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Q4-19850218-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-dialogue_problems_with_practice-1523 Leandra Tejedor (1)
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Talk: 19850218-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-dialogue_problems_with_practice-1523 Leandra Tejedor Start_time: 24:42 Display_question: I have found that my motivation behind sending metta to a difficult person, is coming from a selfish place, is that okay? Keyword_search: metta meditation, happy, reconditing, loving, understanding, motivation, selfish, Mother Theresa, enemy, value, benefit, ego, serenity, enlightened, God, authentic, resistance, self-love, loving-kindness, Dalai Lama, Chinese, patience, Mao Tse-tung, compassion, inquiry, Buddhist, faith, belief, rebirth Question_content: Questioner: Questioner: Last… I was going to say I had a problem, but now then we were talking about judgement. Now, I don't know if it's a problem or…but last night during the metta meditation, the first two were really tenuous I found by the third I was pretty blown off track or something but… Larry: I just want to make sure I understand. You had a difficult time sending love to yourself, and a loved person? Questioner: Well…you see I wasn't sure whether it was really difficult, but this whole...I mean this whole three days, is so new to me. I don't even sit at home, that I'm not quite sure, when I'm on, and when I'm off, and I don’t quite know. I just know I got through the first two, in some fashion. Larry: Right. We're going to issue a campaign ribbon at the end of it. Questioner: As soon as you said, what kind of person you were supposed to be sending this to, I instantly knew who I should do this with, and I just didn't want to. Larry: Fine. Questioner: But it kept coming back, and I was like, okay, well try. And I tried. And you talked about not fighting the world to resist, so I stopped. This person just kept coming back. And I tried doing it, and I felt like I was sort of saying it, and hearing you say it, but I found that what was really… at one point, I thought, oh, I got it. And I realized that I really wasn't getting through. And I kept getting back to, was that I was sending this person these things. I don't think underneath because, I really wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to be happy, so she'll stop making me so miserable. Larry: I understand. Yes. Maybe the whole metta is that… maybe that's all of this metta is. Is that okay, if you're happy? In other words, you invented…you invented…you create this enemy in the mind, so you can neutralize it, so then you feel okay. But see, you're reconditioning your own mind that way. In other words, your mind, is now becoming a mind, that's a little bit more able to be loving, and understanding. See so, it has some value. Who knows if…you know sometimes it said, well, those people of benefit were sending love to these people, and they need it. I don't know. I haven't the slightest idea. But one thing is for sure, that you're changing your mind, and you're using past experiences, an idea about who you are, someone that you love, someone that you can't stand. And that's giving you an opportunity to practice freeing yourself. You're erecting something that hangs you up. It has in the past. Do you see what I… Questioner: So that even if my motivation starts from this really selfish, ego safe place, that's okay? Larry: I think everyone starts there. I don't know if there are any Mother Teresa's in the room. I mean, we just have to start there. Questioner: It just didn’t feel like a clean thing to be doing…like… Larry: Yeah okay, that's a hard one. You pick someone because you don't fully believe what you're saying. In other words, this part of you perhaps doesn't want this… you know… Questioner: I would love this person to find some kind of serenity. Larry: Okay, then it sounds sort… then it is sincere. See what will happen if you do this metta meditation, you'll start to see the difference, the degrees of sincerity, of depth, of really meaning, it is so dramatic. We start wherever we can. You know what choice do we have? We have to start with just the way we are. Can you pretend to be… someone else? Pretend to be Mother Teresa? It would just be an impersonation. We have to get you a new outfit, everything. So we have to start where we are. In fact, probably we all come to this practice as egomaniacs. I mean, we've heard something really good about meditation. We'll get free enlightened. God, I want that! Break_line: Okay, so can we put ourselves in a situation where we're so perfect that we can do the practice correctly? And if that were true, we wouldn't need the practice… we'd already… do you see what I… so we have to start with what we… there's no other choice here we are… bent out of shape this way, that way, and the other way. Fine. We just work with that, that we have, and we learn to forgive ourselves. And gently, and gradually, perhaps, it becomes authentic. No, it's possible. Break_line: In terms of working with, where there's a lot of resistance, if you're finding that it's so complicated, and problematic, as perhaps it was for you, then sometimes it's valuable to hold off. See, the metta meditation was giving everyone a taste of it. Ideally, the way to work with it is, step number one, you have to develop love for yourself, metta for yourself. And if there's any resistance to that, or if that's rather superficial, you don't move to the second stage. You don't start sending love to your… someone, your husband or wife, whoever, because you haven’t…there's a lot of problems with your own…self-love. So, then you might work with that, perhaps extensively, perhaps inquiring of where the block is, seeing that it's very hard for you to wish yourself well. Break_line: So, I'm just giving you… now you can do this on your own, when you have the freedom, and time. Now let's say, that starts to become a little bit stronger for you, and then you move on. And then finally we get to, let's say, a person that you don't like. Or there is some…it's complicated a lot of the momentum that's been generated by working on ourselves, and people that we do like. We've been sort of training ourselves, in a sense, in a relatively easier way. And now we get to somebody, ideally, who's horrible. Let it be someone horrible, and…because it's all embracing lovingkindness, and the worse the person is, the more valuable they are, in this particular meditation practice. Break_line: As the Dalai Lama said, if it weren't for the Chinese, he wouldn't have learned, real patience. In other words, you need your enemy to really learn patience. He's had to negotiate with these people for year, after year, after year, knowing they've destroyed, killed people, ransacked the libraries, putting monks and nuns under yokes, to plow the fields, endless… forced marriages with Chinese, and he’s… that's his practice, is to try to get his country back, but not in a violent way. To be intelligent and skillful, and also to keep his own heart pure, because he could be the loser in it. Bad enough the Chinese destroy your country, but then if you're walking around endlessly bitter, then that's the normal thing. You know, if people, things like that happen, it's all too normal to be that way. Break_line: And so, his practice is releasing that, freeing himself from that. And yet, being effective. He doesn't put the Chinese down. He talks... found Mao Tse-tung is a very highly developed, in certain ways, interesting human being. Do you see what I'm getting at? So then we get to that. And if you're finding a real problem, instead of trying to overpower it, in whatever, there are subtle ways in which we try to convince ourselves, that we're being loving. Some of those reflections from last night might be helpful. Break_line: First of all, seeing how much you suffer, by having negativity towards anyone. In other words we're the losers in it. In other words, granted, that person did a horrible thing to you, the Chinese, let's say they really did that. But then if you're stuck, in hating them, day in and day out, then they really did a job. Not only they destroyed the country, but with your help, they're destroying you. So, you reflect on that. You reflect on how unskillful it is, to maintain anger, grudges, ill will, all of that. Do you really find that to be true? Again, it's not a should. You have to really see it for yourself. That's, again, a kind of inquiry. You grasp the fact, that you're losing, in having vendettas, and grudges, and an eye, for an eye, and a tooth, for a tooth. And then you walk outside, and of course everyone is blind, and toothless, and you wonder why. Well, because they're all living the same way. We're all doing it to each other. Well, why is this planet so awful? Well, because we made it so awful. We're making it so awful right now. In small ways, each one of us is doing it. Break_line: And the other is to… start to develop compassion about the other person, by reflecting on them. Sometimes you can see that, if they are particularly… negative person, they're already suffering a lot. It's not that you have to even it out, they're already…now, in the Buddhist tradition, if you have deep belief, and faith, in rebirth. When people are living in a very negative way, not only are they destroying the quality of their present life, but they're creating future rebirths, that will be very negative. I don't know if you believe in that, or not. I don't think a belief is required. Let's say, you don't believe in it. Fine. This life is enough. You can see the effects, and sometimes that softens it, a little bit. And then you can begin to try to send metta to that person. But it sounds fine. Sounds like what you did was fine, and that something came of it. But the motives are imperfect, to begin with. End_time: 34:45
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