Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 20-minute session from his teaching on the Graduated Path, Lama Lhundup explores the distinction between liking and true love, explaining that authentic love is the wish for others to experience happiness. He presents a stepwise method for developing universal love: begin by meditating on love for one person you already know well—a family member or partner—and once that experience is solid, gradually expand the circle to encompass all beings. He then covers compassion, the wish to separate others from suffering, noting that love and compassion naturally reinforce each other. Central to both is remembering kindness: visualizing all sentient beings as one’s mother and reflecting on the care she has given, which awakens genuine affection rather than mere intellectual assent. He concludes with practical guidance on balancing external work with inner development through daily meditation on love, compassion, and wisdom, and leads a visualization in which light from one’s heart radiates to all beings, bringing them joy and peace.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 GP.mp3
UUID: 1dda619b-2057-4f65-b5c3-82402430ce63
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: The Graduated Path (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 20.2 minutes
Words: ~1,492
I think the western law is different, this one. So there’s a difference between liking and loving. Yeah. I think Western love means like, and maybe So the the love that we cultivate is is not only liking, but it’s it’s to the the mind which which wishes that they have happiness. Wishes happiness.
Bring happiness. So this is the type of love we’re meditating. Whoever we’re directing our love toward, whether it’s a boyfriend or a girlfriend, mother or father, It’s not just liking them. We’re wishing that they have happiness. So, in in order to increase our our love for so that it We need universal love, but that is difficult.
We need just we think like this develop, but really experience that universal love is difficult. So how we get this universal love? First, you can have one person, one guy. You can which person you like, you can love practice for from you know, with that that guy. So then you get that experience completely solid.
Then you can train like that. Oh, you know, you know, then then make number more, more, more, more, more, more. Even though you husband and wife, son, daughter, mother, father, relative, Australia, America, all all world, then all space, all beings. Then you could go all. So first, with always you spend your life with you, so first you can love practice with them.
You must have that love for them, and if you don’t then you will never be able to develop universal love. Impossible. So first need always you live live living with you together. So you practice, you know, love him or her. That is very important.
You you that forgetting, you feel alone, you stay together, even though you feel alone, not love to him or to her, then still you meditate in universal love, then you’re joking. Right? So this is the way we we increase our love, and likewise, it’s the same way we increase our compassion. So what the compassion that we’re meditating is the wish that the person be separated from suffering. So if we if we have one, then the other comes.
If we as our as our love increases indirectly as we increase our love indirectly, our compassion will increase. If we increase our compassion indirectly as as together indirectly, our love will increase. So we if we if we remember the kindness of Oh. How you how we develop that love? We’re not thinking kindness.
Remember kindness. Not thinking kindness, then really love is develop difficult. Just I wish really strong love is not coming. So need thinking, remembering kindness. So therefore, then we explain all sentient beings as my mother.
So then you can see mother if you can have that experience of sentient beings as mother. Then how much you like your mother? So therefore, what what you like this life’s mother, how much you like her? So same similar then also in any sentient being you look at, so much you like. So then you can remember kindness.
How much this mother like, this mother’s how much she spend her life with you? How much how much, you know, kind, so many how much she did help for you? So how much kindness? So we think so like this, all the same, each one has done this kindness. So therefore, any sentient being you see, you know, like very much.
So therefore, then easy you can develop love, then easy. Not thinking kindness like this and then just thinking of sentient beings without remembering their kindness as mother. Then this really is this love, you know, this universal love, really ultimately is not coming. You know, just only words behind, you know. So this ultimately, behind words, just thinking, and certainly not coming from the heart.
We need that kind of love. Just just well, troubled love. Just thinking words, then doesn’t help. You know? So There is no beginning to the rebirth that we taken.
Therefore, all sentient beings have been our mother. And because all sentient beings have been our mother, they have each been as kind to us as the mother of this life has been kind to us. So therefore, every day try to cultivate remembering the kindness of our mothers and cultivate the wish to separate them from their suffering and to bring them happiness. So we have this precious human body and we don’t want to waste it. So we have to do work every day.
We have to do both external types of work and we have to work within ourselves to do internal work. Our internal work should be making effort in order to benefit sentient beings. Developing each day, we should develop the wish to separate sentient beings from suffering and to bring them happiness. We need just remembering, just thinking. We have to check our awareness, really — am I dreaming or not, thinking or not.
Our this life is purpose, not only working externally for food and clothing, making money. Not purpose. The main purpose is our this life is very rare. Very rare. So how we make useful, meaningful?
The need to develop inner develop. We not make it inner develop, then our life is meaningless, not useful, only looking externally outside, and that is not useful. Our patience is being lost. Much patience is lost every day. So therefore everyday need outside working, sometimes also inside.
So that help you have working in a inner loving loving kindness. Remember? Thinking like this? Then even though you look eternally outside, eternally working working, obvious, even that time, problem you have and with with other people and problem and something. But you have inner work already, thinking, meditating.
You have remembering. And even though problem internal and outside, but doesn’t hurt inside because you’re working inside. If inside is not working, then internal problems with you are many. Then then it adds upset, anger. Then come back inside.
Hard to be active. Oh, you know, I’m tired. I’m upset with this guy. He is putting me down so much. You know?
So like this, you know. So you have inner sight. Sometime you work, then okay, it doesn’t matter. So they are very important. We need inner develop inner develop.
Otherwise, we lose, you know, million, million dollar every day like this, you know. So in that need to develop. How we make Dharma? You know, love need we need to develop love. We, you know, love and compassion, let’s start.
This every day, which very important. We need eat every day. So without eating, we have hungry, we suffer. So also, sometimes you’re not meditating like this in inner inside with your mind. So in your mind mind is hungry, you know, mind is hungry.
So mind is become suffer. Mind suffer even though you have great food, then still inside, you know, cold and suffering. You know? So you see, even though you don’t have great food, inner you have work, thinking like this, then just good feeling, comfortable, relax. Your life is successful.
So, therefore, that is very important. Okay. So we just just doing any type type of meditation is not sufficient. What we should direct our meditation on is simply not to allow our mind to become mixed with afflictive emotions, and in addition to that, develop love and compassion and wisdom. If we do this every day, increasing this meditation, then we are going to find happiness ourselves and we are going to be able to bring happiness to others.
So we may develop that. If we try to med meditate like this, then we can we can we can get that love. Because that is by meditating, by practicing. Otherwise, we’re not practicing, we’re not meditating, that doesn’t work. So you heard even today, someone doing every day.
Or some even though you just from today, if you’re not yet doing practice, even from today, you do every day. So you can look after one month, what happened? Then you can see through. So we’re going to meditate. First, we should try to make our make our mind pure, and then try to develop love within our mind.
And we are going to imagine that we are surrounded by all sentient beings and they are all in the form of people, human beings. And that we should develop a feeling of love. We should think that this love is equal to the love that the Buddha possesses. And this love in the form of white light that goes out of our hearts. And just like the light of the sun, it shines in all the sentient beings, all these people around us, and it dissolves into them.
And when dissolves into them, they experience great joy and bliss. So please meditate in this way.