Omega II: Visiting with the Sages
Day 2 - Evening Session - Part 3

by Alisa Joaquin

After we completed the section on Healing Sounds, Heidi Singh began by reciting the Karaniya Metta Sutta which refers to the importance of loving kindness. She first read it in Pali and then followed it up with the English translation. Since I am not familiar with the language, I have written the English translation here that was provided for us in one of the handouts.

One skilled in good and wishing to attain a state of calm should behave thus: One should be able, upright, perfectly upright, obedient, gentle and humble.

One should be contented, easily supportable with few duties, of light livelihood, controlled in senses, discreet and not greedily attached to family.

One should not commit any slight wrong, so that wise persons might censure him or her, so that there might be happiness and security. May all beings be happy-minded.

Whatever living beings there be: Timid, fearful, strong, confident, long, great or average, short, small or large, seen or unseen, living near or far, born or coming to rebirth, May all beings be happy-minded.

Let not one deceive another nor despise anyone anywhere. Neither in anger nor in ill-will should one wish harm to another.

As a mother would risk her own life to protect her only child, even so let one cultivate a boundless heart towards a living beings.

Let one's love pervade the whole world, without any obstructions above, below and across, without hatred, without enmity, standing, walking or sitting, lying down or whenever awake, one should develop mindfulness, as this is the highest conduct.

Not falling into error, but to be virtuous and endowed with insight, one gives up attachment to sense-desires, and is not again subject to birth.

Heidi then made two observations in regards to today (Saturday) that related to this practice (the above meditation prayer) and also in regards to the Loving Kindness Meditation. Her own words can best descibe it. She stated, "One of the things that came up today, someone was mentioning about how difficult it is to take care of ones parents. How draining that can be and how it can feel like a stumbling block in a way to ones spirituality. Just thinking about that, I want to mention a brief story about a friend of mine who is a priest in the Japanese Buddhist tradition." She mentioned that her friend was a wonderful speaker, lecturer, and very kind compassionate man. "A few months ago, I hadn't seen him in a while and I ran into him in a drug store in Santa Monitca. And I said, 'Hey Tetz,' and he turned around and said ,'Oh Hi.' And I asked, 'How are you doing?' And he said, 'You know, I've been taking care of my mother and I've moved out of my house to take care of my mother and now she's in the hospital and she's probably going to be dying soon.' And he said to me, 'cause we've talked many times over the years about practice, meditation practice, and practice jodo shu and so on, he said, 'You know, when it comes right down to it, and you have to take care of an elderly parent, or anybody for that matter. You know what, you can talk Zen all you want. You can talk compassion all you want. When it comes right down to it, this is the cutting edge. This really puts us where we understand that all our philosophizing is nothing if we can't act in this moment. You know it's taken everything I have to deal with my mother.' And I thought, you know, what a revealing time that was for him to share that with me, because I think a lot of times we don't really know what our practice is until we're put to the test. Whether it's with our children, our parents, our family, spouses, divorce, whatever it is. You really understand in that moment when the rubber meets the road. Are we really practicing. And sometimes it may seem like we have a setback but we really don't.

'My second story, and then I will segue into the meditation. A couple of years ago, we were in UCLA in Pauli Pavillion. There were a couple thousand people there. We were honored to have a teaching from his Holiness the Dalai Lama."

(I got to see him back on November 8, 1998. He is a wonderful, dynamic speaker. I certainly would go again, given the chance. I will share what happened on that day in another personal account.)

"The pattern was we would have teachings in the morning and in the afternoon there would be questions. We came back from one afternoon session and his Holiness was taking questions that had been written down. And at one point, he read the question, 'What is the quickest, fastest, and most effective way to enlightenment?' Great question, right? So we're all sitting there, it was after lunch. We were kind of vegging out. Just relaxing and his Holiness was quiet for a while and then he bent over and you could see this convulsing going on. And for the Dalai Lama to be convulsing is pretty major. And everybody thought first, 'Oh he's laughing,' right? He has this wonderful sense of humor. He finds everything very interesting and funny. And it took a couple minutes 'till the whole of Pauli Pavillion, all of us sitting around realized he was sobbing, he was sobbing. And the Dalai Lama took a few minutes and finally he composed himself, and when you cry it messes up your glasses, you know. And he wiped his glasses with his robe. And he took a few deep breaths and he finally said, 'You know, I have to tell you. I have been practicing the best I can for over 40 years.' Now we know it's been longer than that, but he said over 40 years. And he said with a voice choked with emotion, he said, 'I am not where I want to be,' and he said, 'And you know, you Americans want everything so fast,' he said 'I have to tell you. I'm not where I want to be. It makes me sad,' but he said, 'I'll tell you a story from the Tibetan tradition. There was this story and it was about the great Tibetan yogi. Who after many, many years of meditation in his cave, one of his disciples came to him and said, 'Master, show us the fruits of your meditation,' and he showed him the blisters on his rear end,' and that's what his Holiness told us. He said, 'There is no quick, easy, fast way to enlightenment.'

"And in that moment, I have to tell you, that was the most encouraging afternoon that I have ever experienced. If the Dalai Lama is not happy where he is, then it gives us all a lot of encouragement where our practice is. It's like what we were talking about today earlier. When we're talking about anger and these afflictive emotions when David was saying, 'What happens when we, you know, we take off and it almost never comes out good.' We're not saying don't confront, we're just saying not in anger. But that was a real teaching. I think that in all the years that I have had opportunities to hear his Holiness, to see and to talk to him personally, was the most right on pure teaching that anyone could give, because it's a struggle. And, it's not a bad struggle, it's just that it's a struggle. We don't ever get to that point, I don't think anybody gets to that point where you say, 'Wow, I've made it. My heart is clean.' I don't know anybody who can say that. The point is, though we keep on going. We keep working. We keep persevering. We have to because we don't have a choice. The choice is, otherwise we give up. And we can't afford to do that. This is just to say to you tonight, no matter how hard it is, just to keep going and keep believing that we will some day, maybe some other life-time, but we will be compassionate. We will be enlightened. My teacher venerable Balangoda Anandamaitreya, this was his prestine, his quintessent teaching, this Loving Kindness Meditation. And okay, he had achieved where he was very, very compassionate, very kind, but he didn't start out that way. And he died at 103. So, it took him many, many decades I think to really be where he wanted to be. And that's an encouragement to us to keep going.

"When we're doing Loving Kindness Meditation, and the meditation itself is very formulaic, I don't want to apologize for my tradition so I won't, but I'm just warning you it's very formulaic. It's very repetitious, but there's a reason for that. So, that we can remember so that we can keep in our mind all the things that we want to think as we're exchanging our welfare for others. We start out with ourselves in Loving Kindness Meditation because it's very, very important we wish well to ourselves, we wish ourselves all the good things that we want for anyone else, and this is really critical, because we can't give somebody water from a cup that is empty. So that's the most important thing, we have to wish this to ourselves. Then we remember our teacher. In some traditions the parents come first then teachers. We say teachers then parents. Then family, then friends, then we say indifferent persons, but that doesn't mean indifferent, it just means all these people out there who we don't know.

"There's like millions and billions. We don't know them, but we might at some point. Then we remember our enemies, if we have any, and then all sentient beings. The point of this, what I say whenever I give this teaching anywhere, please remember this, that many, many times you know for yourself of people you don't know whom you've never met, like none of us here knew each other before. Fact, none of did, here, in this room. I didn't know any of you. Now we know each other. Now we're friends, if you will. Certainly acquaintances, we've shared an experience together. This just happened this weekend. Think of all the billions and billions, hundreds of whatever, of people you're going to meet the rest of your lifetime who will once, people whom you didn't know who were strangers they will be somebody to you. The people we love the most in our lives, our lovers, our spouses, whatever, were at one time strangers.

"Sometimes the people we love the most, our lovers, spouses, or whatever, become our worst enemies. Sometimes our parents our in a position of our enemies, unfortunately, without us wanting it. Sometimes our enemies become our friends. That's the best thing, when people that are enemincal to us become our friends, our relations, our family, whatever. But the point is this, every being we have some kind of relationship with. And right now, the relationship may be good or bad or maybe non-existent, but we do have a relationship and that's what we're trying to aim for with all the sentient beings throughout time and space. We have a relationship. In Tibetan traditions, they say all sentient being were our mothers at one time or another. And one more thing. Before we actually do the meditation, the sutta that I just read, that I recited Karaniya Metta Sutta, please keep in mind that these are supposedly the words the Budhha. He had said, "Just as a mother would risk her only life to protect her child, so toward all living beings one should lift ones heart above, below, and across without any obstruction. Now think of this, people think of Buddhism as this tradition where you're sitting and meditating and you're not really caring, but the Buddha said, "Just as a mother loves her only child," there is no better father, we can say father who is mother to a child. That love, so intense, I mean that's the most passionate love that there is."

End of Day 2 - Evening Session - Part 3

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2001.
This personal account cannot be reprinted or sold in any other form without strict permission from the author. It is being distributed here solely for your enjoyment.

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