..续本文上一页ical text there is a verse that says: “The opposition of light is darkness.” When there is no darkness, the light has no obstruction to go through. So when you remove what”s obstructing, then what is already there naturally will come through immediately

　　This is called “the removal of obstacles”. For instance, in order to grow a seed we have to remove the obstacles. When the obstacles are removed, the seed grows very easily. Mental work is like that too when we do more and more meditation to remove the obstacles.

　　What we”re trying to cultivate is immeasurable loving-kindness and a calm-abiding mind, as well as a way of sustaining our mind in the peace and joy of its own positive qualities. That”s the objective goal. The obstacle here is self-importance and self-clinging with all the various ways that we have become habituated to our self-absorption. When that self-absorption is broken down over time, this positive side can then come alive without difficulty and manifest immediately in one”s mind. So try this.

　　Positive thought has the power to create positive feelings. Positive feelings have the power to counteract the negative feelings. When negative feelings are removed, you have also removed from the heart any kind of tendency, or opportunity, for negative feelings to arise. Then your mind is filled with positive feelings. These positive feelings include the happiness you feel right now as well as in the future. This leads to much greater things.

　　Not only does this sustain you right now, but by doing this practice your world becomes positive in the future. This world that we live in and the world of the next life become positive. Therefore this Four Immeasurables practice is known in Sanskrit as Brahmaviharas. It”s called Brahmaviharas because all the gods and goddesses in Brahma”s realm have been born through this method. I think this is a great way to find joy and happiness in one”s life.

　　Someone once asked me why this is so difficult for most people. It”s just that we”re so gullibly loyal to our self-importance. We”re so enmeshed in a deep passionate way with our self-importance. Shantideva speaks of remembering all the wrongdoings of your self-importance, and becoming vigilant to being less subservient to the self-importance and its reactions. This is what he suggests.

　　If the pain of our self-importance is not observed and experienced, it”s difficult for us to get untangled from it, and difficult to develop the mind”s freedom to respond according to our natural intelligence and wisdom.

　　So this is a sign of our offering to the wisdom mind. It”s actually a sign to the buddhas and bodhisattvas. It is said that being able to be patient in this way, to experience the pain that the self-importance has created and not react, is the greatest offering of all to the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Why

　　 Because here you are beginning to honor their words, respect their words, and make sense of it for yourself rather than being subservient to the self-importance and the afflicting emotions.

　　Without this, despite how much the buddhas and bodhisattvas have said about the path of liberation, it remains only in the books, in someone else”s realization. It doesn”t become part of your experience. Even if you have respect toward someone else who has thus gone beyond, you”re not necessarily going beyond yourself.

　　No matter how much respect you pour into them for going beyond, it will never be equal to you coming onto this path yourself. That you are on the path pleases them much more than any other offerings you could make.

　　Since they have gone beyond, the offerings of any number of wonderful things does not matter to them as much as you getting beyond. This is therefore the greatest form of offering, and the greatest form of accumulating merit.

　　(Taken from NSS 2005 Talk 2)

《The Practice of Loving-Kindness and the Greatest of All Offerings》全文阅读结束。