Accessing Our Love, and Other Challenges

Are we “cultivating” love, compassion, and joy, or do we already have plenty and just need to access it?
 
If we have plenty, and just need to learn how to access it, what’s in the way of doing that? For me, it’s wanting to hold onto the things that are working, and wanting all the really awful moments to end: all that wanting for things to be different, instead of learning to be “in” love right in this (imperfect) present.

Which makes me wonder: if that’s true for me, is it true for everyone? And if so, then does that mean everyone? And if it does, then is compassion the right response, for all the everyone’s who just don’t know, yet, how to access their love?

Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 487. Welcome!

I was listening to a teaching recently and wanted to share something that resonates for me, about metta, or lovingkindness, or unconditional friendliness.

Metta is of course one of the Four Brahmaviharas or “heavenly abodes.” These four states of mind, or states of heart, are called heavenly abodes because they’re the spaces we probably all want to live in: we want to live in a space of love, of compassion, joy, and equanimity, which are the Four. Another way of saying this is, we want this house of ours – this body, this life we live in – to be a house, a life, of love, of caring for ourselves and others, of having and bringing joy into the world, and of balance and ease. I realize I’m using the “we” here and not the “I,” because yeah, I’m assuming that’s what we all want.  

We could be forgiven, though, right now, for wondering whether that’s true, or whether there are a whole lot of people who want something entirely different. I feel like we could also be forgiven right now for wondering how on earth to live in that life, of love and caring and joy and ease, in this moment. How on earth – how on this earth, in this moment, when the earth herself has been relegated to a commodity and so many ways, all other beings, including humans, have been, too. 

The practice of metta, and of all Four Brahmaviharas, was always explained to me, and taught to me, as a practice of cultivation. And that feels right: as I’ve spent time, over the years, cultivating lovingkindness for example, for myself, for my beloveds, for my acquaintances, for strangers, difficult people, all beings, the earth – as I’ve spent that time, love and friendliness really have grown. This is one of the fundamental axioms of mindfulness, one of the things the ancient texts say, that whatever we think and ponder becomes the inclination of the mind. In neuroscientific terms, we know that as we practice love and friendliness, for example again, we carve deeper and deeper neural pathways in the mind, literally, and those eventually become default pathways which we habitually use in more and more situations. Or in plain English, as we practice friendliness and love, love becomes more accessible and eventually, automatic. 

So we do that, each in our own ways. Maybe we do that in formal practice by repeating the phrases for all of the categories of beings and the earth, and including ourselves, so for metta: may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe, may I live with ease, and, may you be happy, healthy, and safe, and live with ease, pointing at beloveds, acquaintances, strangers, difficult people, all beings, and I’m hoping we’re all including Mother Earth these days, too. Maybe we do that by summoning feelings of friendliness and love and then radiating those feelings out in all directions. Maybe we practice 3-second kindness and wish people well, secretly, working with this simple practice to bring a warm, loving, friendly attitude to as many people as we can all day long. And there are other ways, too. 

The inquiry I’m working with right now, though, is, what does cultivation mean? When we talk about metta, and practice metta, and the other three Brahmaviharas, what do we mean by cultivation? 

When I first began practicing, the very idea of the Brahmaviharas, the heavenly abodes, was foreign to me. I wasn’t raised in a family that had a lot of fluency with wholesome emotions, in the sense of intentionally bringing those qualities of heart and mind to the moment, or in the sense of talking about their value. So I was coming to the Brahmaviharas as a complete novice and with skepticism, not about their value so much as about my ability to cultivate them. And even though I still feel like a novice, I’d say that what I’ve seen is that is is possible to cultivate these beautiful qualities. And there’s that word again: cultivation. 

I’m raising that word and posing it as an inquiry because when I first heard about these qualities, I thought: I don’t have them but maybe I can listen and practice and study and “learn” them, like I learned math and how to cook and how to practice law.  But now, I wonder about that approach. 

Because I wonder – and this was the question that came up in the teaching I was listening to, not about our ability to cultivate, but if all of those beautiful qualities aren’t actually always there, waiting to be accessed. Meaning, sure, we can cultivate them if that means bringing them out and increasing them, but I wonder if love and friendship and care and joy and equanimity are already there, just waiting to be accessed. Like the other elements, the elements of the body: like water and air and space. I wonder if love and caring and joy and ease are already there, just waiting for us to lift them up in our lives, lift them up to the world. Like one of my students once wrote in their journal: “showcase your love!” I wonder if they’re all Four just residing, almost, internally, waiting to be showcased.

I wonder about this because when I first heard about the heavenly abodes, they sounded foreign but at the same time, completely familiar: familiar like, “where have I heard that?” or “when has that happened?” Like déjà vu. 

But, access! For me, there are so many barnacles, and the Brahmaviharas weren’t on the surface but deep down, “beneath.” Beneath my aversion, my worry, my exhaustion and doubt. Beneath all the ways I want the world and my life to be different. Beneath all the things that obfuscate love; discourage compassion; impede joy; and tip me over, over and over, making it hard to stand in the fire of this world with ease. 

So I’m wondering – inquiring – and I offer this inquiry to all of us: is metta already fully present and operating underneath all the obstacles, for all humans? And do we – the big “we,” the “all of us” “we,” only need to get beneath the greed, the hatred, and the delusion, for metta and compassion and joy and equanimity to out? Because if that’s the case, then it’s not just me or us, it’s everyone. And that includes a whole lot of folks who, for me, it’s hard to imagine are full of love and compassion underneath the obstacles; who know how to be joyful in a wholesome way, beneath the obstacles; or who have true equanimity, beneath the obstacles. Hard and sometimes even impossible to image. 

But, still, what if it’s true?