“Tulku Thondup has truly given us a powerful new approach to loving-kindness meditation. Utilizing the peace and joy generated by devotion, we are guided through embodying love, experiencing the whole universe as love, and ultimately realizing loving-kindness free from concept. This book is a rare treasure.”
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
“Warm, inviting, authentic, and complete, this book highlights Tulku Thondup’s special gift for conveying the richness of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in an enchantingly open, profound, and imaginative way. Taking the Buddha of Loving-Kindness, Avalokiteshvara, as the focus and inspiration, he offers a wonderful step-by-step guide to how we can all tap into the wellspring of unconditional love that we have within us and allow it to permeate every aspect of our lives.”
—Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
ABOUT THE BOOK
The unconditional love that we all long for can be experienced in the practice of loving-kindness. In this popular form of meditation, the love inherent to our own nature is gradually expanded until it embraces infinite beings. Tulku Thondup introduces a new four-stage format for this practice, rooted in the traditional teachings of Tibetan Buddhism: We first meditate on the Buddha of Loving-Kindness as a body of unconditional love and receive his blessings. This spontaneously awakens his unconditional love in our heart. We then find the whole world reflecting back to us as a world of love and peace. Finally, we remain in oneness in the realization of ultimate love.
TULKU THONDUP RINPOCHE was born in East Tibet and was recognized to be a tulku at age five. He studied at Tibet’s famed Dodrupchen Monastery, settling in India in 1958 and teaching for many years in its universities. He came to the United States in 1980 as a visiting scholar at Harvard University. For the past three decades he has lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he writes, translates, and teaches under the auspices of the Buddhayana Foundation. His numerous books include The Healing Power of Mind, which has now been published in eighteen languages, and Boundless Healing, which has been published in eleven languages.
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SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com
© 2015 by Tulku Thondup Rinpoche
The Buddhayana Foundation Series XIII
Line art on previous page by Robert Beer, used with permission.
Photograph of Shadakshari Avalokiteshvara reproduced courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 2005.
Standing Avalokiteshvara painting by Zashi Nima, photograph reproduced with permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Thondup, Tulku, author.
The heart of unconditional love: a powerful new approach to loving-kindness meditation / Tulku Thondup.
pages cm
eISBN 978-0-8348-0053-3
978-1-61180-235-1 (paperback)
1. Meditation—Buddhism. 2. Compassion—
Religious aspects—Buddhism. I. Title.
BQ5612.T49 2015
294.3′4435—dc23
2014020623
In memory of Elsie P. Mitchell
CONTENTS
PREFACE
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Opening Verse
Part One
VIEW: WHAT IS LOVING-KINDNESS AND HOW TO DEVELOP IT
1. The Importance of Training Our Mind
2. Essential Tools for Meditation
3. Devotion and Trust: The Keys Loving-Kindness
4. The Essence of Loving-Kindness
5. The Four Buddha Stages
Part Two
PRACTICE: MEDITATIONS ON
LOVING-KINDNESS
6. Meditation on the Outer Buddha
7. Meditation on the Inner Buddha
8. Meditation on the Universal Buddha
9. Meditation on the Ultimate Buddha
10. Enhance the Effects
11. Move Forward Step by Step
12. Dedications and Aspirations
13. Benefits of Loving-Kindness Meditation
Part Three
LOVING-KINDNESS IN DAILY LIFE
14. Healing Physical and Mental Ills
15. Dealing with Challenging People
16. Daily Activities as Training in Loving-Kindness
17. Compassion Meditation
18. Rebirth in the Pure Land
Part Four
THE PRACTICES IN BRIEF
19. Prayer Texts
20. The Four-Stage Meditations in Brief
Closing Verse
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
E-mail Sign-Up
PREFACE
This book differs in significant ways from my earlier book, The Healing Power of Loving-Kindness (2009). That work emphasizes the development of loving-kindness in the traditional way, which focuses first on individuals such as a loved one (for example, one’s mother) and then on others. The uniqueness of the present book is that it offers new ways of applying loving-kindness meditation, as well as new and more effective ways of perfecting the highest states of loving-kindness, unconditional love.
In this book, we try from the very beginning to generate unconditional love in ourselves by feeling the Buddha’s unconditional love through devotion and to serve others with that love. We try to see the whole world as a world of unconditional love and to perfect the ultimate unconditional love that is free from concepts. I have not explicitly written about this anywhere else, nor seen it in other books. This is the first time I have talked about transforming oneself and the world through this meditation. Yet, at the same time, this presentation extracts the very heart essence of Buddhism’s ageless wisdom teachings.
The transformation is anchored in the fact that when our mind is immersed in loving-kindness, it becomes a mind of loving-kindness, and all our perceptions and actions reflect that. This premise is so simple, so understandable, and so logical. It is a new way of presenting, thinking about, and conceiving of ourselves and the world as the heart of the Buddha’s loving-kindness and of finding the Buddha within. The origin of the book and how I came to discover the method of loving-kindness meditation according to “Four Buddha Stages” are explained in the Introduction.
There is quite a bit of repetition in the book. Whenever I get the chance, I explain things over and over. That’s because, by repeatedly focusing on the words, meanings, and experiences of loving-kindness, we can better extract its essence, like honeybees accumulating an abundance of nectar by extracting it repeatedly from the flowers. This principle applies in many areas: devotees receive blessings by praying repeatedly; laundry is cleaned by repeated washing cycles; dough is made soft and pliable by repeated kneading; and muscles are made stronger by many “reps” of exercise. Also, with repetition, terms and ideas that are initially strange for many of us—including the meaning and the experience of unconditional love—become understandable, then familiar, then enjoyable—and finally, our own intimate nature.
With the aim of making this book more accessible to readers who are somewhat new to Buddhism, I have added a glossary of ter
ms that might be unfamiliar to some. The endnotes are reserved primarily for scholarly citations and linguistic information. For the sake of brevity, abbreviations keyed to the Bibliography have been used in endnotes for Tibetan-language text titles. (Please see the paragraph introducing the notes for more details.)
I hope it will become clear that you don’t have to be a so-called Buddhist to meditate on and pray to the Buddha of Loving-Kindness. If you belong to another tradition and prefer, you can adapt the methods in this book to pray to and meditate on the source of loving-kindness of your own tradition. The important point is that the source of blessings should be the embodiment of unconditional love for all beings.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Harold Talbott for lending his gifted knowlege and unstinting dedication in editing this book thoroughly, as he has kindly been doing for my writings for over three decades. I am grateful to Lydia Segal, my wife, for carefully editing this book with her literary gifts. Our deeply shared devotion in the beauty of loving-kindness inspired me to offer this book, which is as much her book as mine.
I am greatly indebted to Michael Baldwin for single-handedly providing all the facilities I could possibly want for my research and writing projects. I am thankful to the members and the patrons of The Buddhayana Foundation for most generously supporting my research and writing for the past thirty-three years. I will always be grateful to Fred Segal and Micheline Segal for their kindness and care. I offer my gratitude to my Dharma teachers, loving parents, noble grandparents, and the kind friends who shared their unconditional love in every possible way.
I am deeply thankful to Nikko Odiseos and Samuel Bercholz for providing the perfect channel for the wisdom of unconditional love to reach readers. I am especially indebted to Kendra Crossen Burroughs for refining the book with her true editorial mastery and dedication. I am thankful to Hazel Bercholz and Lora Zorian for their beautiful design work, and to Jonathan Green, Liz Shaw, John Golebiewski, and other staff members at Shambhala Publications for bringing this book into final form with indispensable care. Appreciation is also due to L. S. Summer for her well-crafted index.
For the image of the two-armed Avaloketeshvara, I am grateful to Lama Wangchen Phuntsog for his kindness in facilitating it so amazingly just in the nick of time, to Zashi Nima for beautifully painting it, and to Jim Rosen for refining the image.
Whatever benefit this book might bring is due to the blessings of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness and the kindness of friends. All the mistakes that have crept in are the reflections of my own ignorant shadow, for which I beg for forgiveness from the Buddha of Loving-Kindness and the forbearing readers.
INTRODUCTION
When you remember the Lord Buddha of Loving-Kindness, Your mind instantly becomes the mind of loving-kindness.
—SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA
LOVING-KINDNESS IS THE ENTRYWAY to the unconditional love that we all long for—in our own hearts, in our relationships, and in the world around us. We define loving-kindness as the heartfelt wish for all beings to have happiness and the causes of happiness, and to put that wish into practice by serving all without self-interest. Loving-kindness enables us to serve others with dedication and authenticity. It is also one of the most effective ways to make ourselves truly happy now and in our future lives.
As it is commonly understood, loving-kindness does not necessarily include the wish that all beings attain enlightenment. However, in this book, I use loving-kindness to mean the wish that all beings have not only happiness, but also full enlightenment—Buddhahood. When used in this way, loving-kindness becomes what is called bodhichitta in Sanskrit. Developing this kind of loving-kindness, or bodhichitta, is the heart core of the Mahayana Buddhist trainings that lead us to enlightenment, and is central to the subject of this book.
A New Approach to Loving-Kindness Meditation
This book introduces a new way to meditate on loving-kindness, based on a four-stage structure. The approach is different from the usual practice in which the meditator begins by thinking lovingly about one single being and then expands that thought to include all beings. Although we will do that in this book as well, the key difference is that we begin by focusing on the unconditional love of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness. This Buddha, known as Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit and as Chenrezi in Tibetan, embodies the qualities of all Enlightened Ones in one. Enlightened Ones are all the same in essence, even though they have different names and forms owing to followers’ different needs and cultures.
With devotion and trust, we will bring the Buddha’s love into our hearts, and from there we expand it gradually until it embraces infinite beings. The idea is similar to sunbathing. As our body absorbs the sun’s heat, it becomes warm and gradually emanates that warmth into our surroundings. In the same way, through devotion and trust in the Buddha, we immerse our mind in his unconditional love, which we then radiate to those around us.
I have been fortunate to enjoy the unimaginable opportunities of growing up in Eastern Tibet at the feet of many true Masters of loving-kindness, who were amazing scholars and adepts of both exoteric (Sutra) and esoteric (Tantra) Buddhist teachings. Now I am engaging in the privilege of sharing a few drops of that wisdom that I was able to pick up with my own eyes, ears, and heart. Even today the memories of those fortunate times always fill my heart with never-ending wonder.
For decades I have been studying Buddhist teachings in general and especially meditations on devotion to the Buddhas and loving-kindness toward all beings. Gradually, over the years, I found that if I could understand the right methods of meditation on devotion and loving-kindness, and if I could earnestly put them into practice, the qualities and habits of my mind and life would slowly become more loving and joyful.
Then in recent years, it began to dawn on me that most Buddhist practices, such as those on devotion and loving-kindness, lead meditators through four distinct stages. The first stage, which I call the Outer Buddha, is to see the Buddha before oneself with devotion. The second stage, which I call the Inner Buddha, is to find the Buddha’s unconditional love within oneself. The third stage, the Universal Buddha, is to awaken to the Buddha everywhere: the whole universe arises as his love. The fourth stage, the Ultimate Buddha, is to be in oneness with the Buddha’s love. I talk about love because that’s my subject here. But any enlightened quality could be substituted for it in this four-stage model. Although the Four Stages are conceptually distinct, each leads infallibly to the next. We can flow from one stage to another without needing to stop and shift gears.
I noticed that when I would regard a person (or any mental object) as embodying loving-kindness and appreciate them that way, then the thoughts and feelings of my own mind became thoughts and feelings of loving-kindness. As long as my mind was steeped in loving-kindness, whatever I saw, heard, or felt turned into phenomena of loving-kindness. The more I remained with thoughts of loving-kindness—as if I had become one with those feelings—the more perfect my experience of pure loving-kindness became. On the other hand, if I couldn’t see or appreciate any qualities of loving-kindness in someone or something, but only related to them through negative feelings like hatred, greed, or jealousy, I never had a chance to manifest any loving-kindness in myself—not even for a moment.
I realized that, although Buddhism had been teaching these four stages throughout the ages, I was starting to understand them for the first time. I felt tremendous joy. The teachings do not make the stages explicit—but they are inherent. I believed that, if I could make the four stages explicit, meditators could focus on mastering each one at a time, making their progress effective and profound. So I came up with a new phrase—“the Four Buddha Stages”— in the hope that I might reach some other beginner Buddhist students like myself.
A number of friends in Tibet kept asking me for years to write something in Tibetan, as they knew that I had published many Dharma books in English over the past decades. They were aware that these books had been translated into q
uite a few languages, but not into Tibetan. So I finally wrote a short book in Tibetan, drawing on the Four Stages, on how to meditate on loving-kindness. The Tibetan title translates as “The Ornament of Motherly Love.” In English the word loving-kindness is customarily used to translate the Sanskrit maitri, which means benevolent love, like the love of a mother who adores her child unconditionally. It is rare to find a person who has as much love as a mother does. The mother is renowned as the highest example of a person of loving-kindness. However, for the English version I changed the title to The Heart of Unconditional Love to hone in on the essence of loving-kindness.
My wife, Lydia Segal, and some Western friends urged me to translate the Tibetan book into English. However, I decided to write a new book directly in English. My purpose in writing this book is not to offer an intellectual text, show off my writing skills, or float any interesting new ideas. My goal is simply to present practices on loving-kindness in the format of a guided meditation to enable readers to directly experience the intrinsic essence of their own inherent loving-kindness. I am thrilled to offer this four-stage meditation formula to Western readers. It is profound in meaning, accessible to all, easy to understand, and effective in getting quick results. It distills the essential meditations and attainments of the whole of Mahayana Buddhism.
The Heart of Unconditional Love Page 1