Whoever is sure of falling into the three inferior realms
Due to having committed verbal and physical misdeeds
Will be purified by loving-kindness.169 A tantra also says:
Loving-kindness purifies anger into its own state.
It perfects mirror-like wisdom.170
Third, loving-kindness is therefore our best defense against adversity—because it purifies the negative emotions that create negative karma. Je Tsongkhapa writes that loving-kindness “is the best protection for you—the Buddha tamed demons through the power of his loving-kindness.”171
Fourth, meditations on loving-kindness give us the strength, confidence, and skill to take both the happiness and suffering of our lives as the path to enlightenment. They teach us to take whatever we see, hear, and feel as the means and expression of loving-kindness in various forms.
Some Specific Benefits
Meditators of loving-kindness receive many other specific benefits, too. The Buddha enumerated eleven:
I will teach you eleven benefits. What are the eleven benefits? They sleep comfortably and wake up comfortably. They will not have un-virtuous dreams. People adore them. Nonhuman beings adore them. Gods protect them. They will not be harmed by fire, poison, or weapons. Their minds will always be joyful. Their faces will be clear. Their minds will be at peace when they die. They will be reborn in celestial realms because of their mindfulness [of morality].172
Nagarjuna also lists the benefits of loving-kindness:
Celestial beings and humans will be kind to you.
They will protect you.
You will enjoy a happy mind and much more happiness.
You will not be harmed by poison or weapons.
You will achieve your goals without effort.
You will take rebirth in the celestial realms.
Even if you could not attain liberation,
You will enjoy these eight benefits [as the result of] loving-kindness.173
Je Tsongkhapa also noted:
If you have loving-kindness, celestial and human beings will adore you. They will come to you effortlessly.174
LOVING-KINDNESS LEADS US TO BUDDHAHOOD VIA THE TWO ACCUMULATIONS
By successfully completing the training on loving-kindness, we will realize all the accomplishments of the Mahayana path with its two levels of bodhichitta. Generating the thought of wishing joy and enlightenment for all is the practice of aspirational bodhichitta. Actually implementing that thought by training in the Six Perfections is engaged bodhichitta:
The aspect of opening our heart of loving-kindness widely for all is giving, or generosity.
Preserving loving-kindness without letting it be stained by negative thoughts, emotions, or acts is discipline.
Remaining in loving-kindness by tolerating any hardship is patience.
Exerting ourselves in loving-kindness with great enthusiasm without letting ourselves be swayed by laziness is diligence.
Dwelling in loving-kindness without distraction is contemplation.
Seeing and realizing the different stages of loving-kindness as they are, particularly loving-kindness free from concepts, is wisdom.
LOVING-KINDNESS ACCOMPLISHES THE TWO ACCUMULATIONS VIA THE SIX PERFECTIONS
Loving-kindness meditations lead us to Buddhahood through the “two accumulations”—of merits and of wisdom. We need both accumulations to become a Buddha. The first five of the Six Perfections are the accumulation of merits. The sixth perfection—the perfection of wisdom— is the accumulation of wisdom.
By accumulating merits, we attain the “form bodies” of Buddhahood with which to serve others. By accumulating wisdom, we attain the “ultimate body” of Buddhahood, free from inherent and transitory obscurations. Nagarjuna writes:
The form bodies of the Buddhas
Are generated from the accumulation of merits.
The ultimate body
Is generated from the accumulation of wisdom.175
Loving-kindness is, in short, the most profound training that exists. As Karma Chagme says:
To develop loving-kindness and compassion is to develop bodhichitta. There is no training more profound than these in either the sutras or tantras. Please do not be lax in practicing them.176
PART THREE
LOVING-KINDNESS IN DAILY LIFE
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HEALING PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ILLS
THE POWER OF OUR DEVOTION to the Buddha and our unconditional love toward all heal our life’s mental, physical, and karmic ills; reduce our stress, confusion, and pain; make the power of our heartfelt loving-kindness blossom; and awaken the enlightened nature of our mind. In many sutras and tantras, thinking or praying to the Buddha of Loving-Kindness from the heart is recommended as the key to pacifying and healing illness and fear.
Healing Physical Ills
The Buddha said:
If you remember the Lord Avalokiteshvara . . .
The torments of birth, old-age, and sickness will be pacified.177
When I was growing up in Tibet, sick people generally went first to a Lama and then to the doctor for medicine. That wasn’t just because of the culture, but because it seemed that prayers healed more effectively than medicines. We believed that prayer addressed the karmic disorders that are the roots of disease. Many people were visibly healed through prayer and meditation, including on loving-kindness.
You can use the following loving-kindness meditation to help heal physical sicknesses, yours and others’, by yourself. Loving-kindness is the most powerful healing meditation. So if you can do it by yourself effectively, you will be your own most effective healer. If you are working with a patient, visualize the patient, as well as yourself, going through the healing meditation.
VISUALIZATION FOR PHYSICAL HEALING
Begin by visualizing the Buddha of Loving-Kindness sitting in space before you as the source of healing blessings. Believe from the depth of your heart that he is the embodiment of the wisdom, love, and power of all the enlightened ones, and that he has the power to heal all diseases with their causes.
Then pray with devotion and trust in the Buddha and his power from the depth of your heart by singing or reciting, aloud or silently, the sacred Six-Syllable Prayer hundreds and thousands of times to heal all the sickness in the world, or the sickness of a particular person with its causes and conditions.
Think and feel that your mind is fully open to the Buddha with the energy of devotion and trust and to his healing power and the prayers. Then, from the Buddha’s body, visualize that the healing power of his omniscient wisdom, unconditional love, and boundless power is radiating in the form of bright and colorful light (or blessing nectar of light) with blissful heat energy. Those beams of blessing light are infused with the energy force of his loving-kindness, his wish for joy for all beings. Those lights enter your body and suffuse it from head to toe.
Visualize that all your diseases with their causes are in the form of darkness in your body, wherever they may be located, and feel them. Then visualize and feel that every particle of your body is fully filled by the Buddha’s blessing light of unconditional love.
All the diseases in the form of darkness are slowly but completely dispelled and purified without leaving a trace behind, like the clearing of darkness on the earth by the sun’s bright daylight.
Repeat this exercise many times and enjoy the feeling of being free from the disease.
Then repeatedly think and feel that every particle of your body is filled with the blessing lights of wisdom, love, and power with blissful energies of the Buddha. Every particle is transformed into boundless particles of blessing light with blazing blissful heat. Every particle of your body is breathing—exhaling and inhaling—the blissful heat energy waves of loving-kindness with sounds of the Six-Syllable Mantra. Repeat this many times.
If you are a beginner, take extra time to focus your mental and physical energies on whatever meditation you are doing, and try to relax or open fully and boundless
ly. Repeating the same meditation over and over helps activate, strengthen, and concentrate the energies of mind and body. It also makes them open, peaceful, and expansive, just as repeatedly tightening and relaxing the muscles during exercise strengthens them and expands the body’s energy.
As you enjoy the healing process of your physical body, you are also healing your mental ailments, since the mind is the one experiencing the power of the healing process of the body.
VISUALIZING NECTAR OF LIGHT
You could also use nectar of light as the healing agent. If you prefer that, then visualize and feel that from the body of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness, his wisdom, love, and power pour forth in the form of a blessing stream of nectar of light that floods down into you through the force of his loving-kindness.
All your sicknesses and their causes are in the form of filth, blood, and pus in your body. The stream of nectar fully fills your body’s every particle. All the filth is completely washed away by the powerful stream of nectar, like dirt washed from a vessel. All the impurities pour out through the lower doors and pores of your body. Not even a trace of dirt is left.
Or you could think that the blissful heat of the nectar stream melts all the tumors of your body, as hot water melts snowflakes or sunlight melts frost—simply by touching them. The residues of the tumors then exit your body without remainder. All the ill effects of toxins and harmful organisms are washed out by the force of the flow of nectar, without leaving a speck behind. All the diseases caused by the imbalances in the elements and temperature of the body are dissolved and washed away in the form of impurities. All injuries caused by evil forces are expelled in the form of blood, pus, and phlegm. All evil deeds and evil habits that you have been harboring are washed out in the form of smoke and silt.
At the end, the impurities that are washed out of your body amass in outer space, where they dissolve and evaporate into the emptiness of space, without leaving any trace, like water evaporating in the summer heat or clouds fading away into the sky.
Your body is now clean, pure, healthy, translucent, and glowing with pure light, filled with the feeling of blissful heat and power. Your body has transformed into a body of blessing nectar of light—light of wisdom, love, and power—with incredible blissful heat.
Finally, when you are ready, rest in the state of the union of loving-kindness and openness—that is, the loving-kindness that is free from concepts. In that state, there is no subjective or objective duality, no positive or negative thoughts, no attachment or hate, and no joyful or painful sensations. Or at least, just rest in greater peace, as much as you can.
The power of your meditation, with devotion in the Buddha and his unconditional love, heals your mental, physical, and karmic ills. It frees you from mental stress, confusion, and anguish. It allows the power of your heartfelt loving-kindness to blossom. And it awakens the enlightened nature of your mind.
Healing Mental Ills
Mental and emotional issues are generally very responsive to loving-kindness meditations if we are open to them.
In life, everyone encounters mental and emotional pain. According to Buddhism, the root source of these challenges, as with everything we experience, is the mind. Our mental and emotional pain is rooted in our mind’s grasping at this or that. Our mind grasps because we do not realize that these objects and experiences are not objectively real, as we believe they are. Rather, they are projections and designations of our mind. That is why the more we entertain anxiety, the more our mental ills increase. Shantideva writes: “People who harbor anxiety will face more problems.”178
Yet it is precisely because emotional pain and unhappiness are created by and experienced by the mind that they can also be healed by the mind. We can eliminate many emotional or mental issues through prayer and meditation. The important thing is to use the emotional obstacles we face to awaken and deepen spiritual qualities like devotion and loving-kindness and to learn to apply these qualities to minimize, eliminate, or even welcome challenges so that they become a support in our life’s spiritual journey.
MEDITATION TO HEAL EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS
Let us start with a guided meditation to heal emotional problems, your own or others’. If you are trying to help someone else, you can visualize them and yourself doing the meditation.
Begin by developing trust from the depth of the heart in the Buddha of Loving-Kindness’s omniscient wisdom, unconditional love for all, and boundless power to heal mental suffering with its causes and conditions.
Pray to the Buddha with great devotion from the heart to pacify and heal all your mental suffering with their causes—as many times as you can.
Then visualize and feel that from the Buddha’s body come the blessings of his body, speech, and mind and the blessings of his omniscient wisdom, unconditional love, and boundless power to heal you. The blessings are in the form of beams of light with powerful blissful heat. Every particle of your body is fully filled by the bright blessing lights. Let them ease your mind. Just rest in them for a while.
Visualize that your mental pain with its causes are in the form of darkness in your body. See and feel them for a while.
Then see that the brightness and warmth of the Buddha’s blessing lights enter you, thanks to the power of your devotion to the Buddha and the power of his unconditional love. See that the lights fully dispel and purify that darkness from your physical body, energy cycle, and mindstream.
Keep enjoying the incredible blissful heat of the bright blessing lights. Take time to sunbathe in the warmth of the Buddha’s light of unconditional love. Feel that any feelings of sadness, pain, and fear dissolve in the total security and warmth of the Buddha’s loving-kindness, like a child finally reunited with his or her loving parents. Soak in the feeling of being unconditionally loved, as if taking a long, warm bath. Try to rest in that without letting your mind wander. Inhale and exhale as the waves of the energies of happiness and joy expand from your heart with the sound of the Six-Syllable Mantra, recited aloud or silently.
Think with your mind, feel in your body, and trust in your heart that your body and mind are purified—not in some vague, generic, superficial way, but deeply and thoroughly in detail. Every particle of your body and every aspect of your mind has been purified and transformed into a stream of joyful thoughts and radiant light—the light of wisdom, love, and power of the Buddha with blissful heat brought by the boundless loving energy waves of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness.
THE HEALING BENEFITS OF THIS MEDITATION
This meditation can totally pacify and purify your suffering without leaving any trace and replace it with the enormous wealth of virtues of loving-kindness. This is due to the power of the Buddha’s healing blessings, your virtuous thoughts in general, and your meditation on loving-kindness in particular.
The words of the Third Dodrupchen below, although he is speaking about compassion, apply equally to loving-kindness. The qualities and benefits of compassion and loving-kindness are, after all, the same. The Third Dodrupchen says:
In the Abhidharma179 it is said that “illness is the maturation of a violent deed, while compassion is an action totally free from violence.” That is why the Buddha of Compassion [and Loving-Kindness] is the supreme deity [for healing]. Precisely because of these points, it is said that Jowo [Atisha]180 was renowned for “his greatness in healing illness due to his having abandoned violence.”181
Recognize, appreciate, and enjoy the feeling that your suffering has been transformed into peace, joy, and strength, or whatever improvement you made, big or small.
ADDITIONAL WAYS TO HANDLE MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL CHALLENGES
In addition to this meditation, if you are able, there are a number of other ways in which to work with mental and emotional suffering and turn it into a support for our spiritual path.
1. Acceptance. When some person or situation causes us pain, sadness or fear, our usual reaction is to blame them and get angry at them. Instead, try to accept the problem gr
acefully, as it is the result of your own past karma. Take it as the blessing of the Buddha: by experiencing it now, you will later be free from that negative karmic debt and have a brighter future. This understanding helps heal you since, by welcoming suffering with a positive mind-set and seeing it as the Buddha’s blessing, you are purifying your negative karmas.
2. Endurance. Instead of focusing on healing your own pain, think and wish that the pain of all beings merges into your pain and that you are enduring the pain so that they won’t have to endure it. Then tolerate it on behalf of all beings with loving-kindness. This meditation helps heal suffering through the power of loving-kindness and illness.
3. Rest in openness. Rather than trying to eliminate the pain, look at the true nature of the pain itself and rest in it without modifications. To be able to do this effectively, you need to be well trained in the experience of the ultimate nature, such as taught in the Ultimate Buddha Stage. When you look at the pain with openness, you can enjoy the awareness of the openness nature. So the true nature of the pain and the nature of your mind unite as the realization of ultimate wisdom. Then dualistic mental concepts, the root of pain and suffering, dissolve into the ultimate state.
The Heart of Unconditional Love Page 13