In the 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.
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.
We should always recognize whatever meditation progress we experience. Doing this will strengthen the experience, hasten our progress, and refine its quality.
Rejoicing magnifies the beneficial effects of meditation. 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.
When you focus on praying with the heart of total devotion and trust in the Buddha by enjoying his loving-kindness, then before long, unconditional love—the Buddha’s blessings and loving-kindness—will take birth in you.
When you experience the awakened openness state of mind, remain in it without dualistic thoughts.
The true face or nature of loving-kindness does not exist in any form or character of this or that. It is free from conditions.
According to Buddhism, the cycles of cause and effect of our negative deeds (karma) yield only pain.
It is important for us to reflect on how we got to where we are today and how we can change in the future.
It is one of the many paradoxes of spiritual life that generating loving-kindness toward others is one of the fastest ways to make ourselves happy.
The Buddha taught that there is nothing in this mundane world but suffering. Life is full of pain.
If we train our mind to become peaceful and loving, then whatever we say and do will be peaceful and loving, and will inspire peace and joy in those around us.
We can get an inkling of how our mind affects our perception even in our everyday lives.
To understand how the world can be a creation of the mind, it is useful to recognize that our mind has two aspects: ordinary mind and enlightened mind.
With devotion and trust, we will bring the Buddha’s love into our hearts, and from there we expand it gradually until it embraces infinite beings.
In recent years, it began to dawn on me that most Buddhist practices, such as those on devotion and loving-kindness, lead meditators through four distinct stages.
A new book and a new, four-stage approach to the popular Buddhist practice known as loving-kindness meditation
If we are serious about fostering world peace, we must first understand, generate, and experience real peace in our own mental stream.
As long as they are still under the karmic influence, rebirth is the inevitable future for every ordinary being and even for some accomplished meditators.
The trainings on the path of virtuous deeds that generate peace, joy, and wisdom in our mind-stream are the indispensable means of uncovering our own enlightened nature and qualities,
Enlightened aspiration is the vow or commitment to dedicate one’s thoughts and activities to serving all beings without any selfish motivation.
Every positive or negative volitional act—mental, vocal, or physical—will produce its commensurate effects in the form of pleasant or painful results.
Unless one is omniscient or at least enjoys some degree of clairvoyance, no one can judge others.
At the end of the meditation session dedicate all the merit or positive karma, the deeds of the meditation and prayers, to others
The first step to bringing peace is not to try to eliminate all external hostile forces, which is impossible anyway, but rather, to work with our own mind.
The more we train ourselves to wish joy for others, the more we loosen the tightening rope of our mind’s grasping at “self” and selfish attitudes.