Love Light shine

General discussion, particularly exploring the Dharma in the modern world.
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tomschwarz
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Love Light shine

Post by tomschwarz »

Hello friends

In Buddhism absolute love is equated (?) with the absolute truth, the truth of emptiness. But how does that work in daily life?

I mean, I think absolute Love is simply when someone needs help, and they trust you and ask for help, and you love them, meaning that help or not, what you do is intended to help them feel stable happiness.

Is that the absolute truth?
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
muni
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by muni »

In Buddhism absolute love is equated (?) with the absolute truth, the truth of emptiness. But how does that work in daily life?

I mean, I think absolute Love is simply when someone needs help, and they trust you and ask for help, and you love them, meaning that help or not, what you do is intended to help them feel stable happiness.

Is that the absolute truth?
I can only say how it is not, through my delusions, present here. Hello,
All my loving was - are nothing more than attachment. While Love has no any opposites, no things-ones focused and grasped, there is not that restlessness, but peace.

As long as there is the habitual identification (my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions) and furthermore there is obvious nothing (=idea), then I Love is hidden. Practice-familiarization must be possible or it is all for nothing and of no any use in daily life.

In distraction shining Love is clouded through own veils.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: " it is like being in Love with all and everything."
muni
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by muni »

then I Love is hidden.
apologize, correction: then Love is hidden.
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by muni »

I mean, I think absolute Love is simply when someone needs help, and they trust you and ask for help, and you love them, meaning that help or not, what you do is intended to help them feel stable happiness.
'Intention' as spontaneous help for unconditional stable happiness-peace.

Bodhichitta. _/\_
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tomschwarz
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by tomschwarz »

muni wrote: Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:07 pm
I mean, I think absolute Love is simply when someone needs help, and they trust you and ask for help, and you love them, meaning that help or not, what you do is intended to help them feel stable happiness.
'Intention' as spontaneous help for unconditional stable happiness-peace.

Bodhichitta. _/\_
i think that you are right. it seems that there is a very deep connection between the absolute truth and absolute love, like your quote from dilgo khyentse rinpoche indicates. so it probably all circulates around the point of boundaries disappearing. as we take on the suffering of others as well as their happiness, as well as their internal experiences, as well as their fear, and so on, we can see how energy/experience/reactions to experience flow from one to another. for example, say that we really understood emptiness, a.k.a. the path of seeing, then there is available an intuitive understanding of all things as empty (e.g. empty of defining characteristics). so if i can not easily say what is me and what is you, there is an intuitive and logical ground for exchanging self and other. no?

other ideas on the connection of the two puzzle pieces?
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
muni
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by muni »

so if i can not easily say what is me and what is you, there is an intuitive and logical ground for exchanging self and other. no?
Yes.

Then tears flow.

Look into the mirror of mind to discover what is not made, not fabricated, not born and so not coming into being. Just as it was so it is and will be without these three times. This my thinking cannot comprehend, that is why when there is any possibility to meditate-nonmeditation or to look within, this is so enormous precious. Look 'within' - shine 'out'.
There is “no one” discovering something ( this would be thinking again) and so there are "no two" and therefore it is unconditional Love. Then to merely write about here, without non-meditation (non-dual awareness), 'I' am somehow disrespecting nature and holding dearly onto "my" ideations of apprehended things.
As soon as there is focus or grasping onto ' things-objects', unconditional Love is absent. Or actually always present but the tick curtain (veil) of temporary karmic ignorance is not allowing any transparency to shine.
Simon E.
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by Simon E. »

Ah yes.
That's called 'Advaita Vedanta'.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
muni
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by muni »

How amazing. :smile: :heart:
HOW AMAZING!
Eh ma ho! How amazing!
In both samsara and nirvana, the renown of the awakened state
Is heard everywhere, like thunder throughout the sky.
This awakened state is always within the minds of all beings.
How amazing that one is never separate from it for even an instant!

Not knowing that the awakened state is within oneself,
How amazing that one searches for it elsewhere!
Although it is as clearly manifest as the brilliance of the sun,
How amazing that so few see it!

Having no father and mother, one’s mind is the true Buddha.
How amazing that it was never born, so never dies!
No matter how much happiness and sorrow is experienced,
How amazing that it is never impaired or improved even in the slightest!

How amazing that the mind’s nature is primordially pure, unborn
And spontaneously present!
This self-knowing was naturally free from the very first.
How amazing it is to be liberated just by resting
At ease in whatever happens!

Lama Shabkar
Perceptions, which never existed in themselves, are mistaken for objects.
Awareness itself, because of ignorance, is mistaken for a self.
Through the power of dualistic fixation I wander in the realm of existence.
May ignorance and confusion be completely resolved.

It doesn't exist: even buddhas do not see it.
It doesn't not exist: it is the basis of samsara and nirvana.
No contradiction: the middle way is union.
May I know the pure being of mind, free of extremes...Aspiration Mahamudra http://www.naturalawareness.net/mahamudra.html
muni
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by muni »

“No coming, no going, no after, no before.
I hold you close to me. I release you to be so free.
Because I am in you and you are in me,
because I am in you and you are in me.” Thich Nhat Hanh. :heart:

EMAHO!
Last edited by muni on Fri Mar 16, 2018 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
muni
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by muni »

Simon E. wrote: Fri Mar 16, 2018 11:19 am Ah yes.
That's called 'Advaita Vedanta'.
Interesting.

In any case, whatever I write in this topic has no any value when Bodhichitta is absent.
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tomschwarz
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by tomschwarz »

Thats right. And thank you, it is amazing
Through the power of dualistic fixation I wander in the realm of existence.
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
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Ogyen
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by Ogyen »

I love your reference Muni, it is truly poetic! Dilgo was beautiful. Unique.

Tom, Great question. "Love" in the "Buddhist context" takes on different names, like metta, karuna, etc...

I'll preface that I've come across a strange resistance to this term on forums. It's not as cool or fancy as exotic sanskrit or tibetan terminology I guess, and some my Western Buddhist friends can occasionally get very intense about the definitions of how irrelevant the term of love, that it's impermanent, illusory, etc. Like eternal things, it's one of those words that seems to be a call for the Dharma Police. Granted I will be brutally honest and say that those whom I've seen attack this word are men who also have never had a baby or lived the reality of putting themselves and their wants aside completely for the welfare of another sentient being day after day, year after year. So perhaps their vehemence is simply born out of ignorance, magnifying the "ultimate-ness" of their intensity towards what they don't understand into something conceptually much bigger than their relative conditions really warrant. A theoretically based dismissal of love.

I jest and play a bit because I don't agree with the lack of adequate conversation around such a profound topic. I hear empty conversational fillers like ALL is impermanent. Love is no more than xyz... I absolutely (hehe) love Dzongsar Khyentse's video series on youtube on love and Buddhism at least in the context of relationships between people (which is also quite important for 90+% of the population on the planet).

Yes, in the scope of the concept of “ultimate,” love is like the sticky glue that seems to form in sentient beings with the accompaniment of body and sensory consciousness, and falls apart upon death for the same reason.... But life isn't ultimate, it's finite... When we talk about love, we're talking about LIFE. All over the globe. Billions of people love. Daily. Impermanence has always been a condition of life. And it always will be. And love still happens as an intrinsic part of that experience. And it's actually a very important part in the human psyche for what enables our transformation, our growth, our letting go. I don't personally agree with the normative conventions around this silently accepted scoffing at the word love in online Buddhist forums where people want to pretend they live in an theoretical understanding of dharma without having integrated the relativity of their real life conditions.

In daily life, I suppose it could emerge in millions of manners, but the core in what I've found so far is that “absolute love” as you refer to is not an absolute at all, but is a great harmony that comes from the clarity between one's intention, one's action, and a powerful fearlessness of vulnerability (due a full grasp of cause-effect and relativity of phenomena).

For example, let's say your neighbor's addict son asks you for 5$. You know he will go get drugs if you give him money. You see he is hungry and will get drugs over food. Love in this case is recognizing with clarity his form of suffering. The act in how you choose to help could look like many things, but the key thing here is that love here is the clarity in understanding what is possible and what can be done for him that will help him. A full clear understanding of your capacity and conditions here in this situation. A form of compassion could be to give him some food, or maybe you're broke yourself, and all you can offer is a blanket. You will gain nothing from it more than knowing he has something that will have made his battle a little more bearable for 5 minutes, and you fearlessly let your heart bridge the gap and recognize him with your presence and attention.

Of course, you may see that the same kid could break into your house steal your money, and break your favorite grandma's tea set.. however, whatever the circumstances in that time and place, you can recognize and connect your heart and your conditions with his heart and his conditions. This could be as simple as an act of kindness, or as complex as letting him go to jail for robbery.

Every action has a consequence. So absolute love in the way you're asking, to me sounds like asking a question about clarity harmonizing with action. I don't personally believe in absolutes, I only know of limits.

Coming from a posture of true compassion, or absolute love is coming from a posture of clarity about the true nature of the conditions one is facing.

Love is what makes the relative world work. When oppression and suffering are so great, love is what moves exhausted buddhists who are completely disillusioned with samsara to seek something that will free them... love inspires belief and action forth. The love of a mother for her children, or a father, the love for one's people in a country, a Bodhisattva for all sentient beings, etc.

Don't believe all you read in Buddhists in forums if you happen to come across the ilk that boo-hoo the word love, or dismiss it a phenomena an illusion because it's not a fancy foreign word, so it doesn't fit in the schema of their maladjusted theoretical paradigm. Clearly they need more love than they're getting.

:rolling:

I love to talk about love. It's awesome stuff. And we need more of it in the world. As you can probably tell from my signature... :heart: :heart: :heart:

:meditate:
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
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tomschwarz
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Re: Love Light shine

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Ogyen wrote: Sat Mar 24, 2018 2:32 am lived the reality of putting themselves and their wants aside completely for the welfare of another sentient being day after day, year after year.
Now we are talking )))

Let's go right to the heart of the matter, absolutes. How is absolute love or truth, absolute? I think that we mean to say absolute meaning not relative. So let me ask you Ogyen, how is truly unconditional love relative? Isn't a caring intention, if truly unconditional, potentially absolute?

Are you comfortable with the absolute aspect of the absolute truth?

“absolute love” (...) is a great harmony that comes from the clarity between one's intention, one's action, and a powerful fearlessness of vulnerability
Ja mon ))) a very mature and sublime description, thank you. I would add that this theme in your post echoes the heart level realization of the traditional, more boilerplate idea of the mixture of wisdom and skillfully means...
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
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Ogyen
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by Ogyen »

tomschwarz wrote: Sun Mar 25, 2018 6:42 pm Let's go right to the heart of the matter, absolutes. How is absolute love or truth, absolute? I think that we mean to say absolute meaning not relative. So let me ask you Ogyen, how is truly unconditional love relative? Isn't a caring intention, if truly unconditional, potentially absolute?

Are you comfortable with the absolute aspect of the absolute truth?
These are very interesting questions posed from the daily practical standpoint... I could say honestly absolutes are a strange thing... On the one hand they are the mind's way to resting on an idea so it doesn't have to keep thinking... If I think of absolute love, I already don't have to think much of its conditions... My being can be kind of lazy and I slap the label on anything I feel is "my maximum conception" and call it absolute love... But the reality that I've learned is I cannot yet love absolutely because I have this thing called desire and self-interest... So I've come to think of it on a spectrum of relative truth.

I will do anything for my child.. without thinking of the consequence to my person... If that is unconditional love that is an open question for me. How much to I identify myself as "other" to my child? Is there any part of my child as I conceive his/her being as part of me, when I'm protecting him/her am I also protecting myself from how much it would hurt to lose my child...?

There is clearly a self-interest mixed in with that, desire to also myself not be hurt. I am protective of my child because I am protective of my (conventional) self.

Now let's say my child is a serial killer psycho... And I find out he's been arrested for 45 murders.... How unconditional is my love? Can I still have that unconditional love towards such a person who is so "other" from me now and has committed such heinous acts that he is clearly in a living human hell on this earth? He came from me but now this (exaggerated) example demonstrates to me fully he is not the son I thought. Is my pure intention I had as a mother enough to be potentially absolute? Can my unconditional love change anything in his relative situation?

Interesting practice right? If I mastered Tonglen maybe it really could be enough... But you see my point... In most cases the notion of absolute love is not at all absolute.

Interesting question... As there are many stories in the Dharma that would say yes to your question, the fervor and unconditional dedication with perfect faith in the teaching has been cause for "miracles.". Are they metaphors, exaggerations? I don't know.

I don't consider myself sufficiently realized to even pretend to understand an absolute outside of an intellectual mastery of the concept. But that is quite limited... So I don't know!

You sure did give me something to think about though... :meditate:
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
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tomschwarz
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Re: Love Light shine

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Great Ogyen. I think about it too in very practical terms. My daily experience that i would add to what you wrote, is the process of optimism (if mildly blind) and struggle to improve my caring. For example, as you know, one idea is to start with your family, love them and expand out. But as you said, that can in many ways relate to self interested agenda. But lets take a complex example, struggling to love absolutely, failing, but then struggling to still care for someone who is being cruel and inconsiderate.

By the way his holiness the dalai lama often mentions his monk friends, already 20 years in Chinese prison, struggling not to loose their absolute love for the cruel prison guards.

So i have a situation where my wife is very instable, aggresive, distructive and can not restrain herself in front of our 5 year old daughter. So often i struggle to love her and that is good. There is at least, therefor the potential for improvement in my caring.

So love starts with understanding someone. And i try to get that voice of my wife clearer and clearer in myheart. Now i understand that my wife has deep questions that she has not answered. And her self doubt ( enter those who say you seed self realization before you can loose it self-cent-attitude) along with blaming others has created an umtenable situation.

So in short, i think that it is meaningful to try to becone more loving on way to absòlute love...
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
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Ogyen
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by Ogyen »

tomschwarz wrote: Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:39 am Great Ogyen. I think about it too in very practical terms. My daily experience that i would add to what you wrote, is the process of optimism (if mildly blind) and struggle to improve my caring. For example, as you know, one idea is to start with your family, love them and expand out. But as you said, that can in many ways relate to self interested agenda. But lets take a complex example, struggling to love absolutely, failing, but then struggling to still care for someone who is being cruel and inconsiderate.

By the way his holiness the dalai lama often mentions his monk friends, already 20 years in Chinese prison, struggling not to loose their absolute love for the cruel prison guards.

So i have a situation where my wife is very instable, aggresive, distructive and can not restrain herself in front of our 5 year old daughter. So often i struggle to love her and that is good. There is at least, therefor the potential for improvement in my caring.

So love starts with understanding someone. And i try to get that voice of my wife clearer and clearer in myheart. Now i understand that my wife has deep questions that she has not answered. And her self doubt ( enter those who say you seed self realization before you can loose it self-cent-attitude) along with blaming others has created an umtenable situation.

So in short, i think that it is meaningful to try to becone more loving on way to absòlute love...
Spouses can be very difficult to start with for some. For others it's a natural place to begin (fewer of these I think).

I learned that you can have a very "unlovable" spouse and do the work inside yourself and you integrate your reality and understand the true nature of your conditions. When you have that clear, the course of action follows like a prescription for medicine in relation to an illness, and not a response to your poisons. You understand immediately by letting yourself get to the nature of your relative condition and you can see for example, that your wife needs a lot of support, that much is clear. We all have an area where we are her, she is us. You learn to not judge but be present and that practice of being available emotionally benefits you and your daughter.

You daughter will have to work out her relationship with her mother. You can provide an anchor of solid heart logic for her, teach her to feel and reason for herself. We don't have perfect situations.. sometimes all you can think is a form of desperation that shouts you didn't want this for your child. But that frustration is a lack of integration with the true nature of your condition. Your reaction is an aggression that feels justified because you are so "at your limits" of know-how. You think "I tried everything."... And yes... You tried everything YOU KNEW. So when nothing seems to work, this should go deeper into the practice.

You can't change anyone but you can be the example you want to see and always welcome who is receptive to also embark on their own journey of discovery. Your practice can generate secondary causes for your wife to benefit directly as well. Most importantly your daughter can learn how to think and reason and not hold bitterness in her own dynamic with her mother. That would profoundly harm her and even though recovery is likely...the time wasted when it could be presented by example by a parent is something to consider as motivation to get moving and practice all the time. İt's about making it a habit ...practicing being a compassionate human ... Compassion is non-aggression. Compassion can be strong, but it does not have aggression.

Aside from a bio-chemical reaction to survival instincts, agression is psychologically "ego centric childishness" filling in the gaps for knowledge not acquired, manifesting as a lack of skill to really address the true nature of your condition. If you fully understood and knew how to apply a tool that worked you wouldn't be kicking and screaming at the thing for not doing what you expected. You would simply fix it. No agression. Compassion all the way because you cultivated that compassion as a daily moment to moment practice. Being kind takes a lot of guts. Seeing life from a posture I'd love and what is best for the child, your wife... everyone, this is a daily practice.

I think it's wonderful how much effort you put into your family even when it is really challenging. I get it completely! Good for you!! What you can do that really matters is to be clear with yourself about what you know and don't know, and know you are doing your best and always keep that dialogue open with your daughter. Be patient. As she gets older you can cultivate more profound conversations, and she will grow into a woman. She will appreciate an ally. You can't protect her from experiencing life. You decide the best you can and self-correct when you find yourself in error. And you teach her the bravery of accountability, and power of vulnerability and sincerity. That's brave integration work right there... Right on!

:meditate:
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tomschwarz
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Re: Love Light shine

Post by tomschwarz »

Ogyen wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 8:00 am sometimes all you can think is a form of desperation that shouts you didn't want this for your child. But that frustration is a lack of integration with the true nature of your condition. Your reaction is an aggression that feels justified because you are so "at your limits" of know-how. You think "I tried everything."... And yes... You tried everything YOU KNEW. So when nothing seems to work, this should go deeper into the practice.
Amen sister. Great heart wisdom. I have a very similar experience of going into my weaknesses, and seeing them, "limits" as you say, where buddhism stops and my fundamental ignorance starts )))

About my daughter, I do already have very beautiful, age-appropriate, deep wisdom discussions with her. You know what? I will tell you )))))), the one rule, yes as a father I have only 1 rule for my whole family including my daughter, and my wife and yours truly... That rule, my daughter will tell you, is love. Specifically, it is caring for others' happiness. That is it, the only rule. Ah yes, life is good.

...you know, first noble truth, very true. But also true is that the conventional truth (the truth of self and independence of things, duality, this tree, that flower, my lawn, your house, this galaxy, that boson, this fermion, and so on) is an infinite display of the ultimate truth (of dependent origination and emptiness). Without the three poisons, life is ok.
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
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