(bell)
[How can you truly open yourself towards others?
(Bell)
Dear Thay, dear Sangha,
how can you truly be open with someone?
There is fear to be rejected, to be misunderstood,
(Inaudible)
How can you truly be open yourself towards others?
Misunderstanding, wrong perceptions
are part of life,
like the mud.
Misunderstanding, wrong perceptions
are the foundations of war and conflicts,
death, suffering.
That is the mud.
And, the practice helps us to dissipate
misunderstanding, remove wrong perceptions,
restore communication,
and bring about reconciliation,
transforming the mud into a lotus flower.
This is possible,
And, the teaching of the Buddha can help us do this
as a person, as a group of people.
And when you can do it as a group of people,
you can change the situation of society.
And that is why to practice as an individual
is not enough. You have to practice as a group, as a sangha.
There are those of us who are so afraid
to love.
We do not dare to open our heart.
We are afraid, because we have suffered.
And, we think that to love is to suffer.
It is regrettable,
because true love can bring a lot of healing and joy.
There is a poet who wrote like this...
"Spring has come,
every flower is opening
opening out, but why does my heart refuse to open?
Because there is fear,
the fear to suffer again,
because we have not learned the art of loving.
Of course, the other person is unskillful
but we are also unskillful.
We don't know how to love, yet.
We allow misunderstanding, wrong perception to take over.
And, we make us suffer, and
we make each other suffer.
So, the teaching of the Buddha on love,
we should learn.
The first element of true love is Maitri,
loving kindness.
And, true love should be able to bring happiness.
Loving kindness is the energy that can bring happiness
to us and to the other person.
A love that cannot bring happiness, is not love.
It is something else -
passion, craving, sensual pleasure,
the desire to possess.
It is not love.
So, loving kindness is a kind of energy that we have to cultivate,
If it is true love, then it should bring well being,
happiness to us, and to the other person.
And, how to cultivate
loving kindness?
To look, to have the time to look and understand.
Understanding the suffering,
the difficulties, and the need of the other person
the suffering and the difficulties, and our own need.
We need the time to look into ourselves.
We need to understand our suffering, our difficulties,
and the deep aspiration in us.
And, we should be able to accept us as we are.
So, understanding is the foundation of love,
of loving kindness.
We should ask: "Do I understand myself?"
"Do I understand my suffering, my difficulties?
If you understand your own suffering, your difficulties,
you'll feel much better.
You accept yourself.
And, then, when you look at the other person
you can understand his or her suffering much more easily
So, the first step is to understand "self"
and to accept "self".
And, the second step is to understand the other
and accept the other.
Without that kind of understanding
and acceptance, happiness is not possible.
And, true love is to be cultivated.
The second element of true love is compassion.
Compassion is the energy that can heal.
When you have compassion in your heart you suffer much less.
And, you open your heart so easily.
Look at the other person deeply,
and you see the suffering in him or in her.
That person is a victim of her own suffering,
his own suffering.
And, he does not know how to handle that suffering in him.
He continues to suffer deeply, and he makes you suffer also
not because he wants to.
So, understanding the suffering in that person,
you are not angry at him or her any more.
And, you want to do something, to say something
to help that person suffer less.
It means you have compassion in your heart.
And, if when you want to do something, or to say something
to help him or her suffer less,
it means that compassion IS in your heart.
And, as compassion is in your heart,
you don't suffer anymore,
because you have opened your heart to yourself
and now, you can open your heart to him or to her.
And, that is the second energy of true love: compassion, karuna.
And, when you have a lot of karuna its called mahakaruna,
Great Compassion.
You are a Bodhisattva,
you are a buddha, because the compassion in you is so
so large.
Your heart includes not only him or her,
but you include us all.
Mahakaruna.
And, mahakaruna, the energy of compassion, is to be cultivated.
And, without getting in touch with the suffering,
without understanding suffering,
you cannot generate the energy of karuna, compassion.
When compassion is born, we begin to heal...
heal you, and heal the world.
And, with the practice of meditation on love
metta, maitri meditation,
karuna meditation,
you suffer less.
You begin to taste the nectar of love,
and you open your heart so easily to the world!
The third element of true love is joy.
If your love does not bring joy to you
and makes the other person cry
all day long, it's not true love.
So, the mark of true love is joy.
And, joy is healing.
And, the fourth element of true love
is inclusiveness,
openness.
Inclusiveness means that you open your heart
and allow that person to be inside of your heart.
And, without opening your heart, how can you include her,
include him in your heart?
And, as you continue, your heart grows bigger and bigger all the time.
And, very soon, you include us,
because you don't discriminate against us anymore.
Your heart is so large that you include us all.
Include all of us in your heart.
That is the love of a buddha
which does not exclude anyone.
Not only humans, but also animals, plants and minerals.
All are embraced in that love.
That is equanimity. That is non-discrimination.
And, the Buddha's teaching on love is very specific, very clear,
concrete.
And, if we practice,
we cultivate these four elements,
happiness begins to be with us right away.
We don't need many months or years.
The moment when we begin to practice maitri, karuna, mudita and upeksha
happiness begins in our heart.
We open our heart to ourselves,
to him or to her, right away.
(bell)
(Bell)