“A Reflection on Brahma-Vihara”
the Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne, November 4,2007

Best Home for the Mind/Heart

M… is in … Hospital today with cancer fighting chemicals circulating in her body. She will be there for a month, during which time, the chemotherapy which can save her life will make her very sick. This is a scary time for her and her family, and I include all of this congregation in the category of M…’s family. Let’s take a moment of silence right now to send her our thoughts and prayers for strength in the days ahead.
:::
I’ve had the chance to talk with M… a couple of times this week – I was concerned to know if she had the personal resources she’ll need to go into her battle with Leukemia. I came away from my talks with her relieved to see she has a good attitude about this. She has what we would call a “big heart.” She is one of the most loving people we know, always caring for other people. I believe her heart has gotten her through all the suffering she has had in her life, and it will serve her well again now.
The Buddha, knowing all of us suffer in life, taught there is a remedy for our suffering. He said people can’t always change their circumstances, but they can do something about their attitudes. He taught others his system in hopes all people could learn to deal with suffering. As a pastor and hospital chaplain it is my observation of human nature that we have the capacity for such things as hope and love – even in the direst of circumstances – even when it doesn’t make any sense. I have often been amazed at people’s ability to maintain hope in the face of illness and family crisis. This morning, we are going to spend some time on a spiritual path which might help us strengthen connections to our inner source of love, compassion, and hope.
:::
“The Buddha taught ‘the liberation of the heart which is love,’ and he designed a…path that moves the heart out of isolating contraction and into true connection.” This path involves cultivating lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Buddha called these four character traits the Brahma Viharas which means, “Best Home.” In Buddha’s time and thinking, there was no difference between the heart and mind. Hence, when we focus on these concepts, we place our mind/heart in its best home. People who meditate on lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity find it opens them to connections with others. This kind of spiritual practice can break through the heaviness of heart caused by suffering. With Lovingkindness people align themselves with the human potential to care about life and link up with a source of love and hope. You may have noticed we are not using our normal Order of Service. This is so you can spend a little less time listening to me and to participate a little more. In a few minutes there will be a time for you think and meditate and then a time to share your thoughts on Lovingkindness.

Recently at a UU ministers retreat I spent a whole day with these four ideas. Today, we will only have time for an introduction. Anyone who wishes to pursue this or other types of spiritual practices can see me afterwards for help finding one if you want it. Cultivating Lovingkindness is not so much something you learn intellectually as it is a state of consciousness you practice. We should all be able to benefit from the time we spend on it this morning.

Let’s start with short definitions of the Brahma Viharas:
Lovingkindness is love toward ourselves and others. Compassion is a feeling of kinship accompanied by a merciful response to the suffering of others – or even to our own suffering. It is born out of understanding and lovingkindness. Sympathetic Joy is taking delight in the happiness of others, and Equanimity is serenity in the face of suffering, and its wisdom allows people to remain engaged with reality. These four traits are closely related; they build on and intertwine with each other. Thinking or meditating about them can help put people in a better state of mind when they need it.
:::
Placing our mind and heart in its best home must begin with feeling love for ourselves. This, of course, is not always easy. To uncover the power of love, we must deal with our insecurities, our fear that there is something wrong with us. Practicing love for ourselves means learning to embrace all the different aspects of our personalities. This can take some time to come to terms with our life history. The result of such an effort can be an inner feeling of integrity which allows us to love the entirety our lives, both the pleasures and the pains, in full awareness. A mind filled with love is a source of support no matter what the situation.

Lovingkindness requires learning the art of friendship, and practicing it first toward ourselves. “A good friend, the Buddha said, is constant in our times of adversity as well as our times of happiness. A true friend does not forsake us when we are in trouble but is a refuge when we are afraid.” The practice of lovingkindness sustains us through the ups and downs of life.
Love, in our culture, is often confused with sentimentality. Sentimentality looks at life through rose colored glasses that are a little out of focus. It pretends things are a little too nice, and can’t stand conflict or the heaviness of grief. It rejects pain and requires us to deny some of our feelings, which closes us off to parts of real life. People may resist opening their hearts fearing they would have to put on this false veneer of love. Lovingkindness is not sentimentality. It doesn’t just smile and pretend things are OK. It takes action when someone is hurt or abused.

Love can also be confused with attraction and desire. Love is not a feeling of wanting to own or possess someone. Practicing lovingkindness is rooted in gentleness and friendship. It is much more sustaining than the need for things to be a certain way. A loving mind is more stable, able to take in both joy and grief; it is not easily fragmented by change. The effect of practicing lovingkindness is an acceptance of oneself and all of life.

Readings:
Faith…in Love
Sharon Salzberg
ONE DAY A F R I END called to ask if we could meet for tea. Knowing that I was writing a book on faith from the Buddhist perspective, she was confused and wanted to talk. "How can you possibly be writing a book on faith without focusing on God?" she demanded. "”Isn't that the whole point?” Her concern spoke to the common understanding we have of faith-that it is synonymous with religious ad¬herence. But the tendency to equate faith with doctrine, and then argue about terminology and concepts, distracts us from what faith is actually about. In my understanding, whether faith is connected to a deity or not; its essence lies in trusting ourselves to discover the deepest truths on which we can rely…

I want to invite a new use of the word faith, one that is not associated with a dogmatic religious interpretation or divisiveness. I want to encourage delight in the word, to help reclaim faith as fresh, vibrant, intelligent, and liberat¬ing. This is a faith that emphasizes a foundation of love and respect for ourselves. It is a faith that uncovers our connec¬tion to others, rather than designating anyone as separate and apart.

Faith does not require a belief system, and is not neces¬sarily connected to a deity or God, though it doesn't deny one. This faith is not a commodity we either have or don't have-it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.

The Buddha said, “Faith is the beginning of all good things.” No matter what we encounter in life, it is faith that enables us to try again, to trust again, to love again. Even in times of immense suffering, it is faith that enables us to re¬late to the present moment in such a way that we can go on, we can move forward, instead of becoming lost in res¬ignation or despair. Faith links our present-day experience, whether wonderful or terrible, to the underlying pulse of life itself.
A capacity for this type of faith is inherent in every hu¬man being. We might not recognize it or know how to nur¬ture it, but we can learn to do both...”

Salzberg [has found] faith in herself, and in her ability to love.
“From the point of view of the Buddhist teaching,” she says, “we all have that capacity to love. No experience of suffering, of loneliness or of unlovability we may have gone through or may yet go through can ever destroy that capacity. And that faith is the bedrock of loving-kindness. It's faith in one's buddhanature, in one's awareness and the potential to love. It's faith in an interconnected universe.”

Love After Love
Derek Wolcott
The time will come
When, with elation
You will greet your self arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome,
And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Salzberg, Sharon. www.ashokaedu.net
Salzberg, Sharon. “Introduction,” Faith, Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, Riverhead Books (New York: 2002) xiii-xv.
Rohrer, Trish Deitch. "To Love Abundantly" Shambhala Sun (Januarv 2003).