Taking the Result as the Path by Cyrus Stearns

Author:Cyrus Stearns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

1. Cultivating love

Concerning the essence of love, it is taught:

The careful cultivation

of benefit for living beings

is great love.606

So love is the desire for sentient beings to be endowed with happiness. Thus my master taught.

Love is cultivated by means of four topics: cultivation for one’s mother, cultivation for friends, cultivation for enemies, and cultivation for infinite sentient beings. Each of these should be practiced by condensing them into the three topics of cultivating love through recognizing one’s mother, remembering her kindness, and wishing to repay her kindness.

The first of these is cultivation for one’s mother. After completing the taking of refuge and supplications, clearly visualize one’s actual mother in front of oneself, whether she is living or has died, with the exact size, shape, and color of her body, jewelry, dress, and so forth. If she died when one was small, or something like that, and one does not remember her form, clearly meditate that she is certainly present like an ordinary woman. Generate the deep feeling, “She is my mother.”

Second is remembering her kindness. Think: “Oh, my! This mother of mine has been extremely kind to me. At first, when I was conceived in her womb and could be destroyed by even the slightest mishap, my mother ignored all her own pleasure and suffering and thought about what might be good for this body of mine. She turned to all favorable types of behavior and avoided all unfavorable types of behavior. My mother cherished me more than she cherished herself. When I was born, I was as feeble as a worm in a plowed furrow. If I had not been kept warm, or even if the palate butter607 had been given late, I could have been parted from life in an instant. But because she pressed me to the warmth of her body, gave the palate butter, provided milk, and so forth, I did not die. [294] Therefore, she was extremely kind because she produced and gave me a body and life to begin with.

“Then, while I couldn’t do anything, she gazed at me with loving eyes, called me by sweet names, fed me food and drink from her mouth, wiped away my filth with her hands, and thinking ‘My baby!’ thought of nothing but me. Wrapping me in clothing and so forth, she taught me about clean and dirty when I did not know about clean and dirty. Leading me by the hand, she taught me to walk when I did not know how to walk. By saying, ‘Say “Papa!” Say “Mama!”’ and so forth, she taught me to speak when I did not know how to speak. In brief, she carefully taught me everything to accept and reject, by saying, ‘Mama’s coming!’, ‘Oh, no!’, ‘You’ll fall!’, and so forth. If I knew how to say just ‘Ah,’ she was overjoyed and bragged about it to people. Similarly, my mother carefully gave me all the best food without eating it herself, and everything she would not give to others. Saying, ‘I know about myself and about him.

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