Q3-20060303-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSRC-learning_how_to_live_self_knowing_in_action_part_4-4628 Leandra Te

Talk: 20060303-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSRC-learning_how_to_live_self_knowing_in_action_part_4-4628 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00:50:20 Display_question: Is love something that is a mind state that we can attach to, that we can fuel? Keyword_search: love, metta, lovingkindness, insight meditation, Cambodian forest master-Ajahn Mun, mother hen, wife, suicide, Buddha, gratification, ego, relationship, boundless Question_content: Questioner: May I ask you to comment on love. Larry: Sure. Questioner: The nature of it. Larry: Sure. Questioner: As related to the comment you made earlier, in the sense that you, and your partner, are different. Larry: Different on externals. Sure. Questioner: Different on what? Larry: On externals. Questioner: On externals right. Is love something that is a mind state, that we can attach to, that we can fuel? Larry: It's a good question. I got... I understand. I would say, the word love is probably misused, and we don't know what it means because, you know, honey baby, if you leave me, I'll go.... my life. I love you, honey sweet, you know like.... it's used wherever you look. But I would say this, and this is for me, personally, if you pin me down, okay, why even doing it? What have you gotten out of all these years of this practice? I would say finally, if meditation isn't an explosion of love, finally, then I wonder what you've been doing. You better check. It's a different kind of love, though. It isn't sentimental love, which comes and goes. It's based on gratification, and you filling my needs. I fill your needs, and I'm not knocking that either. But there are depths of what we… Okay, this might help, you know, metta, the practice metta? A little bit. For those of you new, we have a practice, where you cultivate lovingkindness, so that you actually cultivate that quality. I think you're asking about, deepening your ability to love others, yourself, and so forth. Does that make sense so far? Break_line: Okay, so you're in a sense, working from the outside in, and that has proven itself to be very, very useful practice. We have some retreats here that link, that join metta, and insight meditation, where you cultivate that. And at our center, I've seen that sometimes people have a very hard time practicing insight meditation, almost impossible. But when they do, let's say, some substantial work on lovingkindness, love for themselves, love for others, love for people at work, et cetera, that something happens, that there isn't so much negativity, and draining of energy, and that then they're more able to really hear the instructions of wisdom instructions, and actually put it into practice. Break_line: So I've seen its value, but there's a different… let's put it this way. Many years ago, I was studying with a Cambodian forest master, Ajahn Mun, and I was leaving for, I think, a six-week self-retreat, in some cottage somewhere, friend in the woods, brought my own food, and all that. And so, before leaving, I'd been working with him, seeing him fairly often. I said, okay, Ajahn Mun, I paid my respects and I said, I won't be seeing you for six weeks. I'm going to do my self-retreat. Please send me all the metta you can. And he started to... and then he said, okay. And then he looked at me, and scolded me, and he said, oh, stop it. He said, you know, you have all the metta you can ever want, and it's right in here. You tap. There's something I don't know. You call it love, you can call it intelligence, you can call it the truth. These are just words. There's a quality of love, that isn't fabricated, it isn't cultivated, and yet both help. Break_line: I see it sometimes now as like, practicing love is like a mother hen sitting on an eggs, like the warmth from the outside, and the chick is trying to get out, and the two together, can sometimes be... the chick is born. But all the love, there is tremendous love, in us. It's not psychological, in my opinion, at all, and yet it must express itself through our psyche. In fact, you have to learn how to express it appropriately. If I would just go up to anyone on the street, oh, man, I just love you, that wouldn't go too far. And how I express it to my wife, or to my friends is very different, than other expressions of living that might be. And then... but see, yours is I think that you probably need detail. Yours probably has a specific context in mind. Does it? Yeah. This is not the best way to do it, in Macy's window, as they say. Questioner: This has been very helpful regarding…you mention mind states… Larry: Let me… this is even more personal, but I think it could be helpful, certainly for yourself, to help you understand what I'm getting at. And then I think we'll have to... let's close on this. Some years ago, my wife had, we all had, a very, very deep loss. My stepdaughter, her daughter, committed suicide. For a loving mother, you can imagine. I know, Jack, I know you lost a son, and I don't know it, it was a stepchild. I knew that this person for about three years, two and a half to three years, I still but I… but what it did to my wife was... I don't have words for it. So, for I would say three to four years, she was unable to give me any gratification, in any way. And what I learned about myself, which was I was surprised, happily surprised, is that my love for her didn't stop. There was no gratification, though. We weren't doing things that are gratifying, and even fun, just to go to a movie, and have a good time together. It was crushing for her. Break_line: And something came, and I attribute that to my years of practice. I didn't consider myself an average, loving person. I don't know. I don't have any grades for how loving I am, but whatever it was, something deeper in me. I was able to tap it, and it enabled me to… I didn't hesitate. There were no temptations to get, oh, God, I can't take this, and then look for trouble with other women. I mean, I notice, I'm not blind, but I wasn't interested in doing that. And it was a breakthrough for me. I felt I matured a little bit, and I attribute that to your question, to the practice, which I had already started to have, on a fairly regular basis, contact with the inner richness, that we all have. Break_line: What we've all been saying is, this leads to that for you, when we say, be a lamp unto yourself. The Buddha said that, take care of yourself, learn you have it inside, but if you don't know it, you're going to still be dependent on outside too much. We humans have an extraordinary riches interior, and it's untapped. There's all these stories of the prince who has a fortune buried under his hearth, and goes searching, all over the world, and then returns, and finds out all along who is buried right where he lived. And there are a lot of different stories like that. They're all saying the same thing. Break_line: The problem is those of us who have…I would include myself. I didn't know there was such a thing. I thought the whole thing was to perfect my psyche, get a better psyche, kinder ego, a better ego, a more understanding ego, and so forth. And then this was all news to me when I was Buddha nature, original nature and so forth. And then once…so then, if we don't even know there's a possibility, why would we do any of the things? We don't start digging to find out that there's a treasure in our garden. So, the practice is doing that digging. Once you tap it, you don't get isolated. Quite the contrary. You can bring that to whatever your relationship is, your marriage or anyone, everyone. And that resource seems boundless. And that's why I say, finally, to me, the fruit of meditation is an explosion of love. I'll leave it at that. End_time: 00:59:14