What
Buddhists Believe
Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera
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Loving-Kindness
What is lacking in the world today is
loving-kindness or goodwill.
In
the world today, there is sufficient material wealth. There are very
advanced intellectuals, brilliant writers, talented speaker, philosophers,
psychologists, scientists, religious advisors, wonderful poets and
powerful world leaders. In spite of these intellectuals, there is no real
peace and security in the world today. Something must be lacking. What is
lacking is loving-kindness or goodwill amongst mankind.
Material gain in
itself can never bring lasting happiness and peace. Peace must first be
established in man's own heart before he can bring peace to others and to
the world at large. The real way to achieve peace is to follow the advice
given by religious teachers.
In order to practise
loving-kindness, one must first practise the Noble Principle of
non-violence and must always be ready to overcome selfishness and to show
the correct path to others. The fighting is not to be done with the
physical body, because the wickedness of man is not in his body but in his
mind. Non-violence is a more effective weapon to fight against evil than
retaliation. The very nature of retaliation is to increase wickedness.
In order to practise
loving-kindness, one must also be free from selfishness. Much of the love
in this world of self-centered, only a love of one is own self:
'Not out of love
for the husband loved; but the husband is loved for love of self. Children
are loved by the parents, not out of love for the children, but for love
of self. The gods are loved, not out of love for the gods, but for love
for self. Not out of love is anybody loved, but for love of self are
loved.'
Man should learn
how to practise selfless love to maintain real peace and his own
salvation. Just as suicide kills physically, selfishness kills spiritual
progress. Loving-kindness in Buddhism is neither emotional or selfish. It
is loving-kindness that radiates through the purified mind after
eradicating hatred, jealousy, cruelty, enmity and grudges. According to
the Buddha, Metta _ Loving-kindness is the most effective method to
maintain purity of mind and to purify the mentally polluted atmosphere.
The word 'love'
is used to cover a very wide range of emotions human beings experience.
Emphasis on the base animal lust of one sex for another has much debased
the concept of a feeling of amity towards another being. According to
Buddhism, there are many types of emotions, all of which come under the
general term 'love' First of all, there is selfish love and there is
selfless love. One has selfish love when one is concerned only with the
satisfaction to be derived for oneself without any consideration for the
partner's needs or feelings. Jealousy is usually a symptom of selfish
love. Selfless love, on the other hand, is felt when one person surrenders
his whole being for the good of another _parents feel such love for their
children. Usually human beings feel a mixture of both selfless and selfish
love in their relationships with each other. For example, while parents
make enormous sacrifices for their children, they usually expect something
in return.
Another kind of love, but
closely related to the above, is brotherly love or the love between
friends. In a sense, this kind of love can also be considered selfish
because the love is limited to particular people and does not encompass
others. In another category we have sexual love, where partners are drawn
towards each other through physical attraction. It is the kind that is
most exploited by modern entertainment and it can cover anything from
uncomplicated teenage infatuations to the most complex of relationships
between adults.
On a scale
far higher than these, is Universal Love or Metta. This
all-embracing love is the great virtue expressed by the Buddha. Lord
Buddha, for example, renounce His kingdom, family and pleasures so that He
could strive to find a way to release mankind from an existence of
suffering. In order to gain His Enlightenment, he had to struggle for many
countless lives. A lesser being would have been disheartened, but not the
Buddha-elect. It is for this He is called 'The Compassionate One'. The
Buddha's boundless love extended not only to human beings but all living
creatures. It was not emotional or selfish, but a love without frontiers,
without discrimination. Unlike the other kinds of love, Universal
love can never end in disappointment or frustration because it expects no
reward. It creates more happiness and satisfaction. One who cultivates
universal love will also cultivate sympathetic joy and equanimity and he
will then have attained to the sublime state.
In this book, The Buddha's
Ancient Path Ven. Piyadassi says:
'Love is an
active force. Every act of the loving one is done with the stainless mind
to help, to succor, to cheer, to make the paths of others easier, smoother
and more adapted to the conquest of sorrow, the winning of the highest
bliss.
'The way to
develop love is through thinking out the evils of hate, and the advantages
of non-hate; through thinking out according to actuality, according to
karma, that really there is none to hate, that hate is a foolish way of
feeling which breeds more and more darkness, that obstructs right
understanding. Hate restricts; love release. Hatred strangles; love
enfranchises. Hatred brings remorse; love brings peace. Hatred agitates;
love quietens, stills, calms. Hatred divides; love unites. Hatred hardens;
love softens. Hatred hinders; love helps. And thus through a correct study
and appreciation of the effects of hatred and the benefits of love, should
one develop love.'
In Metta
Sutta, the Buddha has expounded the nature of love in Buddhism. 'Just
as a mother would protect her only child even at the risk of her own life,
even so, let him cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let his
thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world, above, below and
across without any obstruction, without any hatred, without any enmity.'
-ooOoo-
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Source: Buddhist
Study and Practice Group, http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Clubs/buddhism/
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Layout: Chan Duc - Nguyen Thao
Update : 01-11-2002
