How to develop unconditional love?

[Flolfolil]

i want to be able to love my "enemies" and friends equally. i can say that i do, but i don't feel like it comes from within. i believe that my annoyance and avoidance of undesirable people is just hatred under a new name, and i don't like it.

 

Does anyone have any advice/books/links that might help me?

 

this could turn into a debate about whether i need to or not, but i know i don't -need- to. i want to. i see other people that feel love for everyone and everything and i don't feel it. i don't see the point in striving to help others other than for my own emotional gratification. i feel like accumulating merit is just a point-system to give us a false reason to feel good about ourselves. Please, help me understand the possible error of these thoughts and bring me to a greater appreciation of humanity.

[Songtsan]

Tonglen technique, also Chod Powha; learn to love all that's in your mind unconditionally and you learn to love all that is outside your mind unconditionally. Surrender to humiliation, fear, judgment, condemnation, scorn, etc. and you learn not to put up defenses when it occurs, and thus bypass hate/anger because of it, and you can get closer to love. Accept everything that comes in with equanimity. Develop bodhichitta. Want more?

[Harmonious Emptiness]

i don't see the point in striving to help others other than for my own emotional gratification.

 

If you ask me, getting emotional gratification from helping others is about as good as it gets. It means that you like doing this, right?

[Songtsan]

realize that your enemies are also your friends...enemies make us stronger often, by finding our weaknesses and pointing them out to us - thus they help us evolve. Friends support us in our weakness, thus inhibiting our growth in some ways. Learn to love your enemies and hate your friends and all will be right....just kidding...but, realize that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain is what you need to understand the most. Attachment/non-attachment suffering/bliss....love and bliss are what can come easily when you are not attached. When you become attached to your ego, and someone comes up and 'attacks' your ego, you label them as enemy, all the while not realizing that the ego is the true source of your suffering. So those enemies are really frenemies....people who come up and stroke your ego and pet it, keep you feeling safe in your ego - they are called friends, but are really 'dead ends' as they will stop you from growth. But these things I say are also not true...accept criticism with gratitude, even if you are sure its not true - these people are really trying to help you, even if they do not know it.

 

Don't pet the sweaty things...

 

If you like, I could become your enemy for a day - tear you down no matter what you say - then you could practice loving while I am being mean, and you could see what it is like to try it

Edited June 23, 2013 by Songtsan

[Vmarco]

 

 

How to develop unconditional love?

 

That is easy....seek and find all the barriers you have built against it.

 

You can't develop unconditional love,...only uncover it. The Heart sutra would be helpful. And the Heart Attack Sutra would be helpful to realize the Heart Sutra.

[Vmarco]

If you like, I could become your enemy for a day - tear you down no matter what you say - then you could practice loving while I am being mean, and you could see what it is like to try it

 

That sounds like a Dakini method for realization.

[Songtsan]

That sounds like a Dakini method for realization.

 

yes...Kundalini taught me well. I can become Kali now...want me to chop your head off? Trample your body? Just let me know...

[Vmarco]

yes...Kundalini taught me well. I can become Kali now...want me to chop your head off? Trample your body? Just let me know...

 

If such an opportunity came my way,...may I follow spirit without hesitation, into such a vajrayogini's presence.

 

 

"I am not suited to polite society To social striving, upward mobility, and making good impressions. I am radically honest, sensitive, brilliant, and blunt. I hold up a mirror to the best and worst facets of human life." ~Vajrayogini

[Songtsan]

If such an opportunity came my way,...may I follow spirit without hesitation, into such a vajrayogini's presence.

 

 

"I am not suited to polite society To social striving, upward mobility, and making good impressions. I am radically honest, sensitive, brilliant, and blunt. I hold up a mirror to the best and worst facets of human life." ~Vajrayogini

 

hmmm. I will do my best. Perhaps my own dakini will assist, otherwise I might fall half-short.

 

First of all, regardless of how spiritual, wise and aware you think you are, you are still lying to yourself all day long. All these beliefs you have are simply illusions, based on passing feeling states. You are still speaking in absolutes even though you know that you are dualistic, so you are trying to fake it until you make it. You have made a point of reading and following other peoples paths, even though those paths are nonexistent illusions. You paint a pretty picture, but it is only 2-dimensional. You are still fabricating mindstuff all day long and believing that they are true and that they are you. Even though you may feel that what you are is true and mostly pure, it contains at least the seed of a lie, and will always be corrupt. In fact, you shouldnt even be on this site, you should be empty already. Those who know say nothing. I see you saying something all the time. You are addicted to hearing your own ego talk and getting the petty bliss that comes with thinking that you are wise and helping others. You are not fully realized yet, perhaps have only had just a few glances at what it tastes like and then started creating mind fabrications around that. Again you are lying to yourself. You are living in your own movie. You are the star actor, and you are expecting to get paid in the end. This is the truest form of envy and greed. You desire what you have heard about so much that you have devoted yourself in its pursuit. You tell yourself that you are on a higher path, when all you are seeking in the moment is more enjoyment. There is little difference between you and a lascivious, wanton person. You are simply seeking greater and greater blisses. No matter what you say as regards your motives, it is none other than this. You are a spiritual addict - this is all just another form of attachment that has ensnared you. You already think you know this, yet you tell yourself that it is still ok, when you feel at the same time that it isn't. You try to shove that part of yourself down into the recesses of your mind, telling yourself that you will deal with it eventually. You hold on to the other part that says that this is good, saying that you will abandon this boat when you reach the shore, yet how long has this been going on? Instead of dealing with your shortcomings, you revel in supposed gains. This is mental masturbation. You are simply staring in the mirror preening like any peacock. You look for other mirrors out there who are like you to mutually masturbate with so that you feel good about yourself. There is nothing special about this. Every time you post you are doing so partly out of the desire for respect (because you dont respect your self fully, so you need it from others), need for attention (because you havent yet learned to be complete from within), need to feel wise as if you are some great teacher (because you dont feel wise enough within yourself, so you want to get the bliss of hearing others praise your wisdom and learning, and displaying gratitude for your beneficence), and a host of other ills that have steered your path all your life. They all stem from childhood patterns that you still haven't grown out of yet. You are still unripe and inmature. Again you say you know this, yet you insist on continuing the charade. You say to yourself, "aren't I at least doing some good?" in excuse, yet you know that your advice is not whole, and this has seeds of corruption built within. You are deliberately misleading other people to some degree and decide that it still serves your interest. This is selfish. Perhaps only a small degree of selfish, yet the seed of corruption will grow and spread as you disseminate imperfect (dis)information, like a virus spreading through and through. You have forgotten that everyone perceives and takes in information differently - you have not learned to adjust your teachings to each student individually...your posts have common themes because you have become habitually patterned in your stale belief systems. Perhaps its time to take a vow of silence, both internally and externally. When you have completed full absorption in every aspect of of your actions, in unity with the true everchanging suchness, then perhaps you will be egoless enough to speak to others of being egoless. Dont fear me. You will say you dont, but you still surely fear yourself, so how can you not fear me, as I am yourself? You have yet to enter the twisted parts of yourself and claim them in all their ugliness as you. Stop trying to be so nice and pure all the time. Let the other parts of yourself speak up. You know that you have 'imperfections' - that is how you view them...anything that is colored with self-hate is what you call an imperfection. You try to section those parts of yourself off, only furthering the stain. You try to ignore them, knowing full well that nescience is one of the roots of your afflictions. You are being lazy. Sloth. Despite all your work you have a flacidness about you that speaks of gluttony of the mind. You are simply attached to enjoyment, and negatively attached to pain, as is everyone else. Your pride/vanity leads you to believe that you have somehow elevated yourself over the majority of humanity. You see yourself as a risen being, forgetting that you have really gone nowhere except to more beautiful illusions. You are addicted to your mansions, having forgotten that the things you own also own you...so you are now owned by your supposed transcendance. You are owned by your pretty mind fabrications. They occupy your time as much as a man who owns a Ferrari or trophy wife. You spend much of your time stroking your own ego and patting yourself on the back. Even now you are grinning, thinking that this is fun, yet you are still seeking after enjoyment - you cannot help yourself - it is one of your most deepest habits. You know that it is not bad to experience enjoyment, yet the very fact that you asked for this shows that you still desire. You relish in your desire. You eat it all day long. It is your master still. You have dreams of becoming a world teacher, becoming enlightened and changing the world. Ego stuff. You are no different than the lowest beggar, a street thief or a lawyer. You will tell yourself that at least some of what i say is true, admit it with a feigned sense of humility (you enjoy feeling humble like a submissive BDSM gamester), all the while enjoying the game of supposed ego destruction. Yet I have told you nothing you haven't known already - you are still seeking mirrors to tell you how special you are. This is still all ego-petting. Its a twisted form of self pleasure. A game of bliss states. Seeking seeking seeking, but never finding what you really set out to find in the first place. Drop it. You check the threads you post in to see if anyone has replied to your witty, oh so insightful posts, looking for your little 'I'm special' hits every time someone praises your wisdom. You focus more on what you are teaching than the other wisdom around you. You are more concerned with feeling that you are wise than actually becoming wise by listening more than you talk. You read other people's posts looking for ammo to use against them - hiding in ambush for a reason to show them you are wiser than they are. You forget that the ignorance you see in them is the same ignorance that lies in you. Seer, seen, and act of seeing are one. Only when you see only enlightened beings everywhere will you yourself be enlightened. As things stand now, the lack of enlightenment you see is what you really are.

Edited June 23, 2013 by Songtsan

[Flolfolil]

hmmm. I will do my best. Perhaps my own dakini will assist, otherwise I might fall half-short.

damn bro, everything you said was completely and utterly true

 

do you have any messenger programs? we should talk more and you should continue to rip me apart

 

but still, knowing all that, i don't feel it in my heart. i just understand it with my mind

[Songtsan]

damn bro, everything you said was completely and utterly true

 

do you have any messenger programs? we should talk more and you should continue to rip me apart

 

but still, knowing all that, i don't feel it in my heart. i just understand it with my mind

 

actually it was for Vmarco, since he asked...but its probably true for most of us...the way I did it was to simply look at myself and find anything I saw in myself that could be applied to others...everything I said was my own shortcomings. I think we all contain all aspects of humanity to different degrees, so it is easy to understand eachother on the deepest of levels if we understand ourselves. Even many of the teachings of the Buddha in the original Pali cannons indicated to me that he still had pride - but as I stated - it is because I am myself prideful that I see pride in others so easily. We are all mirrors - what you see in others is how you are.

 

But that is a good point - not feeling it in your heart means that I failed you. Only when I strike and draw blood will it truly work. As I said, everyone already knows these things about themselves. Only when you crack the shell of someone's ignorance will it hurt. Its hard when you are around people who are so in tune with their internal worlds that they arent very ignorant. My only real chances are to find soft spots - places where people dont fully accept themselves yet. I will be on the lookout from now on if you wish. I will be like a predator. I'm a chicken hawk hunting for a chicken, gettin' paranoid when you hear my glock clickin'

Edited June 23, 2013 by Songtsan

[Songtsan]

no - no messenger programs...never tried that before...beat me whip me tie me up in chains? Is that what you want?

 

do you have any messenger programs? we should talk more and you should continue to rip me apart

Edited June 23, 2013 by Songtsan

[3bob]

When one is seriously broken then one is ripe for unconditional love to touch them; also only the purified in heart and mind can truly see and reveal our brokenness to us with wisdom and compassion for they have nothing to gain only goodness to give! Further, in direct knowing and experience from being touched by such goodness which reaches to our core then our core to can join in like giving since the nature of the free is to spread freedom...

Edited June 23, 2013 by 3bob

[Cheshire Cat]

To love enemies is such a non-sense

 

Metta Sutta for loving enemies in a scientific way!

http://nalanda.org.my/e-library/mettasutta/download/Metta%20Sutta.pdf

 

Buddham saranam gacchami

[de_paradise]

Dualistic or samsaric good behavior, such as our personal daily striving to show compassion or love gets a bad rap that it doesn't merit. From the point of view of ultimate absolute unconditional love of someone who is realized, its a bit tawdry or synthetic. But the bit by bit, situation by situation, thought by thought, impression by impression, dream by dream, posture, gesticulation, face, eye expressions, those slim little energy impressions that you have in your body moment to moment, all of this counts. Its not about karma, thats just a reductionist expression so we dont get lost in the complexity. Its about redoing your conditioning, and ridding your consciousness and body of those complexes, triggers, knots, of negativity so the love can shine through. Its about noticing the negative parts, stopping, and changing it. The good part of this is, if you are able to change the strong habit energy of one particular situation, there is a kind of elastic band snap effect that allows you to progress in a big way. What I mean is, it helps you more to have had a problem and undone it, than to have been neutral all along. This is why really messed up people are often the ones who can make the quickest progress.

 

Meditation and energy practices do this slowly and thoroughly over the long term. The deeper state of meditation the more garbage gets resolved.

[Sloppy Zhang]

I think love, or in the case of an enemy, at least compassion, maybe even forgiveness (let's say you have to start somewhere)...

 

Comes from understanding.

 

Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to this process. You have to live your life, be in situations, learn as a person.

 

Then you need to be able to correctly discern when someone you meet/know is in a position that you understand.

 

Since you understand that person, their situation, why they are doing what they are doing, you can have compassion in your heart for them, maybe even unconditional love and/or forgiveness.

 

 

I personally think that's where the Budhha's compassion comes from, if it is true that part of his Buddhahood involved him living thousands and thousands of lives. That means he has been in every situation, on the giving and receiving end of actions, he knows what it is like, and so can understand all of the factors that drive people to act the way they do. And since he knows all of this, he has compassion for all.

 

If Jesus/God is truly omniscient, then that allows for God's/Christ's forgiveness too.

 

If you lean in those directions.

 

 

In any case, I don't think there is any shortcut, or any meditation you can do on it. Well, you can meditate on the situation, and you can meditate in general to develop the correct thought and being able to discern situations clearly.

 

But I think part of it is observing and being in situations as well. And that requires, well, life.

[Jetsun]

There are over 7 billion people each with a different belief system about the way life should be, so its no wonder there is perpetual conflict and stress as each belief system bumps into others each insisting its own is the correct perspective. Therefore the only way to love everyone is to go beyond all of your beliefs as any belief you impose upon yourself you also impose on the world at large, which isn't a very compassionate way to go about things.

 

There is a consciousness which embraces it all including your lack of love and any belief you have and that consciousness is right here .

Edited June 23, 2013 by Jetsun

[Vmarco]

 

I personally think that's where the Budhha's compassion comes from, if it is true that part of his Buddhahood involved him living thousands and thousands of lives. That means he has been in every situation, on the giving and receiving end of actions, he knows what it is like, and so can understand all of the factors that drive people to act the way they do. And since he knows all of this, he has compassion for all.

 

If Jesus/God is truly omniscient, then that allows for God's/Christ's forgiveness too.

 

What! god and Jesus are 2 of the most unforgiving fabrications ever devised.

 

The Christian god is a god to be feared,...for he forgives nothing (just read the Bible). And Jesus,...his love at best can be compared to a pre-American Civil war slave owner with a fishing problem.

 

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Jesus….Matthew 5:17

[Vmarco]

There are over 7 billion people each with a different belief system about the way life should be, so its no wonder there is perpetual conflict and stress as each belief system bumps into others each insisting its own is the correct perspective. Therefore the only way to love everyone is to go beyond all of your beliefs as any belief you impose upon yourself you also impose on the world at large, which isn't a very compassionate way to go about things.

 

There is a consciousness which embraces it all including your lack of love and any belief you have and that consciousness is right here .

Conscious Love is imposible to realize through the filters of belief.

 

As the 1st Century Gnostic text says,..."when you can disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments (beliefs) and place them under your feet like little child and tread on them, then you will no longer be afraid".

[Songtsan]

 

What! god and Jesus are 2 of the most unforgiving fabrications ever devised.

 

The Christian god is a god to be feared,...for he forgives nothing (just read the Bible). And Jesus,...his love at best can be compared to a pre-American Civil war slave owner with a fishing problem.

 

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Jesus….Matthew 5:17

 

This is true (but it is also false)

This is false (but it is also true)

This is both false and true

This is both not false and not true

Emptiness

Fullness

Nonexistence?

 

The only true (and false) answer is all of the above

 

stop speaking in absolutes! (dualistically speaking)

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Metta bhavana.

[Vmarco]

 

hmmm. I will do my best. Perhaps my own dakini will assist, otherwise I might fall half-short.

 

You check the threads you post in to see if anyone has replied to your witty, oh so insightful posts, looking for your little 'I'm special' hits every time someone praises your wisdom. You focus more on what you are teaching than the other wisdom around you. You are more concerned with feeling that you are wise than actually becoming wise by listening more than you talk. You read other people's posts looking for ammo to use against them - hiding in ambush for a reason to show them you are wiser than they are. You forget that the ignorance you see in them is the same ignorance that lies in you. Seer, seen, and act of seeing are one. Only when you see only enlightened beings everywhere will you yourself be enlightened. As things stand now, the lack of enlightenment you see is what you really are.

That was a long read,...and offer my apologies for your interpreting me in that way.

 

Just a few points,...I have no interest in wisdom,...wisdom is, by definition, knowledge accumulated through philosophic or scientific learning.

 

As some come to understand,...I'm on this forum,...certainly not to be special, nor to teach,...but for observing how people here respond to dialogue, and adjusting, to see if a point can be articulated in a way that effects a shift in their consciousness.

 

As Charles F. Haanel said, “The mind cannot comprehend an entirely new idea until a corresponding vibratory brain cell has been prepared to receive it.”

 

You could say I'm a writer that is continually measuring the cognizance of the TTB groupthink, so to devise better ways to help people heal from the most cancerous of all human diseases,...beliefs. Thus,...I'm primarily listening very attentively to posters and their views.

 

Actually,..I do see the Unborn Awareness of all I engage with,...and as such, am quite intolerant of the beliefs that step between them and their own direct experiences.

 

People like yourself, whose experiences are born of belief, and thus can only experience based on the condition of that belief,...get very upset with the fact just stated. They want to think that their experience is real and valuable. And that's ok.

 

One thing everyone on TTB can be assured of,...is that I will never offer them a belief system,..."anyone who gives you a belief system, is your enemy."

 

[Vmarco]

 

actually it was for Vmarco, since he asked...but its probably true for most of us...the way I did it was to simply look at myself and find anything I saw in myself that could be applied to others...everything I said was my own shortcomings.

Interesting. So you would say the same thing to Lao Tzu if he happened by.

[Marblehead]

 

One thing everyone on TTB can be assured of,...is that I will never offer them a belief system ...

 

Hehehe. No shit!

[Songtsan]

 

That was a long read,...and offer my apologies for your interpreting me in that way.- I didn't really, I interpreted my thought construction of who you might be at your worst, which is really myself, in that way...I don't know you well enough to make those observations, as well as being too dualized to see clearly

 

Just a few points,...I have no interest in wisdom,...wisdom is, by definition, knowledge accumulated through philosophic or scientific learning. - My thought construct of 'I' questions the honesty of this statement, as made by my thought construct of Vmarco..

 

As some come to understand,...I'm on this forum,...certainly not to be special, nor to teach,...but for observing how people here respond to dialogue, and adjusting, to see if a point can be articulated in a way that effects a shift in their consciousness. - My thought construct of 'I' certainly can relate to what my thought construct of Vmarco is saying, yet it also questions whether you may also have other questionable motives.

 

As Charles F. Haanel said, “The mind cannot comprehend an entirely new idea until a corresponding vibratory brain cell has been prepared to receive it.” - my TC of 'I' likes what your/my TC of Charles F. Haanel says, but it also thinks that this statement is too absolute, and has many flip sides of ignorance.

 

You could say I'm a writer that is continually measuring the cognizance of the TTB groupthink, so to devise better ways to help people heal from the most cancerous of all human diseases,...beliefs. Thus,...I'm primarily listening very attentively to posters and their views. - my TC 'I'also does this, but questions whether my TC Vmarco has other primary reasons to be here that he is not stating...Stop speaking in absolutes (or dont) my TC of Vmarco

 

Actually,..I do see the Unborn Awareness of all I engage with,...and as such, am quite intolerant of the beliefs that step between them and their own direct experiences. - My TC Vmarco is still speaking in absolutes, and should not seek to explain himself in response to my supposed ego-thrashing of my TC of him anyways

 

People like yourself, whose experiences are born of belief, and thus can only experience based on the condition of that belief,...get very upset with the fact just stated. They want to think that their experience is real and valuable. And that's ok. - my TC of 'I' likes this one. My TC Vmarco is speaking to his own TC of Songtsan, and speaking in absolutes at that, in making judgments of the truly unknowable (and fully knowable) TC of Songtsan, forgetting that his TC of Songtsan is not the real (and illusionary) Songtsan who is (not) out there somewhere in the real/illusionary world, which is also just a TC.

 

One thing everyone on TTB can be assured of,...is that I will never offer them a belief system,..."anyone who gives you a belief system, is your enemy." - Any speaking in absolutes is a belief system (and not), even my TC 'I's inversely mirrored statements, supposedly containing all dualities and thus transcending them and becoming absolutely (lies) are belief systems. It is impossible (and quite possible) to say anything without it automatically becoming a belief system. Feeling = belief...if you (TC Vmarco) have reached a state where you no longer feel, then you no longer believe (except by proxy) anything. My TC 'I' is positive that you (TC you) still have feelings, and thus have belief and can speak only from beliefs, even when you arent sure of your belief, because in stating you arent sure what you believe, you are also stating a belief (that you arent sure what you believe), and thus your statement is always a statement of belief.