Tantric Techniques (43 page)

1. has equally been my enemy; and each has equally been neutral.
   
2. Thus from whatever side it is considered, my own or others, there is no point in exaggerating feelings of intimacy or alienation. I should not value one person as basically good and another as bad, even though their present actions may be good or bad, helpful or harmful. There is no reason to be nice at heart to one person and not nice to another. Though it is true that people are friends or enemies temporarily— helpful or harmful—it is a mistake to use this fluid state as the basis for an inflexible attraction or hatred.
   

First Step: Recognizing Friends

1. My births in cyclic existence have no beginning.
   
2. When I was born from a womb as an animal or human, or when I was born from an egg, I required a mother. Since my births are innumerable, I must have had innumerable mothers over the course of those many lifetimes. The implication is that every living being has been my mother at some time. See whether there is a reason why any sentient being has not been my mother; such a conclusion is impossible.
   

1. The times I took birth from a womb or an egg are unlimited in number, and therefore my mothers are also unlimited in number.
   
2. Each sentient being has to have been my mother many times.
   

Second Step: Appreciating Kindness

Visualize your prime nurturer, vividly in front, and think:

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If you use as a model a person other than your mother, recall in detail the kindnesses he or she extended.

Having understood the kindness of your prime nurturer of this lifetime, extend this understanding gradually to other friends, then neutral persons, and finally enemies.

Third Step: Returning Kindness

Think:

Extend the example:

In response to being cared for by others in this and other lifetimes, develop a determination to help them in whatever way is appropriate:

Commit to their welfare.

Fourth Step: Love

Starting with your best friend, think:

Continue the same meditation with respect to more and more friends until this wish for happiness and all the causes of happiness is equally strong for all of them, and then consider neutral beings and finally enemies.

Then intensify the feeling, starting with friends, with:

Extend the same wish to neutral beings, and enemies.

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Then intensify the feeling, starting with friends, with:

Extend the same wish to neutral beings, and enemies.

Fifth Step: Compassion

Bring to mind a friend who has obvious pain, and think:

Visualize a friend who, even though not blatantly suffering, will suffer in the future due to substantial counterproductive actions of the kind that we all have committed over the course of beginningless time. Think:

Slowly extend this meditation person by person, first with more friends, then with neutral persons, and finally with enemies, eventually including all sentient beings throughout space.

Then intensify the feeling, starting with friends, then neutral persons, and then enemies:

Extend the same wish to neutral beings, and enemies.

Then intensify the feeling, starting with friends, then neutral persons, and then enemies:

Extend the same wish to neutral beings, and enemies.

Sixth Step: Total Commitment

1. Afflictive emotions do not dwell in the nature of the mind; therefore, they can be removed.
   
2. Since afflictive emotions can be separated from the mind, it is realistic for me to work to achieve enlightenment and to help others do the same.
   

1. Even if I have to do it alone, I will free all sentient beings
   

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Seventh Step: Seeking Altruistic Enlightenment

Analyze whether in your present state you have the capacity to bring about the welfare of all beings by freeing them from suffering and joining them with happiness.

Think:

and say:

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