Tibetan Buddhist Lamrim: Remembering the Kindness of All Living Beings
We live in a world full of kindness, but for many, it takes conscious effort to recognize the kindness all around us.
The Great Scope meditations of Lamrim, the majority in the sequence, serve to deepen feelings of compassion and extend those feelings to all living beings.
The first of the meditations provided the groundwork of equanimity. The Buddha instructed that we should view ourselves as devoid of worth, and extend uniformly high respect and affection to others, contrary to our innate tendencies.
The second meditation instructs practitioners to feel the affectionate love they feel for their mother and extend that affection to all living beings.
The first two meditations together demonstrate the end goal of the Great Scope of Lamrim is to feel affectionate love for all living beings equally and without exception. Most of the remaining meditations are designed to meet this end.
The Kindness of Others
We can visualize other beings as our mothers of a previous lifetime, and we can stack up other reasons to view others with deep respect and admiration worthy of affectionate love.
The third meditation in the sequence instructs us to look at the kindness we receive from everyone in our environment. Buddhists define kindness as any action of another that we obtain some benefit from, irrespective of the other person’s motivation, or whether we provided money or thanks for that benefit.
We live in an interconnected society where kindness abounds. Every object in our environment came to be there due to the countless acts of kindness of the many people who worked to produce and distribute those items.
It doesn’t matter that these people likely did their work for monetary rewards, a necessary convention to efficiently distribute goods and services. It doesn’t matter if these people intended to be kind, particularly since we couldn’t know their intentions anyway.
The fact that people worked to provide a good or service that we value means that we were the recipients of their kindness, and we should recognize that kindness.
Recognizing that we live in a world of abundant kindness feels good, and it makes us feel grateful to others and inclines us to feel affectionate love for them and to feel gratitude for the kindness they showed us. That’s the purpose of this meditation.
It’s a practice few people recognize this naturally, mostly out of ignorance.
Since most of us must work to obtain money to purchase food and shelter, our motivations are less out of kindness and more out of self preservation. Since that is our motivation, we assume that is also everyone else’s. This prompts most people to see the world as filled with selfish actors performing selfish actions without regard to other people’s feelings or desires. It’s a terribly depressing and isolating way to view the world.
We also employ willful ignorance to the kindness of others. If we recognize that kindness, we may feel some obligation to do something in return, not of out generosity, but out of guilt, another terribly draining motivation.
If we reason that everyone has already been compensated financially, then we so no need to feel gratitude or behave generously toward them. We feel justified in our miserliness.
It’s the death of compassion.
Kindness, Gratitude, and Generosity
Our natural tendency to avoid recognizing the kindness of others inevitably leads to isolation, greed, exploitation, and a cold heart, the opposite of how we should live. Recognizing kindness changes all that and puts us on a course to feeling gratitude and expressing generosity to others.
Reflecting on the immense kindness of all creatures reveals that much of what we experience and possess stems from countless acts of generosity, regardless of the benefactors' intentions. When we feel that we are the recipient of a generous act, we naturally feel gratitude and a desire to reciprocate that generosity.
The essential point is the advantages we gain, marking these acts as acts of kindness from our perspective. Instead of scrutinizing the motives behind these actions—motives we can never fully understand—we ought to appreciate the tangible benefits we reap.
All individuals who play any role in enhancing our joy and well-being merit our appreciation and esteem. Were we to return everything we've received from others, we would be left with nothing.
We exist within a network of generosity that we cannot extricate ourselves from. Our existence, our pleasures, and indeed our very lives are gifts borne of others' goodwill. Ultimately, the world's joy springs from the kindness extended by others.
Meditation on Remembering the Kindness of All Living Beings
In Tibetan Buddhist Lamrim teachings, remembering the kindness of all living beings is an essential practice that helps cultivate gratitude, loving-kindness, and compassion for all sentient beings.
Practitioners are encouraged to contemplate specific acts of kindness they have received from others. This may include the care and support provided by parents, teachers, and friends, as well as the countless acts of kindness received from strangers throughout one's life.
Through reflection, practitioners cultivate a deep sense of gratitude for the kindness they have received from others. This gratitude serves as a powerful motivator for generating loving-kindness and compassion.
The practice involves generating well-wishing and goodwill for the welfare and happiness of all beings. This shift in perspective helps reduce self-grasping and ego-clinging.
Remembering the kindness of all living beings naturally leads to compassion. Recognizing the suffering and challenges faced by others, practitioners develop a genuine wish for all beings to be free from suffering.
The kindness of all living beings is integrated into the practice of the Four Immeasurables (Brahmaviharas), which include loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. These practices aim to cultivate boundless qualities of heart and mind.
Contemplation
Consider what you read in this post and focus on the following first-person narrative:
In previous lives, when I was their child, the people around me who were my previous mothers showed me great kindness. The kindness of these beings is not limited to the times when they were my mother. All my day-to-day needs are met by the kindness of their actions and the benefits I receive. All my enjoyments and the satifaction of my needs is dependent upon the kindness of all these living beings.
Object of Meditation
Contemplating the above, you generate a strong feeling of affectionate love toward all living beings. This affection love is the object of the meditation.
You should hold this feeling for as long as possible, which should feel very enjoyable and uplifiting. If you mind brings up objections and the feeling is lost, return to the contemplation and generate the feelings anew.
When outside of the meditation make a point of noticing the practical benefits you obtain from interacting with all the people in your life and cultivate the feelings of gratitude and affection that naturally arise when you feel the kindness of others.
Ultimately, the remembrance of the kindness of all beings serves as a motivation for engaging in virtuous actions and working for the benefit of others. It is a foundational step in the path toward spiritual awakening (Buddhahood) to guide all beings to liberation from suffering.
In summary, Tibetan Buddhist Lamrim teachings on remembering the kindness of all living beings help practitioners develop gratitude, loving-kindness, and compassion for all sentient beings. This practice fosters a deep sense of interconnectedness and motivates individuals to lead a more altruistic and compassionate life.
~~wink~~
Anatta