On Loving-Kindness
Photo by Biel Morro
Anchoring her talk on the teachings on loving-kindness contained in the Karaniya Metta Sutta, Zuisei speaks on the importance of applying these teachings to oneself, as well as others. For the longer we practice, the more we understand that the lines we draw: inside and outside, self and other, exist nowhere else but in our minds.
“The only thing that stops you is your mind,” Zuisei says, quoting the late Burmese teacher Dipa Ma. But, as Zuisei points out, mind too is vast and without boundaries, which means that the very thing that stops us is unstoppable in itself.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
There were once 500 monks who, after being instructed by the Buddha, each according to their own temperament and abilities, retreated to the foothills of the Himalayas to spend the four months of the monsoon period doing an intensive retreat. But first they had to find a suitable place in which to turn inward, a place that was neither not too cold, not too hot, not too hilly and not too flat, with enough shade to protect them from the noon sun, and with flowing water nearby. They searched and after a while found a beautiful hillock with a cool forest grove and a clear spring. There were a few villages nearby, and also a market, which made this the perfect place for them to go on their alms rounds in the symbiotic relationship that continues to this day.
Back then it was a begging bowl and food offered freely, and in return: a chant, a blessing, a dedication. Today it’s retreats and classes and donations—and it’s not always an easy relationship. Why should I pay for teaching or guidance in that which has no price? The Dharma has no cost, of course, but robes and bowls, instruments and incense, or mics and lights, websites and scheduling software do. Even though I myself am no longer a monk, I rely, to some extent, on your generosity, which makes it possible for me to do what I love, and for that I am deeply, deeply grateful.
In this passage, the monks are looking for a place of practice. It echoes another text where the Buddha is doing exactly the same thing. He’s just eaten some food, deciding that the extremes of asceticism he’s been practicing haven’t gotten him any closer to the freedom he’s seeking, and remembering the deep meditation he effortlessly slipped into as a child, he wonders whether that is the path he’s looking for. Deciding that it is, he goes searching for a place to sit and look inside, a place to get still and quiet, so he can see things as they are.
In search of what is wholesome, seeking the supreme state of sublime peace, I wandered by stages in the Magadhan country until eventually I arrived at Uruvela. There I saw an agreeable piece of ground, a delightful grove with a clear-flowing river with pleasant, smooth banks, and a nearby village for alms-going. The thought occurred to me: ‘This will serve for the striving of a person intent on striving.’ And I sat down there, thinking, ‘This will serve for striving.’
There is nothing extraneous in these teachings. The rhythm, the repetition, the description of a place that is suitable for the kind of work all of us are preparing ourselves to do, are all part of the practice and teaching. Think of how you prepare yourself and your space for your practice of zazen. You make sure the room you’re sitting in is neither too cool nor too warm, has enough air but no drafts. You prepare your mat, your cushion, your bench or your chair. You make sure you’ve eaten so you can concentrate, but not too much that you’ll want to sleep. Perhaps you offer incense or light a candle or touch a photograph of an ancestor, say a prayer, silently or aloud. All of it is readying your body and mind for this inward turning. You could just roll out of bed onto your mat in your pajamas and what would happen on the cushion would be different. The preparation is not a prelude, but part of the practice itself.
After searching, the monks find a place and they decide to settle down. They spend the night in this beautiful grove and the next morning go to the marketplace to do their begging rounds. The villagers decide that they love having them there. They love the daily give and take, which, unbeknownst to anyone, keeps the world in balance. That is my belief, at least, that what so many think of as doing nothing, or as a selfish activity that benefits no one but ourselves is really what’s keeping the world from tipping over. It’s because of the hundreds, thousands, millions of wanderers all over the world sitting silently in caves and deserts and monasteries and temples, apartments and suburban homes, that the connection to the realm of the real is kept alive, it’s what’s keeping us grounded.
Perhaps the villagers recognize this consciously, or maybe it’s just something that they sense, regardless, they ask the monks to stay. They give each of them a little hut on the edge of the forest, with a cot, a stool, and a couple of pots for cooking and bathing. Having their little nests, the monks, delighted, settle in for good. But what neither of them know is that in this same forest there lives a crowd of tree-dwelling devas. They, being a very respectful group of celestial beings, don’t want to be living up in the trees above the monks, so they leave their tree dwellings and retire to the hills surrounding the forest, and there they wait patiently for the monks to leave, thinking they’ll be gone after a day or two. But a week goes by, and then another, and the monks remain and the devas just look on, wondering when they can get their houses back.
Finally, when it becomes clear that the monks are not leaving, the devas gather together and decide that the only thing to do is to frighten them away. They plague them with terrifying visions and make dreadful noises and send a horrible stench. The monks, hard as they try, are unable to concentrate. Day after day they battle the smell and the noise and the apparitions until finally, at the end of their rope, they decide to go see the Buddha and ask his advice. The Buddha, for his part, grasps the situation at a glance and he tells them that there is no better place for them to be. He says, “Monks, it is only by striving there that you will be free, so go back and take with you this chant, which will be your protection.” He teaches them the Karaniya Metta Sutta, the chant on loving-kindness.
Notice what’s happening here:
The Buddha says, “It is only here, in your disappointment at things not being what you want, in the confusion of your mind, in the middle of your restlessness or your boredom or your apathy. It is only here that you’ll find the freedom you want.” Not when your mind is quieter, your body healthier, your life conducive to the kind of practice you think you need to do. It’s in the mess, in the pain, in the discomfort and fear and repulsion and aversion and anger and … and … and … Is it difficult to hear that?
The monks go back to their grove and chant the “Karaniya Sutta” every day. The devas, hearing the words and feeling deeply moved by the monks’ kindness and wisdom, move back in and then they’re the ones who offer the monks protection. The chant, as many of you know, is the portrait of someone who’s decided to make loving-kindness their beacon. It describes the features of a person who’s chosen to be free rather than to be right, one of the most difficult and most profound shifts you’ll ever do in your life.
I’m not going to go through the whole sutra, because it’s long. There’s one short section that I wanted to bring up:
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, forsaking none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born—
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or dislike any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Sometimes, when I chant this sutra in the morning, I wish these qualities for all beings, as the chant says, that we all practice this kind of goodness. Sometimes I very deliberately word it in such a way to ensure I’m doing this myself:
I won’t deceive another or dislike any being in any state. I won’t through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another.
Either way, this passage is saying, Let me not discriminate. Let me not judge, let me not preempt or assume or conclude and therefore dislike another. This is a powerful teaching and, I think it’s equally important to apply it to ourselves, to the many beings in our minds—the dictator, the conspirator, the judge and executioner. The perfectionist, the bully, the critic or the cynic. These are all the many beings who edit your thoughts and feelings. Who stand at the threshold of your mind and say, “That’s an acceptable thought, that one is unacceptable. BadBuddhist, bad!”
Let me set your minds at ease right now. Every single one of us has those thoughts in a moment of jealousy, of anger, of resentment or distrust. The sutra is saying, Don’t harm another, and don’t wish them harm. But it’s also saying, Don’t do that to yourself. Guilt and recrimination won’t help. Denial or avoidance won’t help. What will help? Not deceiving yourself, not forsaking yourself in any way. All those parts of us that we criticize, that we shun or hide or feel embarrassed by, the ones we keep close in order to control, the ones we push away. The mighty thoughts, the medium feelings, the tiny but constant put-downs we throw out without hesitation when we’d never do the same to someone else. Bring them close, the sutra is saying. Make space for them, hold them gently, like a mother protecting her child. Is that difficult to hear?
It’s interesting that we’re willing to make a stand and work hard to right injustice, ecological disaster, corruption, but all the various elements that conspire to create the oppressive society we live in: our insistence in exceptionalism, in supremacy; our obsession to produce and consume; our conviction that worth can be measured; all of these beliefs and the actions that uphold them are inside us as well. In Buddhist terms we’d say, “When this is, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises.” In other words, things co-arise, inside or outside, above or below, this is a basic, irrefutable truth.
White supremacy and patriarchy are systems that have been made possible by people too scared to give up control. Corporations are destroying the environment because of individuals who believe it’s more important to have what you want than to want what you have. Outer work is necessary and so is the inner work, without which no lasting transformation is possible. That’s why I think a big part of the work is what the poet Galway Kinnell said in his poem, “Saint Francis and the Sow”—"sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness." Maybe during the time of the Buddha people were secure enough in their own beingness that they didn’t need to be taught this. They didn’t need to be reminded of their divinity. I think, nowadays, given the state of our world, given the state of our collective body and mind, we do need to relearn our loveliness, our holiness.
And if this sounds too mushy, too soft, of a teaching, too localized to respond to the cries of the world, please consider what takes more courage, to open or to close? Building walls is easy. It’s living in an open space that is hard and true and necessary. For a few hundred years, before there were monasteries, Buddhist wanderers lived in open spaces. They sheltered in caves but they practiced outdoors, in forests and groves and charnel grounds. Saint Francis too forbid his monks from sleeping in any kind of dwelling. There were fewer lines between inside and outside. Now we spend our days in climate-controlled cubicles and we work hard to keep the outside out. We can think of zazen as going inside in order to travel outward. We go in in order to see how vast we truly are.
Science has shown that we’re made of stardust. Spiritual seekers have known that since the beginning of time. So every put down, every criticism, every judgment, is like grabbing a red pen and trying to cross out, with it, little pieces of sky. It’s foolish, absurd, it’s not how things are. If just a few of us knew this, pharmaceutical companies would go bankrupt in a flash, so would drug dealers and distilleries and media companies, all of which count on our numbness to stay afloat. Maybe it’s scary to know we’re the sky, to know we’re vast and without limit. Easier, it seems, to stay contained. I can’t, I’m not, who do you think you are?
Dipa Ma once said, “The only thing that stops you is your mind.” The only thing that stops you is your mind. Yet mind too is vast and without limit which means the very thing that stops us is unstoppable in itself. So, if an hour from now, you’ve forgotten every word of this talk, remember this at least: The very thing that stops you is unstoppable in itself.
This is a fragment from Christian Wiman’s “Small Prayer in a Hard Wind”:
wind seeks and sings every wound in the wood
that is open enough to receive it,
shatter me God into my thousand sounds.
Explore further
01 : Metta: The Philosophy and Practice of Universal Love by Acharya Buddharakkhita
02 : St. Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell
03 : Small Prayer in a Hard Wind by Christian Wiman