who bows and the one bowed to are by nature empty and still;

The response between them, the meeting of paths, is beyond thought…

"The one who bows" is the person kneeling, that is, we the Buddha's disciples; "the one bowed to" is the person receiving the bow, that is, the Buddha. Both have the same nature, illusory and void. Though void, it is not that there is absolutely nothing; everything still runs according to the just law of karmic results. The Buddha has realised still, silent no-self. If we, too, penetrate the meaning of no-self, a wondrous response will naturally appear, and we will feel the Buddha's love covering and embracing us as it does all other beings. Conversely, if we cling to self, are selfish and agitated, stand alone in a corner of the sky and close the door of our heart, we will not feel the Buddha's love for us.

It is as when we sit looking at each other: if each person is busy chasing their own agitation and holding on to their own self, we will not have mutual understanding and fondness, and will feel separated and strange to each other. Conversely, if each person settles the mind and quietens it, and lets go a little of their clinging to self, we naturally feel closer, more understanding and fonder of one another.

The Buddha fully realised no-self, so his compassion covers all beings. But as for us, if we cling to self, do not see this "I" as illusory, and shut the door of our heart, we will not see the Buddha's love present in us hour after hour.

In his autobiography, Hư Vân's Chronological Record, Venerable Hư Vân tells that once, when he was ill, he saw himself go up to the Tuṣita heaven to hear the Buddha Maitreya teach. In that extremely large assembly he met again many eminent monks of earlier times, including his own teacher, the Venerable Kính Dung. In general, genuine practitioners go up to the Tuṣita heaven when they die.

The Venerable Kính Dung pointed him to an empty seat beside the Venerable Ānanda. Strangely, Ānanda, from the Buddha's time until now, is still attending the Buddha Maitreya in the Tuṣita heaven.

Suddenly the Buddha Maitreya stopped teaching and, pointing to Venerable Hư Vân, said: "You still have karma; you must go back."

Venerable Hư Vân replied: "My karma is heavy, so I do not want to go back. I want to stay here and study the Dharma."

The Buddha Maitreya said: "No, you must go back, because you still have much to do." Then the Buddha Maitreya explained further so that he would understand.

That story moves us with the love the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have for beings. The way the Buddha Maitreya spoke shows a compassion that is also very strict, and leaves out no being.

We, as disciples of the Buddha, must also learn the Buddha's compassionate mind, even though we cannot yet fully attain it. Every day we must practise so that our love for beings spreads wider and wider; every day we must practise so that our private love gradually lessens. In life we do have bonds with different people, which makes us often love one person more than another. Now, practising compassion, we try not to let partiality go too far. In the case of those who have left home and live in a large community, they must be all the more careful not to form private attachments with two or three people, but spread a harmonious heart to all their fellow practitioners. Resisting old bonds to avoid forming private closeness is a great act of restraint that gives compassion a chance to grow.

The poet Goethe has a famous saying: "Before a great mind, I bow my head; but before a great heart, I kneel."

Goethe spoke for all humanity in stating a principle: before great talent, people feel much respect; but people truly revere, admire and cherish only someone with a vast loving heart. The attitude of kneeling expresses a degree of being won over ten thousand times greater than bowing the head. Indeed, before someone we know to be tolerant and generous, we feel we could rely on them, follow them and devote our whole lives to them.

The Buddha's disciple, especially one who has left home, must practise all the more so as to become a wellspring of love for everyone around, a tall tree with wide shade where beings can take refuge. Worldly people are weary from all kinds of trouble and suffering, and so look for a spiritual support to find relief. The duty of the Buddha's disciple is to lessen the suffering of this life with the boundless love the Buddha taught. Coming to someone with a loving heart, everyone feels refreshed and at ease.

What we must prepare ourselves for in advance is that practising the compassionate mind will be very hard work, not leisurely and comfortable. A very small example is having to put up with listening to beings pour out their private sorrows so they can feel lighter and ask for advice from an outside, objective person. Often these are very tedious matters, such as the affections and dislikes between one person and another, or one person speaking ill of someone and the other protesting. Moreover, they know we have a loving and generous heart. In such cases we must forget ourselves to empathise with them; then we use moral principle to judge the matter and find a good solution for them. We must rely on the law of cause and effect and on ethical psychology to advise them to act more rightly so that everything is settled.

We need not be a speaker who talks endlessly on the Dharma seat; it is enough that anyone in the world who meets us finds peace and security. That too is the merit of practice of a Buddha's disciple. To be like this, all of us, the Buddha's disciples, must have an ideal for the Buddha's Teaching and for beings; we cannot practise superficially. We must develop compassion firmly, which the Buddha, in the Aṅguttara Nikāya, said is to make loving-kindness the base camp of the mind.

If the loving mind is not established, strengthened and developed, the attached mind will have the chance to grow and take its place, and so we return to the old ordinary way of living, that is, bustling with likes and dislikes, winning and losing, right and wrong, favouring one side over the other… There is nothing bright in our life, and the people around us too are exhausted and worn out. Of course we will have failed to show everyone the wonder of the Buddha's Teaching, which also means we lose their faith.

Even if we have not yet attained sainthood, having loving-kindness and compassion alone is enough to live a life full of benefit to everyone, and we ourselves will also have much less trouble from the bustling likes and dislikes of the world, or from our own weaknesses. Why? Because to overcome shortcomings, besides understanding, we also need merit. Lacking merit, we often stumble back into the old bad habits. Here compassion gives us that merit so that we can overcome our own mistakes.

For example, take a monastic. In this life they have left home, but not all of their previous lives were spent as monastics. So certainly, over many lives, this person has also lived a family life with husband or wife and children. Who knows, in this life while practising, they may meet again a husband or wife from an earlier life. At that moment it is hard for anyone to avoid unexplainable feelings of affection. If we do not practise the loving mind, we will be strongly disturbed by the old attachment. If we constantly spread love to beings, the old feelings will naturally be easier to overcome. That is very precise cause and effect.

Merit comes to us through the practice of honouring the Buddha and through the loving mind. This merit helps us dissolve old karmic bonds so that we can help each other practise, and so that the old attachment does not repeat. That merit also helps us gather the mind in meditation more easily, because the selfish mind is dissolved by the compassionate mind, and when selfishness lessens, afflictions lessen and peace and joy grow.

For the ideal of the Buddha's Teaching, for beings, for the lofty and beautiful ethics of the Buddha's Teaching, we do not allow ourselves to live a selfish, lazy life, but must practise with all our strength, wholeheartedly loving beings of all kinds.

2. CULTIVATING THE LOVING MIND

a. When bowing to the Buddha

The compassionate mind is very hard to arouse naturally because nothing drives it. Only wise people are willing to endure hardship to establish compassion in their hearts, because they know we must have compassion to escape the ordinariness of human life, and to have the strength to live an altruistic life.

For those who have left home, practising compassion is even more pressing, because only with the effort of practice will we have the strength to persuade everyone to practise the loving mind together. Moreover, through practice we understand every nook and cranny well enough to guide later people in detail. If we only repeat what we heard, those who listen will also only listen lightly and will not be determined to practise.

First, we must sincerely kneel before the Buddha, bow to the Buddha, and earnestly ask the Buddha to support us so that we can arouse limitless love for all beings. After that, we keep kneeling there and contemplate spreading love to beings of all kinds. At first we ask the Buddha; then we do it ourselves.

Why does practice done quietly in the mind also need the Buddha's support? Why do we still hear that Buddhism upholds lighting our own torch and walking, lighting it with the Right Dharma, being our own refuge, not taking refuge in anyone else…?

There are two extremes that a practitioner should avoid:

The first extreme is clinging to self, taking oneself to be real, and so insisting that everything must come from oneself, by oneself, through oneself, with no need of anyone. If we ask anyone for help, it seems our value is reduced. This is both clinging to self and self-conceit.

The second extreme is weakness: relying on gods and spirits and refusing to take responsibility for oneself. This person becomes the slave of some god and does nothing but beg for support. This is both weakness and laziness. Most religions based on divine authority suffer from this.

To avoid those two extremes, we have the Middle Way, as follows:

First, understand that this "I" is not real, so the support and help of the Buddhas that let us quickly attain the Loving Mind is an advantage that we need to make use of. We are not like the touchy person who fears losing worth by asking for help; here we ask the Buddha for help to attain loving-kindness and compassion, which is the truly noble value.

Second, we understand that without personal effort nothing is attained, which means each person must also take responsibility for their own actions; so we must try to contemplate and spread love to all beings.

The Middle Way has both qualities: humble in asking for the Buddha's help, and diligent in personal effort.

Prayer here is not regarded as superstition, because we ask for support in order to sow causes, not to ask to enjoy results. That is the difference between superstition and right faith in prayer. The superstitious person prays to become wealthy and successful immediately, without caring about making merit. The person of right faith prays for the chance to make much good merit first, and then wealth will come of its own accord.

In asking the Buddha to sow good causes, the first and most important good cause is the compassionate mind itself.

Let us repeat that there are two kinds of will: one arising from merit, and the second arising from the self. Will that comes from merit is gentle and does not give rise to conceit; will that comes from personal effort quickly gives rise to conceit.

The compassionate mind is the same: there are two kinds, one coming from merit and one coming from mere personal effort.

For example, someone who does not believe in gods, Buddhas or any such thing, but has the good thought that in life we must know how to love others, and who every day keeps telling themselves that they must love others, must love others… Gradually, kindness and benevolence also begin to appear in their mind. However, a dangerous side effect occurs at the same time: the conceited mind. Indeed, when we think we love others, we have already put ourselves one step above them! Loving others while thinking oneself better than others is truly perverse!

But if here we take the merit of bowing to the Buddha as the good cause that helps arouse the Loving Mind, that dangerous side effect will not appear with it; though we love others, we still respect them, and still do not see ourselves as better than others.

b. During sitting meditation

Practising meditative concentration is the eighth of the Noble Eightfold Path, but the Eightfold Path must be practised together. Thanks to meditative concentration calming the inner mind, we understand the principles thoroughly. Lacking meditative concentration, we lack almost all the merit in the Buddha's Teaching, because all Buddhist teachings are connected with meditative concentration.

We practise loving-kindness and compassion in meditative concentration as follows:

First, we cross our legs in the full-lotus posture, sit in the correct posture, join our palms and recite the Buddha's name three times, vowing limitless reverence for the Buddha.

Next, we vow to love all beings in a general way.

Then we spread love to those close around us, such as parents, brothers and sisters, fellow practitioners, neighbours, friends, colleagues… For those who have left home, love for fellow monastics and co-practitioners. As we contemplate this way, we are startled to realise that until now we have never loved anyone around us. Though we live under the same temple roof, we have never loved, cared for or helped each other, and remain separated, strange and indifferent. We left our small family to come here and make a larger, nobler family, but in the end love does not exist. Now, to make up for it, we must love our fellow practitioners very much.

Then we spread love to the people around us whom we keep meeting but do not care for or love, sometimes cold and indifferent; now we must truly love them, especially our neighbours. We must act so that later our neighbours remark that those who practise Buddhism grow more and more harmonious and lovable, because they feel our heart towards them.

Next, we think of those who plot against us, speak ill of us and offend us, and set our intention to love them.

Living in the world, no one can avoid being criticised, slandered, offended, harmed… Monastics often harm each other by exchanging attacking words; worldly people can harm each other until the body is ruined and the mind unhinged, driven to a dead end, imprisoned or killed… When this happens, people usually harbour resentment and hatred. But because we are the Buddha's disciples, we must let go of that hatred and, further, spread love to those who have harmed us. It is easy to say, but very hard to practise.

There was a person who was once plotted against, to be sent to prison out of jealousy over their studies, but luckily it did not happen. This person did not hold anger and let it go and forget it. When they later practised the Loving Mind and, remembering the one who had harmed them, set the intention to love them, they could not love them at all. Then this person realised that, though they thought they had forgotten, the anger was still lying deep in the heart and was not gone. Only by being determined to set the intention to love that person for several days did this person get past the hidden anger.

Overcoming hatred so as to love someone who has harmed us is a great merit, because we avoid thoughts of revenge in the future. As long as there is someone we have to hate, we are not yet a good disciple of the Buddha. So we must be able to love those who have been jealous of us, plotted against us and attacked us.

Next, we think of the countless spirits of the dead in the unseen realms and set our intention to love them. This is an existence that the world must acknowledge.

First of all, scientists believe that there are many other planets with life in this universe. Present means of observation are not yet enough to find clearly a planet with life, especially any other intelligent life in the universe. At times they have been pessimistic and said that Earth is the lone life of the Universe. But calculations and technical progress let them hope there are still many other planets with life, including intelligent life.

The book King Seti's Undying Love tells the story of an Egyptian king who had an affair with a priestess. To protect the king when she was questioned by the elders, the priestess killed herself. Later the king learned of it and was filled with sorrow. When he died, his spirit searched ceaselessly for that girl. He wandered from one realm to another for nearly three thousand years. She had been imprisoned by the gods in a secret place so that he could not find her. Later, the gods, moved by King Seti's heart, let the girl be reborn in England. Only then did King Seti find her and gradually make contact with her. He told her that he had flown past many other planets; some planets had only green plants and no animals, no people and no beasts at all. Once he came to a planet that had once had a civilised life, and saw houses, vehicles, kinds of vehicle with neither wheels nor wings, that is, like UFOs. But everything had been dried out and dead, because there was no air left at all. The bodies still lay in place, in the vehicles, on the roads, in the houses… withered. He thought some god had taken away all the air to wipe out life there because of some serious fault of the people there.

From the story above we see that this Universe is infinitely diverse and this world infinitely complex.

The unseen world is also very complex. There are beings who, after death, are born in the heavens because in life they did many good deeds and cultivated a holy mind.

There are beings with a mixture of wrongdoing and merit, not enough to rise to the heavens, but who also do not fall into the bad destinies and do not yet have enough conditions for rebirth; they will have a life rather like that of people in the earthly world. Sometimes they enter a temple to practise and make much progress in mind and conduct, and when they are reborn they will be people with many favourable karmic conditions. The time they exist in the realm of the dead may be as long as a hundred years.

There are beings with heavy wrongdoing whose appearance changes and becomes ugly and frightening, who fall into hell or become hungry ghosts. Usually, in old age near death, if someone's face becomes beautiful and kindly, it is a sign that after death they will go to a good realm; if someone's face becomes ugly and fierce, it is a sign that after death they will go to a fallen realm.

There are many kinds of ghost. There is a weak kind of spirit that cannot affect the living in any way. They live mixed in with us without our knowing, but they see and know us. They are lonely, sad, in want, hungry and suffering because they lack merit so badly. Sometimes they also come to temples to hear the Dharma and gradually practise.

The second kind has a somewhat stronger mental power and can influence the thoughts of the living, urging us to do this or that. Sometimes a family quarrels noisily, and it is really not the living who are at fault but ghosts urging them on. Sometimes we pass a shop and suddenly want to go in and buy, only because some wandering spirit urged it, to help the owner get customers. This owner knows to regularly make food offerings for the spirits to eat.

Then there is a kind of ghost with stronger mental power that can act on matter, such as making a glass on the table fall to the ground and shatter; or making a door slam when there is no wind; or at night in the kitchen lifting pots and clattering bowls.

Then there is a kind of ghost that can show its form so that we see it directly.

There are many kinds of beings in the unseen realms like this, and in contemplating loving-kindness and compassion we must love them without leaving any out. If we spread love only to the human world, our compassion has not yet burst open without limit and is still awkward and lopsided. If we love the realm of the dead as well, we will naturally feel our mind broad, peaceful, comfortable and full.

Occasionally someone sees a ghost appear, or hears a ghost say something nearby, or has a hand or foot touched. Most people's feeling is trembling fear, because they know nothing about the other party. It is because of this fear that people use the phrase "ghosts frighten". Thinking that ghosts frighten, they regard ghosts as bad, as enemies, and seek to fight them off, bind them with spells and destroy them. In fact there are few cases where the dead deliberately try to scare anyone. They only want contact, to ask for food and make friends. But because their forms are frightening because of wrongdoing in past lives, normal contact is not possible. Let us think of it this way: if we can love the disabled, ugly beggar in the street, we should likewise generously love the people of the realm of the dead. Especially now that we are cultivating the Immeasurable Loving Mind, we have even less right to put limits on our love.

Next we set our intention to love animals all over heaven and earth, the birds and beasts in the forest, the fish and shrimp in the water…

Next we set our intention to love beings in hell.

Usually those who are cruel fall into hell; those who are stingy fall into the hungry-ghost realm; those who are deluded with wrong views fall into the animal realm. That is the basic principle. But in reality matters are much more complicated. Some who slander the gods fall into the animal realm; some who slander the gods go insane; some who slander the gods fall straight into hell. Basically, though, whoever is cruel will fall into hell.

Who is a cruel person?

A cruel person is one ruthless enough either to use corporal punishment to cause others suffering, or to use vicious schemes to push others into desperate, hopeless suffering. In general, it is causing beings to suffer with a ruthless mind. It is a person who feels no pity before the pain of others and sometimes even takes pleasure in seeing others suffer. Such a person may beat, cut, burn and kill others.

We judge whether a person has a good heart by seeing what attitude they have towards the pain of others. If this person feels pity before the pain of others, they have a good heart; if this person is unmoved, or even delighted, before the pain of others, they have a wicked heart. There are drinking men who gather round and smash a dog's head with a stick while laughing raucously; we know these people have the seed of hell.

When they go down to hell, whatever they did to cause beings pain, they will have to repay in full. Fires that never go out and knives that never stop cutting will burn and stab them in return.

So is there any way for those beings to escape hell karma?

Because of their wicked heart they fell into hell; now only the loving and compassionate mind can help them escape hell.

There is a story of a former life of the Buddha that illustrates this principle, though we may not believe it. But the story is still very fine. Once, in a very distant life, he fell into hell. We do not believe he committed any wrongdoing so terrible that he fell into hell, but let us just keep in mind the aspect of principle. He had to suffer many painful tortures like the other sinners. When he found that around him were countless beings groaning because of being punished, pity suddenly stirred in him and he made a vow that he be allowed to bear all the punishment of everyone in this hell. The moment his mind bravely accepted the pain on behalf of all like this, hell vanished at once.

In principle, that story accords with the Dharma, but as to its truth, it is hard to persuade us to believe that the Buddha ever fell into hell like that.

In principle, if any being who is falling into hell can arouse a compassionate mind, they can really escape the hell existence. So if we feel pity for beings in hell, we cannot help them in any way; the only way is to pray that they arouse a compassionate mind so that they themselves escape suffering.

May those in hell,

beings undergoing torment,

arouse the compassionate mind

and be free of suffering.

But in reality it is very hard. Imagine a person with a headache, toothache or stomachache, groaning and writhing; that person seems to forget all the Buddha's Teaching and principles because the mind is pressed and thrown into disorder by the pain. In the same way, beings being burned in hell, who before knew little about good, and are now being tormented and tortured, find it very hard to arouse love for others. Usually they must endure the torment until their wrongdoing is exhausted before escaping suffering; it is not easy for them to calmly set their intention on what is good. Just as a madman cannot make merit to save himself, so beings in hell also find it hard to arouse a good mind.

Finally, we spread the loving and compassionate mind, covering vastly throughout the Dharma realm, and keep it up like that for a while.

When contemplating loving-kindness and compassion, we take the trouble to go through each stage carefully like this and only then spread the compassionate mind to cover everything, so that the compassionate mind is deep, great and strong. Otherwise the compassionate mind will be superficial and sketchy. Each session of contemplating compassion like this takes about ten minutes, yet the merit for many later lives is truly immeasurable. Those who have left home especially must cultivate the loving mind all the more, to be a refuge for lay Buddhists and a firm pillar for the Buddha's Teaching.

Whoever sets their intention to love beings naturally has a radiance light up in their mind that the devas can see. The devas, looking down at the human world, see it as if pitch black with hatred and violence. But in that darkness, the heart of anyone with a loving mind lights up clearly and draws the devas' attention. Whoever practises the loving mind regularly will gradually show a radiance on their face that ordinary people can also sense.

c. In daily life

Practising the Loving Mind in daily life means knowing how to arouse love the moment our eyes meet any person in this life. At first we are not used to setting our intention like this, so it will be very hard, but once we are used to it we will feel our mind change in a very strange way.

When we step out on the street and see this person and that, strangers and acquaintances alike, we tell ourselves, "I vow to love these people."

Later, once we are skilled, we no longer need to bring up that sentence; the moment our eyes meet someone, compassion is sent to them right away.

Practising like this for a long time, our eyes will become very loving. In the Shorter Discourse on the Gosinga Sāl Wood, the saints are described as living in harmony with each other and always looking at each other with loving, kindly eyes. Their eyes are kindly towards each other because when they look at each other they always send fondness along. Just as those saints did, we too must always send love along with our eyes whenever we look at one another.

Then when we ride through crowded streets, with vehicles going every which way, we suddenly realise that until now we have been indifferent, cold, dry and barren towards so many people in this life. Now we must redeem it by silently telling ourselves, "I love everyone like this, I love everyone like this."

Before we knew how to practise, we may have secretly loved one or two people; now that we know how to practise, we quietly love everyone in secret. They need not know. Training like this, we will see our strength in the path grow day by day.

For fellow practitioners, we must love even more. If we cannot love the fellow practitioners around us, then saying we love beings is only false. Being able to love our fellow practitioners is a true sign of the Loving Mind. Fellow practitioners in a temple are in fact only strangers, not blood relatives; it is only because of old bonds and a common aim in practice that we meet under one teacher. It is precisely because we cherish the aspiration for the path that we can love each other, and that is a noble love.

Before, when we loved no one, we saw only our own needs, such as clothes, shoes, medicine, books… Now that we love our fellow practitioners, we will see their needs appear clearly before our eyes and will be surprised that we never saw them like this before. We will see whether our fellow practitioners are well or weak, sad or happy, comfortable or uneasy… and always want to help them a great deal. Even if we do not yet have the ability to meet all their needs, we try to share as much as we can.

Sometimes the old habit of stinginess makes us hesitate in sharing what we have with our fellow practitioners, but if our practice of contemplating loving-kindness and compassion has depth, we will have the strength to overcome the stingy mind and open our hands.

We must learn to love our fellow practitioners kindly before we step out to love and guide countless other beings. A person who has never known how to treat fellow practitioners well has no right yet to say they will love all beings. We vow to love all beings, so we must start by practising with the fellow practitioners around us. Whoever can live well with fellow practitioners, we trust that person can live well with beings later on.

Then there will come times when we face people who plot against, oppose and criticise us in reality. At present, contemplating compassion, we arouse love for those who treated us badly in the past, but in the future we will still face similar situations. That is when we have the chance to assess our strength in the path. Let us see whether at that moment we can hold firm to the words "I vow to love this person" in the mind.

This is hard to practise because at that moment we easily flare up in anger. But we must be determined to do it, because only when we truly can love someone who has offended and plotted against us will we later be steady in stepping out to shoulder responsibility for the Dharma. On the road of work for the path, countless thorns and hardships await us. If we are not equipped with a firm compassionate mind, we will collapse.

3. SIGNS THAT THE LOVING MIND IS PRESENT

There are four signs by which to know that the Loving Mind is present in our own heart.

a. Wanting to help

As has been said, the ordinary psychological law is that when we love someone, we always want to help that person. That love is gratitude from the past appearing again.

Now, with a compassionate mind that loves all beings, we naturally feel a psychological urge to do something so that beings may be at peace and happy. The more compassion, the greater the urge. The more we understand the Path, the more clearly we understand that the nature of life is truly suffering. Around us, everyone suffers if not from one thing then from another. No one is truly and completely happy.

Our fellow practitioners are sick and weak, their aspiration for the path is still young… these still worry us. Many temples do not yet have the strength to teach the people around them… that still worries us.

All these urges show that the compassionate mind is truly present in ourselves.

Conversely, if we conceive of a leisurely life of practice, unconcerned with anyone's suffering, wanting only to fan ourselves in the afternoon and stroll down a dew-wet grassy path, watch the moon rise from a windswept hilltop, or sit sipping a mouthful of fragrant tea and watching the night-blooming cereus slowly open…, we have gone against what the Buddha taught! Lacking compassion, we are feeding the selfishness in our own hearts. And any selfishness in the end leads to suffering.

A person who practises rightly is very busy and works hard and wearily for others, yet the joy in the mind is overflowing. This is very strange. We assume that caring for others will make us weary, but no: on the contrary, precisely because we bring joy to others, our mind naturally has joy and strength. This joy is obtained without being sought.

b. Feeling pity at the suffering of others

The second sign that the Loving Mind is present is feeling pity at the suffering of others. That mind of pity is called Compassion (Bi).

A person who practises rightly stays unmoved when adversity comes to them, but feels pity when they see beings suffer. A person who practises wrongly likes to keep the mind unmoved, even when standing before the pain of others.

We may wonder: surely the saints are not stirred by pity as well?

The answer is that the saints also pity suffering beings, and pity them very deeply; the only difference from us is that their pity is not agitated and boiling as ours is, because they have firm power of concentration.

Our pity for beings comes with anguish and agitation because we do not yet have concentration, but it is still right. If, out of fear of agitation, we do not pity the suffering of beings, we have gone off the Buddha's path. If we are not troubled by the suffering of others, we are gradually entering a state of indifference, coldness and callousness. If everyone were like that, Buddhism would become passive and gradually decline.

We are allowed to be unmoved only by our own adversity; we are not allowed to be indifferent to the pain of others.

In the Four Immeasurables, the Buddha taught his disciples to have immeasurable compassion, that is, to have pity without limit, simply because the suffering in the world is limitless.

c. Rejoicing in the happiness of others

Rejoicing when we see others happy is the Mind of Sympathetic Joy (Hỷ) among the four minds of Loving-kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity.

Ordinarily, it is when we love someone that we rejoice in that person's happiness. Towards people we do not love, their happiness makes us irritated and envious. We are glad when our child passes an exam and annoyed when the neighbour's child passes. That is the way of the world.

But now, as disciples of the Buddha, our love is spread evenly to everyone, and so anyone's happiness makes us glad. Then, when we see others do many good and meritorious deeds, we also must know how to rejoice as if we had done them ourselves. With such a mind of sympathetic joy, the mind of envy will be destroyed completely. Because beings are immeasurable, the merit that can be done is also boundless, and our sympathetic joy is also boundless and immeasurable.

d. Knowing how to forgive

The fourth sign that the Loving Mind is present is knowing how to forgive, that is, the Mind of Equanimity (Xả).

The word Xả has several meanings depending on the category, the group. Xả means letting go, not clinging to the world; xả also means getting past the secret pride in meditative concentration. In the Four Immeasurables, Xả means forgiveness.

Living in this world, unless one has become a Buddha, everyone still has faults. We have shortcomings and so do those around us. What matters is to know how to forgive each other so as to keep loving each other.

The principle of psychology is that when we love someone, we find it easy to forgive them when they are at fault. There are many rebellious, unfilial children, yet their parents patiently keep enduring and forgiving, hoping the child will one day repent and return. Knowing how to forgive is the great virtue of true teachers, saints and sages.

However, there are two extremes that a Buddha's disciple should avoid when seeing the faults of others:

• First, seeing someone's fault, we immediately bring it out to attack, disparage, broadcast and scorn, with a wicked mind.

• Second, seeing someone's fault, we leave them to keep committing it, as if it had nothing to do with us.

Both are mistakes, and both are wrongdoing.

When we see someone's fault and bring it out to disparage, later we will fall into that very fault. Conversely, if we leave them alone, later we too will fall into that very fault. Besides, we may suffer the karmic result of blindness or deafness, because we have turned a blind eye, as if we did not hear or see the mistake of another. Properly, we have a duty to find ways to help the person correct it so that they can progress, and not to leave them alone.

If we have the bond, we can offer our opinion directly; if the bond is slight, we can ask a person of virtue to speak on our behalf. The Buddha's Teaching will be perfected and develop every day if we know how to help each other overcome faults like this. Of course, it is only out of love that we are allowed to speak of a fellow practitioner's faults. Without love we cannot persuade; we only bring more anger and wounded pride.

Thanks to forgiveness we have enough patience to advise others to overcome their faults.

Because beings are immeasurable and their faults are immeasurable, our mind of equanimity must likewise be boundless and immeasurable.

4. THE LOVING MIND BRINGS EXCELLENT MERIT

a. Eight benefits according to the Aṅguttara Nikāya

In the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Buddha says that a person who has become practised in the Loving Mind will gain eight benefits, as follows:

• Being at ease in life, while awake. Our mind is at ease in life because we no longer worry about ourselves. Only selfish people who worry about themselves excessively are tormented and uneasy.

• Being at ease in sleep. If we are at peace in life, then naturally our sleep is peaceful too. However, the Buddha did not speak of a purely psychological cause but of merit. A person with the Loving Mind naturally receives merit falling into the inner mind, which makes the mind very peaceful. Conversely, if we suffer from neurological and brain disorders such as stress, insomnia, turmoil, hallucinations… we should understand at once that it comes from some past fault. If we arouse a loving and compassionate mind towards beings, we will see clear relief.

• Being protected by the devas. As has been said, when we set our intention to love beings, a radiance is sent out at once and the devas see it. The devas are also people who have practised loving-kindness and compassion, so they cherish a person who practises it. The devas will constantly and quietly support and protect us in our life and work.

• Not being harmed by goblins, ghosts and demons. Besides the ability to win hearts, loving-kindness and compassion also results in forming power. Seeing a person with the Loving Mind, non-human beings both cherish and fear them, and so have no intention of harming them. Many people troubled by spirits have skilfully contemplated compassion and been freed from the trouble at once. Contemplating compassion is more effective than binding with spells. Spells bind only temporarily and easily cause resentment. The power of the Loving Mind rises high above to win over beings in those unseen realms.

• Not being harmed by venomous creatures or swords. We are surprised to hear the Buddha certify this for a person practised in the Loving Mind. Because of past karma, we may suffer the troublesome calamities of this world, such as being poisoned, or stabbed by a sword, or shot… These accidents can easily happen to anyone. Yet the Buddha affirms that whoever is practised in the Loving Mind will not suffer these calamities. So we see that the power of the Loving Mind is truly great.

• Being loved by everyone around. This is easy to understand, because a person full of love naturally makes those around them love them. When we have the chance to be among a crowd, let us practise spreading the loving mind to everyone, and we will see interesting results.

• Being born in the heavens at death. We have no doubt at all in holding that a person practised in the Loving Mind will be born in the heavens after death. The heavens are the dwelling of exceedingly holy beings, among whose attributes the compassionate mind holds first place.

• And finally, attaining Liberation. To be liberated, clinging to self must be completely ended. The compassionate mind is an important strength that makes us gradually leave clinging to self. When we love beings, we easily forget ourselves to live an altruistic life. Each concrete act of helping beings is a stroke of the axe felling clinging to self. If we only think about helping others without concrete action, clinging to self hardly wavers at all. So we must truly set our hands to doing concrete things of benefit to beings; that is the road to merit and liberation.

In our mind there always exists a dangerous Self. It is this Self that creates selfishness, greed, hatred and drifting in the cycle of birth and death. But it is also in this very mind that there is a road leading to Nirvana, absolute liberation. We must begin our practice in this inner mind, but we must not stop at this inner mind. The mind is the road, but this road has bandits: the Self.

We must travel this road of the mind through meditative concentration, but however high a degree of concentration we reach, we must not stop at the mind to praise it and glorify it, because that would mean we have not yet escaped the lair of the Self. When concentration is attained, the mind is exquisite, bright, empty and pure, which easily makes us mistakenly think that the final goal has arrived. But that is absolutely not so. However exquisite it is, the Self still secretly exists.

When practising with the famous teachers of his time, Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, the Buddha attained extremely lofty and exquisite states of meditative concentration. But the Buddha soon doubted the existence of the Self and so took his leave. Only when he entered concentration for forty-nine days under the Bodhi tree did the Buddha truly escape from the mind's consciousness, end clinging to self, and become the whole universe, attaining Perfect and Complete Enlightenment.

We must take that example for our life of practice, that is, always stay vigilant about the Self. However deep our ethical attainment, however lofty our meditative attainment, let us tell ourselves that we have still not escaped the deeply hidden clinging to self. Knowing this, we do not become complacent and self-satisfied.

The Nirvana the Buddha found is not within the mind but is the essence of the whole universe. But to find that Nirvana, we must travel this road of the mind to its end, through meditative concentration. The compassionate mind will be one of the means that carry us along this road of the mind.