WEBVTT 00:02.731 --> 00:10.681 Okay, so tonight we chanted the Karaniyamita Sutta. 00:10.701 --> 00:17.130 It's the discourse on what should be done for love. 00:22.878 --> 00:30.848 What should be done by one who wishes to attain 00:32.313 --> 00:34.677 freedom through loving kindness. 00:38.605 --> 00:42.913 When we went to the Dharma Center, they chanted it. 00:43.093 --> 00:45.297 Oh no, they had me read it. 00:45.317 --> 00:45.898 I read it. 00:45.918 --> 00:50.547 They have someone read it every week or maybe every time they meet. 00:52.130 --> 00:54.574 And they read it in English. 00:56.883 --> 00:59.287 because the idea is to understand what you're saying. 00:59.307 --> 01:07.019 The Karaniyameta Sutta, it's actually more of a reminder. 01:07.900 --> 01:17.375 It's not actually a meditation practice, you see. 01:17.495 --> 01:18.537 There's the one part 01:19.850 --> 01:32.868 where it starts to talk about and so on. 01:33.829 --> 01:40.458 So it's explaining how to practice metta. 01:41.920 --> 01:46.566 It's explaining what should be done if your practice is metta. 01:48.082 --> 01:50.906 Meta means love. 01:50.926 --> 01:55.273 So it starts off by telling you what the preliminaries are. 01:55.333 --> 02:09.935 If you want to be a person who is proficient or a loving, if you want to be a loving person, you need certain prerequisites. 02:10.556 --> 02:11.457 You have to be 02:16.027 --> 02:40.414 The first part is about how you should train yourself if you would like to become a loving person. 02:40.867 --> 02:53.610 As with all of the good things in the world, mindfulness, wisdom, compassion, they're not things you can just set out and cultivate. 02:54.471 --> 02:59.079 You can't just say, I'm going to be in love with everyone, I'm going to have love for the whole world. 03:01.103 --> 03:02.826 Just as you can't say, I'm going to be wise. 03:03.287 --> 03:03.347 No. 03:04.171 --> 03:05.593 You can't will it to happen. 03:05.633 --> 03:07.917 This is something that takes work. 03:08.237 --> 03:11.342 Love is a quality of mind that takes work. 03:12.784 --> 03:24.002 And this is important because otherwise we quite often have a wrong idea of what is meant by love. 03:25.838 --> 03:35.867 We have an idea of love that is actually perhaps even unwholesome. 03:38.369 --> 03:44.595 It's the kind of love that we have for our families or that we have for our, what we say, loved ones. 03:44.735 --> 03:55.525 Now when you have love for loved ones, most of what you call love is actually some sort of attachment. 03:56.180 --> 03:58.363 And that's why it's ones. 03:58.463 --> 04:00.166 No, that's why it's particular. 04:03.010 --> 04:10.141 If you ask anyone, do you love your family more than you love perfect strangers on the street? 04:10.261 --> 04:12.644 And of course everyone would say, yes, I do. 04:15.368 --> 04:16.850 But the question is, well, why is that? 04:17.031 --> 04:20.135 There's various reasons. 04:20.195 --> 04:21.017 We're closer to them. 04:21.037 --> 04:22.078 We know them more. 04:23.040 --> 04:24.181 We understand them better. 04:24.201 --> 04:25.343 But the biggest one is that we're 04:25.728 --> 04:26.589 attached to them. 04:28.051 --> 04:34.378 We're more attached to our families than we are to our friends, and we're more attached to our friends than we are to perfect strangers. 04:36.040 --> 04:48.134 So we have this idea of love that is actually based on our desires. 04:49.075 --> 04:53.760 So when you say you love your friend, 04:55.883 --> 04:59.449 But the reason you say that, what you mean is that this person makes you happy. 05:01.192 --> 05:03.636 Why do you say, oh, I love so-and-so? 05:04.658 --> 05:05.299 Why do you say that? 05:05.359 --> 05:09.967 You say that as an expression of pleasure, because that person brings you pleasure. 05:11.610 --> 05:18.041 You don't say it, we often don't say it because it means I want to help that person. 05:19.303 --> 05:20.946 See, there's the aspect that is love. 05:21.871 --> 05:24.275 But there's the aspect that this person makes me happy. 05:24.415 --> 05:26.218 Oh, I love oranges, for example. 05:26.578 --> 05:30.604 Oh, I love cheesecake. 05:30.665 --> 05:31.947 We use this word love. 05:33.769 --> 05:37.014 But this isn't... See, it's not a pure love. 05:37.054 --> 05:40.319 And there is love, especially for our families, for example. 05:40.460 --> 05:42.723 There is the desire to help them. 05:43.865 --> 05:47.170 But it's so caught up in the desire that they should... 05:47.825 --> 05:51.249 be and act in a certain way, which is attachment. 05:52.450 --> 05:54.873 And this is, the word we use is caring. 05:56.054 --> 06:00.980 We say, I care for the people I love. 06:02.682 --> 06:09.830 And so I had a question recently, someone asked me, if you give up attachment, how can you care for the ones that you love? 06:09.890 --> 06:14.355 Does a person who lets go not care anymore? 06:15.517 --> 06:21.363 And I've actually gotten this sort of question before, and it's actually true that love doesn't care. 06:22.485 --> 06:23.426 Love isn't caring. 06:23.906 --> 06:25.668 Love and caring are two very different things. 06:26.969 --> 06:29.893 It's a difficult teaching, but I'm quite sure it's true. 06:32.435 --> 06:45.169 Love is ready to help, but it doesn't care in the sense that it doesn't become upset when things don't go as planned, you see. 06:45.841 --> 06:47.523 Think of the word care. 06:47.543 --> 06:52.169 It doesn't mean that you don't care for people the way a nurse cares for people. 06:53.110 --> 06:57.496 You care for people as appropriate to your situation out of love. 06:59.138 --> 07:04.064 In the sense of actively working for them or doing something for their benefit. 07:06.427 --> 07:10.853 But if you help them or if you do your part and they don't... 07:11.930 --> 07:15.354 They don't get better or they don't appreciate it. 07:16.295 --> 07:17.937 You don't care, you see. 07:19.058 --> 07:26.527 So you don't have this caring in terms of being upset or having your happiness dependent on something. 07:27.348 --> 07:38.882 You see, a person who is truly free from attachment won't care what happens in the sense that they won't be moved by what happens. 07:40.162 --> 07:45.129 They will care in the sense that they will differentiate between actions. 07:45.209 --> 07:50.976 So they will act in such a way as to bring benefit. 07:50.996 --> 07:56.764 So they will care in the sense that they won't say, if I hurt you or if I help you, it's all the same. 07:57.665 --> 07:58.086 They care. 07:58.126 --> 07:59.648 They care. 07:59.708 --> 08:08.700 They do the things that bring care to people or bring care or bring benefit, you see. 08:10.891 --> 08:21.045 But when we talk about caring, caring what happens to people, you see, we're dealing with two very different mind states. 08:21.165 --> 08:34.283 The one that looks and thinks this is something that is helpful for that person and decides to do it, doesn't just sit back and watch them suffer, or doesn't just sit back and watch them suffer. 08:34.904 --> 08:36.507 be in need. 08:36.567 --> 08:48.071 When they need something, love and this kind of caring is the giving as is appropriate to give, helping as is appropriate to help. 08:51.398 --> 08:54.364 But there will be no, there's no anxiety 08:55.255 --> 09:07.292 If it's not appropriate to help or if there's no way you can help when you see someone suffering greatly, you don't care in the sense that you don't get upset when they're suffering. 09:07.312 --> 09:13.661 You do what you can to help and you're mindful and you're clear in mind about it. 09:14.182 --> 09:22.073 And so the easiest way to understand the difference here is that true love is universal. 09:23.588 --> 09:34.480 How we can tell the difference between love and attachment is that attachment is partial to certain things and certain people. 09:35.761 --> 09:45.592 The love that we have for our parents, the love that we have for our children, the part of it that is love is the same sort of thing that can be developed for all beings. 09:46.693 --> 09:51.739 But the attachment can only be developed for 09:53.187 --> 10:01.176 one segment of reality or one portion of reality, one segment of the population. 10:01.196 --> 10:06.182 So we have attachment for certain people. 10:06.923 --> 10:13.430 But love is something that can exist to the same extent between all beings. 10:13.831 --> 10:18.376 We can have love for a perfect stranger, something we don't normally think of. 10:18.436 --> 10:19.397 We normally think that 10:20.187 --> 10:26.396 love is something that you reserve for your loved ones, right? 10:26.416 --> 10:33.066 But that is actually more, that's a kind of love in the sense of being based on attachment. 10:35.369 --> 10:38.854 So when we develop love, this is, this is 10:39.323 --> 10:43.209 First of all, understanding that it's something that takes work. 10:43.489 --> 10:50.098 It's not this easy kind of love that you have for apples and oranges and sweets and so on. 10:50.739 --> 11:00.213 It's not even the love that you have for a romantic involvement, or even the love that you have for your children or your parents, per se. 11:00.293 --> 11:03.778 I mean, a large part of it, part of that is just attachment. 11:05.497 --> 11:07.720 The way you can tell is because love doesn't care. 11:07.760 --> 11:10.744 If a person dies, love doesn't get upset. 11:10.865 --> 11:14.169 Love doesn't cause you to be sad when a person dies. 11:14.229 --> 11:15.211 That's attachment. 11:16.332 --> 11:23.823 Love doesn't cause you to get upset when a person leaves you or when a person changes, when your friends betray you. 11:23.883 --> 11:26.847 This is attachment. 11:30.033 --> 11:39.472 The love that we have for our parents and for our children is the dedication to them and the going out of our way to help them. 11:42.919 --> 11:49.172 But the worrying and the caring part. 11:51.768 --> 11:54.110 is based on attachment. 11:55.011 --> 11:56.333 Which is, of course, much easier. 11:56.393 --> 12:02.759 It's much easier to love cheesecake than it is to love your enemies, for example. 12:02.919 --> 12:17.454 So this is a good way to test your love, and to understand love, is to cultivate it not only on those you love, but cultivate it on those who you don't know, and on those who you actually are upset at. 12:17.514 --> 12:21.538 Because then you can see where... Actually, the best people are those you don't like. 12:22.193 --> 12:24.276 Because then you know the only thing that you're going to have is love. 12:24.296 --> 12:26.218 You'll have no attachment for someone you don't like. 12:26.278 --> 12:38.573 If you have someone who you're angry at, when you try to cultivate love for that person, you'll find out what true love is. 12:38.594 --> 12:41.257 Because you won't be able to get attached to them. 12:42.939 --> 12:45.963 You won't give rise to the same attachment as you will for someone you love. 12:47.565 --> 12:48.606 Quote-unquote love. 12:51.151 --> 12:58.681 So first important point, love is something that's difficult and takes training to undertake, to cultivate. 12:59.803 --> 13:01.104 And so there's things that you have to do. 13:01.144 --> 13:02.206 You have to be upright. 13:02.406 --> 13:03.888 You have to be set in morality. 13:03.908 --> 13:07.593 You have to be a charitable person. 13:07.653 --> 13:08.615 You can't be stingy. 13:08.655 --> 13:12.159 You have to be, you have to practice meditation. 13:12.199 --> 13:17.867 The best way to cultivate loving kindness is to clear your mind and your mind is pure. 13:18.725 --> 13:24.752 An enlightened being is naturally able to cultivate loving-kindness and wish for good things for all beings. 13:27.837 --> 13:33.182 So content, easy to support, with few duties, living lightly, controlled in senses. 13:33.862 --> 13:35.684 Your mind has to be focused. 13:36.284 --> 13:42.189 Your mind has to be free from these kind of attachments, sensual attachments. 13:42.229 --> 13:43.531 It has to be free from worry. 13:43.591 --> 13:46.493 It has to be free from anxiety, fear. 13:46.533 --> 13:52.298 It has to be free from shame and guilt for having done bad things. 13:52.318 --> 13:56.882 So you have to be moral and virtuous in order to cultivate it. 14:00.862 --> 14:02.244 and not attached to families. 14:02.645 --> 14:05.329 These are actually words for monks. 14:05.830 --> 14:13.381 A lot of the Buddha's teaching, some people ask, well, then is this sort of teaching really applicable to lay people? 14:13.401 --> 14:18.449 We're talking about things like being easy to support in terms of going on alms round or so on. 14:19.150 --> 14:27.342 But the Buddha would always frame it in terms of the training for the monks because they were the ones he gave the majority of his talks to. 14:28.587 --> 14:35.558 So this talk was actually given to a group of monks and there's a very famous story about the Karaniya Meta Sutta. 14:35.578 --> 14:44.552 They went into this forest to practice meditation and the angels tried to kick them out and so they came back with the Meta Sutta. 14:44.572 --> 14:49.920 And when the angels heard the Karaniya Meta Sutta they took care of the monks and they let them stay. 14:52.516 --> 14:56.421 So the Buddha taught this to these monks saying go back and chant the Metta Sutta. 14:56.441 --> 15:00.205 So we always go and chant it when we go to a new place, when we go to the forest. 15:01.687 --> 15:13.642 We always try to remember to chant this Sutta and think of all the good things in it to cultivate loving kindness for all the beings in the forest. 15:16.726 --> 15:18.608 But what I mean is 15:19.972 --> 15:35.113 the Buddha would give a teaching that was detailed, directed towards the monks, but the same principles, the meaning was that the same principles should be practiced by the lay people, only to a lesser degree. 15:35.133 --> 15:35.955 So when you have 15:36.290 --> 15:44.521 The whole of the Buddhist monastic code, all these 227 precepts and all the minor precepts, that's the detailed analysis of morality. 15:45.663 --> 15:49.428 But the basic morality is keeping five precepts. 15:49.448 --> 15:53.033 So if you keep five precepts, that's enough to become free from suffering. 15:53.053 --> 15:56.438 Of course, eight precepts, five or eight precepts you can keep. 15:57.739 --> 16:01.825 It's really the basis of the rest of the precepts. 16:02.800 --> 16:10.989 So in the same, you shouldn't just discard the things that the Buddha says in this example, a teaching that he gives to the monks. 16:12.190 --> 16:17.516 We should take this as the highest form of practice. 16:18.637 --> 16:32.352 So being unattached to family, so that means because monks shouldn't get caught up in their interactions with lay people or being partial to going into the village and hanging out with lay people. 16:32.990 --> 16:34.352 But then you think, well, why is that? 16:34.472 --> 16:36.735 And what is the quality that we're trying to avoid? 16:36.755 --> 16:44.606 Of course, it's busyness and socializing, which are very important qualities to avoid for lay people as well. 16:46.528 --> 16:56.702 So the point being, when we read many of the Buddha's teachings, we see that they're directed towards monks, but we should take the principle behind each one of them. 16:57.053 --> 16:59.676 Sometimes it's difficult to understand if you haven't lived as a monk. 16:59.816 --> 17:07.866 Sometimes you can have the monks explain why is it that we shouldn't go to families or how is it that a monk gets attached to families. 17:07.886 --> 17:08.486 These are the ways. 17:09.948 --> 17:12.371 These teachings are important for anyone. 17:12.411 --> 17:17.757 It says, someone who is skilled in good. 17:19.299 --> 17:24.225 Anyone who is skilled in good and wishes to attain that state of peace. 17:24.998 --> 17:38.146 That state of peace refers to the jhana or the calm and the state of tranquility and absorption that comes from cultivating loving kindness. 17:40.691 --> 17:41.873 And then it goes into a... 17:42.034 --> 17:44.138 If you read through it, you can see how the Buddha... 17:45.468 --> 17:51.620 gives an example of how to practice loving-kindness, but it's sort of an overview. 17:51.680 --> 17:54.085 The actual practice can take two forms. 17:55.288 --> 18:04.326 This form is the one that I favor as sort of a supplement to vipassana meditation, the insight meditation. 18:04.386 --> 18:07.071 It's that you start with 18:07.051 --> 18:11.816 You start with yourself, for example, and then you move outward physically. 18:12.697 --> 18:16.441 So here he's giving the example of sending to all beings at once. 18:17.623 --> 18:21.147 But the method of practice would be to cultivate it for yourself first. 18:21.527 --> 18:23.830 Say, may I be happy, may I be free from suffering. 18:24.891 --> 18:28.034 And then go to the people in the room and think about them. 18:28.094 --> 18:30.477 May they be happy and may they be free from suffering. 18:31.385 --> 18:33.929 And then go to the people in the building. 18:34.670 --> 18:35.711 And you can think of the beings. 18:35.751 --> 18:40.018 If you think of angels being in the building or ghosts or whatever, send to them as well. 18:40.599 --> 18:43.202 All of the animals and if there are animals in the area. 18:43.923 --> 18:45.706 Of course in the forest this is more important. 18:45.726 --> 18:48.450 We send to all the mosquitoes and all the leeches. 18:50.133 --> 18:53.157 Send to all the little beings and big beings and the monkeys and so on. 18:54.672 --> 19:00.963 And then you send to all the people in the city or the town or the area, the district. 19:01.624 --> 19:05.992 And then you send to all the people in the province or the state. 19:06.493 --> 19:08.817 And then you send to all the beings in the country. 19:09.518 --> 19:18.975 You send in degrees of size or physical space. 19:20.187 --> 19:29.756 And this helps you to sort of work up to this taking in the global or the universal population. 19:29.977 --> 19:31.120 Taking in all beings. 19:31.180 --> 19:33.387 May all beings be happy and free from suffering. 19:34.852 --> 20:03.492 the and then you can go in you can of course you can go in in in types as well so you as i say you you start with the humans and then go on to the animals and the angels and the ghosts and you can do that at every level until you get to um may all animals in the world may all angels may all brahmas and so on uh and you then you can you can even start 20:04.636 --> 20:05.318 playing with it. 20:05.338 --> 20:10.854 So all beings in the north may they all be happy, all beings in the south may they all be happy, west, east. 20:11.616 --> 20:14.224 The Buddha gave many different 20:15.790 --> 20:18.373 examples of how you can practice mitta. 20:19.034 --> 20:23.119 The reason for quote-unquote playing is that it cultivates your mind. 20:23.159 --> 20:24.281 It's a mental training. 20:24.321 --> 20:31.170 It's like running drills for tennis or whatever sport that you play. 20:31.190 --> 20:40.161 You run drills and you get in different scenarios to help to train your body, and in this case to train your mind. 20:40.141 --> 20:43.886 to the point where you can send loving-kindness easier. 20:43.926 --> 20:49.112 You're training yourself in being a loving person, in wishing people well. 20:49.212 --> 20:53.037 That's basically what loving is. 20:53.057 --> 21:08.275 The other way to cultivate loving-kindness, that is, I think, more favored for people who are cultivating it for the jhanas, because in the Visuddhimagga, I think this is how it... 21:08.255 --> 21:15.106 advises you to cultivate it is starting with yourself, but it's just as an example. 21:15.166 --> 21:21.917 The Visuddhimanga says you can't enter into jhana by wishing love for yourself because it's not really loving. 21:23.039 --> 21:24.982 Talking about loving yourself is not really loving. 21:25.002 --> 21:27.867 The Visuddhimanga says it won't lead to concentration. 21:30.783 --> 21:32.004 Start with the people you love. 21:32.905 --> 21:33.826 Start with your family. 21:33.847 --> 21:35.448 Start with your parents, your children. 21:35.508 --> 21:37.611 Start with the ones that you love. 21:37.691 --> 21:39.313 And pick someone of the same gender. 21:40.574 --> 21:42.436 Pick someone you're not going to be attracted to. 21:44.258 --> 21:47.002 Because otherwise it gets confused with lust. 21:47.082 --> 21:48.383 It gets confused with attachment. 21:50.586 --> 21:55.671 And try to send loving kindness to them and cultivate it to the point where you're able to love these people. 21:55.691 --> 21:58.134 You're able to love the people who you already love. 21:58.154 --> 21:59.296 This is an easy thing to do. 21:59.416 --> 22:00.537 It's an easy exercise. 22:01.748 --> 22:08.858 Then when you can do that, try to think of someone that you don't know very well, you don't have an opinion about. 22:08.898 --> 22:13.865 Maybe you know them, but let's say someone you work with or someone you don't have an opinion with. 22:13.885 --> 22:18.251 You say hello to them and they're not your friend, but they're not your enemy. 22:19.653 --> 22:23.839 Find someone who is in the middle and send loving kindness to them. 22:23.859 --> 22:24.801 This is more difficult. 22:25.442 --> 22:27.925 As I said, this takes training. 22:28.242 --> 22:33.477 You try it for a while, and if it doesn't work, then you come back and think of the person who you love. 22:34.857 --> 22:36.579 Do that for a while and then try again. 22:36.639 --> 22:40.763 You see, it's a means of training the mind in degrees. 22:42.004 --> 22:56.398 And then when you can finally send love to this person, cultivate that and go back and forth between these two, sending love to the person you love, love to the person who you normally wouldn't even think about or you don't really care about. 22:56.418 --> 23:03.244 And then, when you can do that equally, then start sending love to someone you don't like. 23:04.945 --> 23:10.017 And this is where loving kindness can actually be a useful tool, where you use it for the people you don't like. 23:10.097 --> 23:15.751 But you can't start there because if you're not trained in loving kindness, you'll just get angry when you think of them. 23:16.472 --> 23:17.976 When you think of a person you don't like, 23:19.154 --> 23:20.255 You can't help but get angry. 23:21.056 --> 23:22.719 And if that happens, then it's difficult. 23:23.620 --> 23:29.547 Then it will be difficult to cultivate, to try and get the opposite to come in. 23:30.008 --> 23:30.829 So you have to be careful. 23:31.570 --> 23:35.635 When the anger comes up, go back to the person who you don't normally think about. 23:35.655 --> 23:37.657 And if that doesn't work, go back to the person you love. 23:38.899 --> 23:41.062 So then now you have three hops. 23:41.082 --> 23:48.351 Start with the person you love, go to the person you don't care about, and then go to the person who you don't like. 23:50.018 --> 24:14.946 until finally you can actually love the person who you normally wouldn't like, the person who is your enemy, and send love to them, and then send love to all three of them, and then you begin to cultivate universal love, and you start to cultivate love for all beings, and you enter into a state of love, and enter into the jhanas via loving-kindness. 24:17.744 --> 24:19.367 So these are the two basic ways. 24:19.527 --> 24:29.021 One is in degrees in terms of the love that you have for them, and the other is in terms of degrees of physical proximity. 24:30.644 --> 24:32.166 And so then you can do them together. 24:32.226 --> 24:43.684 You can start with the degrees of love and then move on to, say, okay, once you're skilled in love, then go on to the... 24:46.027 --> 25:00.550 go on to the degrees of proximity. 25:00.570 --> 25:10.966 And he explains it, he gives a good simile, as a mother would risk her own life to protect her only child, even so towards all living beings one should cultivate a boundless heart. 25:11.126 --> 25:13.570 So we cultivate loving-kindness just as a mother 25:14.562 --> 25:15.483 has love for their child. 25:15.503 --> 25:32.419 And this is the point I was trying to make about how the love that a mother has for their child is the love part of it. 25:33.601 --> 25:37.304 Or the part of it that is love is the part that we can send to all beings. 25:38.285 --> 25:41.228 If you can't have the same feeling as you have for your children, 25:42.676 --> 25:44.159 Same feeling you have for your children. 25:44.179 --> 25:51.856 If you can't have that same feeling for all beings, then you know that that part is not love, that part is an attachment. 25:53.119 --> 25:57.929 So we have to cultivate this great love that we have for our children. 25:57.970 --> 26:02.760 We have to transfer it to all beings. 26:04.107 --> 26:20.945 And the benefit of it is it takes us out of our idea of love, and it helps us see what is the love and what is the attachment, so that we can become impartial and become a mother to all beings as the Buddha was. 26:20.985 --> 26:32.578 The Buddha had the love of a mother for all beings, or he had even greater love than a mother for all beings. 26:33.402 --> 26:34.443 Now that's the love part. 26:34.523 --> 26:47.976 The interesting part about this, he reminds us at the end, he says one should develop, if you want to cultivate the practice of metta, you should cultivate this whenever you're doing. 26:48.817 --> 26:54.282 And in another place, the Buddha has recommended this as one of the protective meditations. 26:55.884 --> 27:00.388 So even if you're not practicing loving kindness for the purpose of gaining the jhanas, 27:02.292 --> 27:07.311 It protects your mind as you're cultivating insight meditation, for example. 27:07.331 --> 27:12.471 It protects your mind from anger, because anger can stop you from progressing on the path. 27:13.936 --> 27:17.100 Our practice is like a small tree that has to grow. 27:17.281 --> 27:23.049 And if it's not protected, it will fall over in the wind or it will get blown over, it will get trampled on by animals. 27:23.850 --> 27:24.932 So we have to protect it. 27:25.673 --> 27:26.574 We have to guard it. 27:26.674 --> 27:29.138 And love is one way of guarding your meditation. 27:30.700 --> 27:36.568 Guarding you from getting angry and getting frustrated and getting turned off from the meditation. 27:37.898 --> 27:53.279 When we send love, we'll feel happy, we'll feel peaceful, and we'll therefore be able to practice meditation quite easily. 27:53.299 --> 28:02.792 And this is what the Buddha gets to at the end when he says, if you practice this, 28:04.240 --> 28:09.667 And, the last part is the plus part, because it has nothing to do directly with loving-kindness. 28:10.408 --> 28:15.515 But if as well, you don't get caught up in views, you see. 28:16.096 --> 28:21.723 You use loving-kindness to purify your mind and then you cultivate vipassana, insight meditation. 28:22.224 --> 28:26.710 You have sila, you have morality, and you have vision, which means wisdom. 28:26.770 --> 28:30.535 Dasana means vidarshana, vipassana. 28:34.025 --> 28:39.253 and removing desire for sensual pleasures. 28:39.994 --> 28:42.758 This is what leads you to not be reborn again. 28:42.819 --> 28:45.683 So he actually changes the subject in a way, or it seems like. 28:45.703 --> 28:52.894 He's now not talking about metta, but what he's saying is using metta to begin 28:54.545 --> 29:09.702 to overcome views because metta is something that calms the mind and takes you into a state of peace so once you develop loving kindness remember to use it he gives this as the last teaching to these monks when he sends them off so cultivate loving kindness 29:10.846 --> 29:16.653 for the purpose of helping you to overcome wrong views of attachment. 29:17.655 --> 29:21.499 Some views are actually based on anger, is a very good example. 29:24.163 --> 29:38.541 We have these ideas that we don't deserve to be treated the way we're treated by other people, or we should, this person deserves to be punished or so on. 29:38.521 --> 29:43.814 So when we have these wrong views are directly cut off to the practice of loving kindness. 29:43.854 --> 29:52.254 But because of the calm and the peace that comes from it, all views can be overcome with it as a base. 29:52.274 --> 29:56.985 Once you then turn your concentration, turn your focus towards reality. 29:56.965 --> 30:01.011 you're able to see things as they are and give up your erroneous views. 30:02.253 --> 30:09.243 And if you have morality and vision, then you're able to overcome sensual desire. 30:09.263 --> 30:13.810 And that's another important one because the close enemy for love is... 30:13.790 --> 30:15.173 is lust. 30:15.954 --> 30:21.444 It's the near enemy, it's called in the Visuddhimagga, because it's very easy to slip into the wrong one. 30:21.484 --> 30:32.845 So this is an important point to remember, that if you're cultivating love, be careful not to fall into desire for sensual pleasure. 30:33.584 --> 30:37.792 If you can overcome all of these, you'll never come to birth in the womb again. 30:39.075 --> 30:40.678 That's the Karaniyameta Sutta. 30:41.119 --> 30:50.157 Now, I thought I'd talk about this, because we chanted it, but I thought it would be a good thing to talk about so that we could incorporate it into our practice. 30:50.238 --> 30:52.943 And the way I would suggest it is at the end, 30:53.193 --> 30:58.120 When the bell goes, then take a moment before you open your eyes. 30:58.141 --> 31:02.127 We'll give a few moments to actually practice loving-kindness. 31:02.928 --> 31:10.199 Why we do that is because through the practice of insight meditation, your ability to send love becomes stronger. 31:10.219 --> 31:17.069 And that loving-kindness then in turn protects the benefits that you've gained from the practice. 31:17.089 --> 31:19.173 It solidifies your concentration. 31:19.854 --> 31:22.137 The two work well together. 31:23.737 --> 31:25.782 So we'll do that at the end of our practice. 31:25.822 --> 31:29.732 We'll just take a few minutes to send loving kindness. 31:30.354 --> 31:35.828 As you like, maybe if you've learned how to send it or if you want to try one of the ways that I mentioned. 31:36.790 --> 31:38.775 It's... 31:38.755 --> 31:48.329 We're not going to get technical or too structured about it. 31:48.630 --> 31:51.234 We'll just do an experiment. 31:52.135 --> 31:55.200 An experiment to try to develop loving kindness. 31:55.841 --> 31:56.261 So we'll do that. 31:56.482 --> 31:58.705 We'll start meditating and then at the end we'll do that.