Acceptance

Just heard on podcast a helpful talk on how to develop loving kindness ( metta )- 慈. Often this very term sounds so "virtuous" and unachievable because one attributes to great acts of compassion and declares "Alas I am not born a saint". Yet the speaker suggests practical steps which can be taken to cultivate such habit and attitude. A good start may be to forsake our aversion with little things that do not fit into our accepted checklist, common examples like intolerance for a person with bad breadth or one who talks like the firing of a shrill machine gun. Then we may progress to accepting people whose behaviour or habits upset us but whom we can not change. The speaker, Ajahn Sumedho alleged that the greatest hindrance lies in our narrow mindedness often demanding that others do things that we approve of. It is like saying "My love is so great, I am such an important person and to be worthy of my love you have to conduct in a way that I approve. You have to work hard to gain it.". "One dirty look and you had it" belies the hidden conceit within us. Fortunately with patience, practice and mindfulness one should be able to acquire little by little such acceptance.

Listening to this talk makes me reflect on the concept which I have gathered about "duality" (分别 ).

We perceive almost everything in pairs of opposites, beautiful vs ugly, long vs short, clever vs stupid etc. This naturally extends to 'Me & Mine' vs ' Not Me & Not Mine '. This distinguishes us from 'others' and inhibits the feeling of oneness, hence making 'Me' important.

If we can go easy on this perception of duality eg. liking the beautiful and disliking the ugly, we may learn to feel less upset when we come across things that we do not approve of, which can be often and many. Similarly if we can slowly blur the line between 'I' vs 'Others' we may feel less distressed when things don't work out 'My' way. I guess it may even help us feel less alone and scared for to it is often a lonely and fearful feeling having to constantly hold up the 'Me' in our lives.

Yes I guess it all boils down to Acceptance.