I vow to tell you the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Good evening. Well, I see a great number of old friends and some new faces who I hope to meet, and it's good to be back with everyone. We said that the theme for this practice period was going to be the Metta Sutra, And last Sunday, was today Monday?

[01:04]

That was yesterday. Lots has happened between then and now. I gave a talk on the Metta Sutra and I read it, so I thought I would talk a little bit more about it this evening. The Metta Sutra is also associated with, I think some of you know this, but associated with what's called the Brahma Viharas or the great abodes of Brahma. peculiar to Buddhism. Actually, in Indian religion generally they're practiced.

[02:11]

The four Brahma-viharas include metta, which is the first one, loving-kindness, and the And mudita, which is the third, is sympathetic joy, means to be happy over someone else's happiness or success. And upekka or upeksha means even-mindedness, or a disinterested concern, or to be not overbalanced or overturned by something.

[03:32]

And this is a very interesting one, this fourth one, equality or even-mindedness, or non, no partiality, just, it's the wisdom side of, on one side is the heart side of love. And on the other side, the other end is the wisdom side of no partiality. And wisdom balances mercy or love. Love and wisdom balance each other. we talk about compassion mostly in Buddhism.

[04:38]

The word compassion is used a lot, the compassionate Buddha. Compassion means to... We associate the word passion with emotion, and especially with emotion when it's associated with the dualistic feeling of love. But strictly speaking, it means suffering. So compassion is to sympathize with the suffering of others. So compassion and sympathetic joy are on the inside, and love

[05:53]

and even-mindedness or equality or non-partiality is on the other side. Love is kind of innocent, and it's that feeling that we have of openness to everything, goodwill and openness to everything, but it's very innocent. and soon gets either seduced or squashed. And it's hard to preserve, very difficult to maintain pure love all throughout our life. And children have it. That's why we like to play with children.

[06:56]

Kind of innocent, wonderful world, which sometimes is very soon either perverted, squashed, or squelched. love is this great fire, wonderful heat which is very effusive and because it's so innocent it is carried away easily by almost anything. So equanimity on the other side, or impartiality, is a kind of guide for love in order to keep it pure, in order to maintain pure nature

[08:18]

It has to be, love has to be guided or balanced by impartiality. Otherwise it falls into ill will, hate, and meanness. and we go back and forth between loving and hating. That's the duality. And unless love is impartial, it becomes divided by partiality. So love, or metta, is the non-dual pure love that is our basic nature.

[09:23]

And it doesn't have any qualifications. And it's actually in each one of us somewhere. Some of us it's right on the surface and for others it's buried very deeply. Sometimes when you put it out there it takes a punch on the nose and so we withdraw it But I think that we all want to let it appear. I think that our deep request is to allow it to come forth.

[10:35]

meditation practices on these four Brahma Viharas and each one has four aspects or more than four aspects, but I'll talk a little bit First of all, one meditates on, or I guess we could use the word meditation, but brings forth I use the word bring forth rather than meditate. One brings forth the thought of pure love for oneself.

[11:54]

This is the first step is to bring forth this purity of love for oneself. And if you've ever tried to do that, sometimes we're successful, sometimes not. It may not be so easy to actually bring forth a thought of love for yourself. And the second step is to bring forth the thought of love for someone who is very dear to you. But it shouldn't be a person with whom you have any desire, for whom you have any desire. Because desire should not be mixed up with love. Desire is associated with love a lot, but actually they're two different things.

[13:09]

So desire is kept out of the picture. So when you bring forth the thought of love for a person that's very dear or close to you, it should be either a person with whom you have no desire, or someone, or at least the desire is controlled, doesn't come forth. Matter of fact, you know, it's quite good to bring forth the thought of love for someone that you have desire for without the desire. so you can separate the person from your idea. And then the third one is to bring forth that thought for a person to whom you're indifferent.

[14:24]

You don't really have any particular feeling about them one way or another. And then the fourth one is maybe the most difficult. This is to bring forth a thought of pure love for someone who you don't like, someone you may consider your enemy, someone with whom you usually associate ill will. So as a practice, the fourth one is usually the last one after you have gained some competence or gone through the barriers of the first three. This practice is called the practice of dropping the barriers.

[15:28]

So I thought maybe tonight we could do a little bit of this practice. And the way to do it, the way that we can do it is to first chant the three refuges And then to take, count ten breaths, ten easy, normal breaths, the way you would in zazen. And then, the first meditation is to bring forth the thought of love for yourself. And to engulf yourself with love, which, this is not narcissism, it's just acceptance.

[16:57]

Of course in the sutra or in the meditation guide it says, or in the sutra it says, one who has found, the first sentence is, one who has found peace can do this. But we won't wait for that. Let's chant the three refuges together, just once through. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha.

[18:08]

I take refuge in Buddha as the perfect teacher. I take refuge in Dharma as the perfect teaching. I take refuge in Sangha as the perfect life. Now I have completely taken refuge in Buddha. Now I have completely taken refuge in Dharma. Now I have completely taken refuge in Sangha. Now, 10 breaths.

[19:09]

then you can say something like, may I be happy. May I maintain happiness. May I let go of ill will. May I be surrounded by contentment.

[22:19]

May I be surrounded by metta. may metta radiate in all directions from me.

[24:30]

Now that we've established metta in our breath, choose someone who is very close to you, very dear to you, and wish that person a metta. Picture the person in your mind.

[26:55]

May they be happy. May they be free of ill will. May they maintain happiness. May they be filled with light.

[28:41]

Next, choose a person who you are indifferent toward, have no special feeling, and bring forth the thought of goodwill for that person. Now, pick, choose someone who is an enemy or to who you don't like and bring forth the thought for that person.

[31:48]

May you be happy. May you maintain happiness. May you be free of ill will. May you be enlightened. Since we're doing so well, we can send forth a thought of metta to everything and everyone in front of us, in the direction in front of us.

[37:20]

as far as that direction goes. And then send out a thought of metta or bring forth a thought of metta for everyone in the direction extending in back of you as far as it goes.

[38:49]

Then send out a thought of metta for everyone on your left as far as that direction goes. May everyone on my left, as far as the direction goes, be filled with metta. Then may everyone on my right, in the direction on my right,

[41:18]

as far as it goes, be filled with metta. And then, may everyone in the whole world, all the way around the world, in all directions, without exception, be filled with metta.

[42:43]

And then, just take 10. Do you have any questions or anything you'd like to say? This is a good practice for bringing forth the mind of metta.

[45:11]

And you can practice at any time. When we do zazen, we should just do zazen. In other words, in our daily zazen, we don't have an object outside of body and breath. But since there's not very much time in our day to do this practice, you just have to practice it all day long in your ordinary situation. Anyway, I would like to see us do that, just practice this all day long in our ordinary situation.

[46:18]

And it's a kind of mindfulness practice, and it has nothing to do with whether you like or dislike. It's beyond liking and disliking. It's beyond good and bad, and it's beyond right and wrong. And little by little, we can maintain this non-dual mind. I think that's all. May I... intention...

[47:19]

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