Why meditate? Why do we do this?
- To reduce stress?
- To improve focus?
- To have a better understanding of our thoughts and emotions?
Yes to all these, but at our core why do we care to improve ourselves in these areas through practice? What lies upstream of all these desires and sub-goals?
It is my belief that when the rainwater hits the mountain, that initial trickle of want comes from a place of ultimately wishing to not suffer; and to act with the intention to alleviate our suffering is the current of love.
Wise love is perhaps the quintessence of compassion and acceptance. To love from the understanding of not just interconnectedness but ‘Oneness’ is the most powerful kind I have come across. My mother loves me unconditionally because I am her son and this is a very special love, but it is not the same kind of love that manifests when you realise that it is not ‘I’ or ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘you’ that suffers individually, but it is the universe that suffers as a whole. That to hate anyone else is to hate yourself. Perhaps it is true that you cannot love anyone else as much as you can love yourself; and so long as you see them as ‘other’ and not as the ‘same’ your love is not wise-love, not real love.
Tonight let us practice metta (loving kindness meditation) so that we may suffer less personally, but also so that we shape ourselves into conduits of love – that is a force that works towards the aliviation of suffering of all beings.