The Heart of Unconditional Love

by Tulku Thondup

  May I secure the Kingdom, the result.152

  In brief, the loving-kindness that is free from concepts is the union of loving-kindness and emptiness wisdom. It is free from the concepts of subjective and objective elaboration. There is no inflaming of sensations, as it is free from the duality of players and things to be played. At the same time, it is not a neutral state—some kind of spacing out, unconscious, sleepy, or limbo state—as it is the natural awareness state of the boundlessly awakened wisdom with the essence of loving-kindness. It is fully open and all-knowing, as it is free from the constraints and confinements that are imposed by dualistic concepts and afflicting emotions.

  Nevertheless, it is almost impossible for us beginners to even comprehend the idea of seeing anything through nonduality, as we are completely indoctrinated in dualistic, conceptual, and emotional and mental apparatuses. But if you realize the true wisdom that sees all through nondual wisdom eyes, that is free from the triple cycle of grasper, grasped, and grasping, then knowing all as one unity will be the natural way for you to see. It is the simplest yet most profound state to be in. Then the natural radiance of the nondual wisdom will remain blossoming boundlessly as your own ever-present wisdom-light.

  The practices of Buddhism’s “three disciplines” are encompassed within loving-kindness and its actions:

  Meditating on the “four virtuous attitudes” (see chapter 4), and abandoning all thoughts and actions of harming others, is the discipline of the path of individual liberation (Skt. pratimoksha). This is the path of the Theravada tradition.

  Training in bodhichitta and serving the needs of all is the bodhisattva discipline—the path of the Mahayana tradition.

  Meditating on your own “three doors” as the sacred body, speech, and mind of the Buddha and attaining the union of wisdom and loving-kindness free from concepts is the esoteric discipline—the path of the Vajrayana tradition.

  Nonetheless, until you are ready to realize nondual wisdom, unity with Buddha, you must totally rely on meditations that employ dualistic and conceptual devotion and loving-kindness, as they will lead you toward that true union gradually, safely, securely, and surely.

  In the past, teachers often had to persuade their students to move to higher levels of meditations, as students were usually humble and cautious. Today, however, even beginners want to practice only the highest meditations, like the loving-kindness free from concepts or emptiness. They dive into ocean-like meditations without any clue of their depths, whether due to arrogance or being unrealistic.

  The problem is that, if you try to meditate on high teachings like emptiness without adequate preparation from the ground level, you could very easily fall into the extreme views and experiences of nihilism or eternalism, while holding on to a subtle concept or thought of grasping at “a nothing” or “a non-existence.” Or you could become lost in a state of being spaced out, with your mind endlessly floating semi-unconsciously, while you are not aware of anything. If these errors occur, though you might not be committing any gross misdeeds, you would still be very much recycling yourself in the chain of ignorance and confusion, which drag you further from the light of wisdom. True realization is the realization of the union of freedom from grasping at anything and the wisdom of self-awareness. But, again, high realizations will not take place unless you have vigorously trained in the preliminary trainings for a long time. Being smart, prosperous, youthful, or powerful cannot buy true realization.

  10

  ENHANCE THE EFFECTS

  THERE ARE A NUMBER OF THINGS we can do during and after meditating to enhance its effects and guard against pitfalls.

  Rejoicing

  First, rejoicing magnifies the beneficial effects of these meditations. When we are self-critical—thinking, say, that our meditation was too short or not good enough—we take away from its power to help us. Instead, we should rejoice over the blessing energies of joy that free us from our mental tightness, confinement, conflicts, and clashes, and open us to the experience of a new dawn of peace, joy, and confidence. We can actually meditate on rejoicing over any wholesome action, thought, or experience to strengthen its benefits.

  Recognizing Progress

  Second, we should always recognize whatever meditation progress we experience. Doing this will strengthen the experience, hasten our progress, and refine its quality.

  Remembering the Experience to Keep It Alive

  Third, we should use memory and mindfulness to keep our meditation experiences alive. We don’t just fill our body and mind with the blessing light of loving-kindness and the power of blissful heat and then rapidly move on to something else. Instead, we keep the experience alive by contemplating it again and again. Memory has three aspects: not forgetting, being familiar, and not wavering from the memory. Asanga153 writes:

  What is memory? It is not forgetting a familiar object. It functions without wavering.154

  By recalling our meditative experience and remaining in it without wavering, the experience anchors more deeply in our minds and displaces any lingering residues of impurities.

  Protecting the Mind from Negative Experiences

  Fourth, we must be careful to protect our minds from negative mentalities and emotions such as anger and attachment, and preserve our virtuous thoughts and emotions such as loving-kindness and devotion. We do this through mindfulness. Shantideva writes:

  If your wild elephant-like mind is tied

  With the ropes of mindfulness,

  Then all the dangers will disappear and

  All the virtues come into your hands. . . .

  Untamed beings are unlimited as space,

  You will never be able to overcome all.

  Yet, if you could only overcome your hating mind,

  Then you will find it as if you have overcome them all.

  [For example,] where is the leather

  With which you can cover the earth?

  But if you just wear a leather sandal,

  You will find it as if the earth has been covered.

  Likewise, you will not be able to change All the external objects,

  But if you just change your own mind,

  There is no need to change anything else.155

  Exercising Caution about Devotion to Ordinary Objects

  Finally, let me sound a word of caution about devotion to ordinary objects. While it is true that if we have devotion toward any object, even an ordinary one, we will benefit from it because of our mind’s pure perception, an ordinary object still won’t benefit us as much as an object that is truly enlightened. An enlightened object carries great blessings. So although it is good to have positive perception toward everything, we should spend more time and energy on sources of true blessings.

  Also, if the object of our devotion is really negative, it could affect us negatively, directly and indirectly, if we are beginners. So, while we should respect and love all, we should make sure to stay with true spiritual sources, at least until we are very highly accomplished.

  11

  MOVE FORWARD STEP BY STEP

  Advance Step by Step, in Sequence

  It is important to stick with the step-by-step progression of the meditations in this book. Build a solid foundation of trust and devotion to the Outer Buddha in the first stage before focusing too much on the subsequent stages. And when you develop loving-kindness, start with one loved one before including a boundless audience. If you start with a boundless number of beings, your feelings of loving-kindness might be superficial, vague, and generalized—rather than deep, authentic, and personal. Then, even if you want to go back to meditating on one individual at a time, you might feel numb or as if you were new to the meditation. So, as Je Tsongkhapa writes:

  Without individualizing, if you train to meditate [on loving-kindness] toward all beings in general from the beginning, then even if you feel that loving-kindness has arisen in you, when you meditate on an individual being, you will find that loving-kindness has, in fact, never been dev
eloped in you. So you must develop a mind that will give you a transformative experience by doing [loving-kindness] meditation on an individual person. . . . Then slowly increase the number of people on whom you focus in your meditation. At the end, focus on all in general. Thereafter, loving-kindness will arise in you whether you are focusing on an individual person or on all in general.156

  Elevate Your Training as Your Experiences Improve

  How quickly should you go through each stage? That depends solely on how deep and strong your existing meditation experiences and attainments are. Until you are ready, you must exert yourself in the stage on which you are working.

  Buddhist trainees like me have supposedly been pursuing the right trainings consistently from day one, since we met the Dharma. In reality, however, we exhaust the cycle of days and nights of our lives by carelessly indulging in endless mundane activities, such as the ten mental, vocal, and physical unvirtuous deeds. Greed, hatred, and ignorance are the three unvirtuous deeds of the mind. Telling lies, divisive speech, harsh words, and gossip are the four unvirtuous deeds of speech. Killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct are the three unvirtuous deeds of the body.

  According to Buddhism, the result of living a life filled with negative emotions and unvirtuous deeds is endless suffering in this life and rebirth in lower realms in the next. Nagarjuna explains:

  By desire you take rebirth as a hungry ghost being.

  By anger you are cast into a hell realm.

  By ignorance, you go mostly to the animal realm.

  By the opposite of these you take rebirth in the human or god realms.157

  Even if we are able to take rebirth as a human again, if we have done negative deeds, it is certain that we will be tormented by the three sufferings: sufferings upon sufferings (one cause of pain piles up on another), sufferings of change (reversals of fortune), and all-pervasive sufferings (the inerent unsatisfactoriness of ordinary life).

  So now is the time to recognize that the precious days and nights of our life are flying swiftly by, and that we are spending them mostly in idleness. If we keep to this course, we are bound to suffer in the future. So like a fashion model whose hair has caught fire, we must rouse ourselves from our torpor and rush to exert all our knowledge and power to forge ahead on the path of Dharma, which will liberate us from the pit of pain.

  As beginners, we must dive into the spiritual journey by starting to train on the path of common teachings (Sutra). We must lay a strong foundation of a true spiritual life by following the ten virtuous deeds, which are refraining from the ten unvirtuous deeds. This will assure us happiness and peace in the future.

  We must work directly on improving our minds by training in serious Dharma meditations that rely on the most powerful source of blessings, such as the Buddha of Loving-Kindness. We must sincerely pray to him with total devotion and receive the blessings of his loving-kindness. This way, our minds will become increasingly loving and kind.

  Training in the Five Perfections

  We must practice devotion and loving-kindness, which are the essence of the Six Perfections taught in Mahayana. The first five of these perfections are embodied in the first three Buddha Stages. They are:

  Training in giving with generosity

  Preserving moral discipline

  Maintaining patience

  Striving with diligence for virtuous deeds

  Remaining in contemplation one-pointedly

  Honing these five will enable us to reach the sixth perfection, wisdom, which is the essence of the Fourth Buddha Stage.

  If we could do this, we will pacify the miseries that are caused by our own three poisonous thoughts and emotions. We will be sustained by the splendors of wholesomeness and happiness. We will accumulate merits and benefit others. After death, we will have the joy of rebirth in higher realms, even in manifested pure lands, such as the Blissful Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha.

  Even if our meditation is not perfect, even if we don’t transcend duality and emotion, our practice will still be beneficial. So when we’re meditating on devotion, for instance, we might be grasping at the object of our devotion. But we will nevertheless be holding on to that object’s virtuous aspects, which are ultimately sources of peace, joy, and openness. Even if, when we’re meditating on loving-kindness, we have thoughts of clinging to positive deeds and happiness, those are still positive thoughts, and they’ll help us and others. Whenever we do anything positive that is inspired by beneficial intentions, it will become a source of peace and joy.

  So even though our ultimate goal may be to attain the Universal Buddha realizations that are free from grasping, to get there we need to start by developing a positive mind-set and act accordingly.

  It is by beginning with the Outer Buddha Stage, and the meditations that involve subjective-objective duality and concepts, that pure perception, devotion, loving-kindness, and wisdom will grow in us. Our step-by-step progress on this path will gradually loosen the tightness of our grip of grasping at self—“I” and “me,” “this” and “that”—which is responsible for keeping us tightly bound in samsara. Our sense of contentment will grow and ease our wildfire-like attachment, desire, and lust. We will strengthen the force of our loving-kindness, pacifying our hurricanes of dislike, hatred, and anger. The brightness of wisdom will dispel the darkness of ignorance. The energies of devotion and trust in the Buddha and loving-kindness toward all beings will gradually blossom like flowers in sunlight. The thoughts of wishing joy for all beings boundlessly without conditions will awaken boundless openness, absolute peace, and limitless joy in us.

  For a novice like me, there is no other way to enter the Dharma than by grasping on to virtuous objects and deeds at the beginning. Meditating on loving-kindness will initially be dualistic. But that’s what enables us to start because that’s where most of us beginners are. Remember, even if it is dual, it is still positive. And positive gradually leads to perfection, as we release the tightness of our mental grip of grasping and obsessions of our wants and needs. So meditations that start with positive dualistic grasping are indispensable to our eventually perfecting realization.

  Amazing Devotees I Have Known

  In Golok province of Eastern Tibet, where I was born and grew up, I knew many older laymen and laywomen who joyfully and vigorously prayed with unreserved devotion to the Buddha of Loving-Kindness and enjoyed heartfelt blessings.

  Many of them were illiterate, in the Western sense. But in reality, they not only knew how to recite all the essential prayers and pray with true love for mother-beings and devotion to the Buddha, but they also did so sometimes more earnestly than many well-educated monks and nuns. Yet many of these laypeople knew very little about the fancy interpretations and complex meanings of the textual teachings. They weren’t really interested in theoretical views of different traditions. Nor where they interested in becoming logicians who could criticize, defend, and refute intellectual and doctrinal arguments. They didn’t care whether they could cite historical or bibliographical evidence. Most weren’t interested in performing elaborate ceremonial liturgies.

  But these laypeople had something that was far more precious: absolute trust, confidence, and devotion to the Buddha of Loving-Kindness and his unconditional love, as instructed by their teachers. They fully believed in his power to protect them from misfortune and fulfill all their needs if they prayed sincerely from their hearts. With this trust and devotion, they continuously recited the Six-Syllable Prayer as their daily spiritual prayer to the Buddha, day and night, unless they were asleep. While walking or sitting, even while eating and drinking, somewhere, somehow, the waves of devotional prayer were always alive on their breath. Even while they were asleep, if they woke up for a second or two in the night, I would hear them starting to recite their prayers a couple of times before they fell back asleep.

  When I was growing up, I remember hearing from the father of my tutor Kyala Khenpo (Chechog Dondrub Tsal), whose name was Yumko of Kyala and who was
then in his eighties, that when he was in bed, he held his prayer beads on his stomach as he was counting prayers instead of resting his hand on his bed. That way, he explained, the movements of the beads would keep him awake longer, so that he could say more prayers.

  These wonderful devotees seem to have transformed the waves of their breath into a cycle of prayer, as if the chain of their thoughts was a continuous flow of devotion and all the waves of the phenomena around them turned into the presence and actions of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness, wishing joy for all.

  That is why these older people, whether they were happy or in pain, rarely seemed to get distracted from the light of love of the Buddha. When they were happy, they would respect it as the blessings of Buddha’s love. When they were sick or suffering, they would still maintain a sense of thankfulness by seeing it as a washing away of their negative deeds (karma) that, thanks to the power of the Buddha’s unconditional care, they wouldn’t have to experience in future. If they lived long, they used their years as an opportunity to pray more to their beloved Buddha and engage in more virtuous deeds for others. If they were dying, they would be pleased as if they were going home, since they fully trusted that the Buddha would lead them to his Pure Land—a Buddha paradise.