The Power of Love
A course to introduce the Kind Heart Meditation audio tracks.
The course has two aims:
- The guided audio tracks can help people overcome the difficulties they may have starting a home meditation practice.
- At the end of the course we have a retreat - so the course is a type of preparation
1st Class - Introduction to our love
The classes in this course are based on the booklet Meditations for a Kind Heart.
The introduction section can feed all your three classes.
While the meditations are around cherishing others - they also are indicating the loving kindness. So please explain the two. We touch on wishing love in the third meditation.
We need to re-explain what are problems and why Buddhist say that cherishing others solves problems.
Emphasise the difference between theoretical understanding and experiential understanding. And how we need to experience the real meaning of love - experience of cherishing others -as opposite to desiring to possess them for our own selfish needs(read attachment).
In the first class, please cover the quote:
The meditations on this CD will help us to develop greater peace of mind, happiness, and to improve our relationships through learning to cherish others.
A kind heart is a special mental attitude that cherishes other people at least as mi as we cherish ourselves. It is grounded in the following commonsense thinking: 'Just as I wish to be happy, so does everyone else; and just as I do not wish for e the slightest suffering, nor does anyone else. From this point of view we are all e the same. Therefore there is no reason to consider my own happiness or my ou suffering to be more important than anyone else's.'
Discuss the objections or the difficulties in accepting the above quote.
Why does Venerable Geshe-la states it is common sense??
There are many other topics you can dig out from the introduction.
2nd class - Compassion and the practice of Taking
In this class we build on the common sense we've been introduced too -
Just as I wish to be happy and free from suffering so does everyone else. In this respect we are all the same.
We discuss how compassion is a natural outcome of cherishing the other person - people, and how without being careful our compassion can cause us a burn out because currently we are a limited person; meaning our ability to know what the other person needs is limited by our ignorance and our ability to work for the benefit of many people is limited by our self-cherishing and physical body.
Then we explain that the solution to the above obstacles is to use our imagination.
This imagination is the nature of an action which has as its main purpose the function of eliminating our self-cherishing.
Then explain the meditation and do it.
:-)