THE BUDDHIST HEART
Loving-Kindness • Gratitude • Forgiveness
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
The landscape of ancient India was a melting pot of spiritual aspirants and their myriad methods for the emancipation from suffering. When the newly awakened Buddha arrived upon the scene he discerned wisely, through experience, those teachings conducive to his newly discovered ‘Middle Path’ (majjihimāpatipadā) towards spiritual liberation.
One of the ancient practices the Buddha deemed pertinent, and thus incorporated into his Dhamma (teachings), was the Brahmanic practices known as the Brahmavihāras. Oft translated as the ‘Divine Abodes’, it was traditionally believed that through the development of these four immeasurable qualities of the human heart - loving-kindness, compassion, altruistic/appreciative joy and equanimity - one would be gifted an auspicious rebirth within the heavenly realms of existence.
Although the Buddha did not adhere to this model of karmic reincarnation, he empirically saw that these boundless qualities of the heart were vital ingredients towards liberation in this very life, elevating the Brahmavihāras to a primary role within his Buddhadhamma (teachings).
In this intensive, through the cultivation and integration of two of these four boundless qualities of the heart (loving-kindness - mettā and altruistic/appreciative joy - mudīta) with the additional heart-work of forgiveness meditation, we will reawaken The Buddhist Heart that resides within each of us - a heart characterized by love, gratitude, forgiveness and in turn compassionate equanimity.
Our time together will entail the intellectual discussion of suffering and causes of suffering according to Buddhist science, Western neuroscience, psychology and primatology and how the reawakening of these innate qualities of the human heart are imperative for mindfulness (satipatthāna) / insight meditation (vipassanā) to gift us what it was designed to deliver - emancipation from suffering.
Through both study and personal experience each practitioner will gain intellectual and empirical understanding into how the dualistic division of self and other and concomitant mythology of separation gives rise to insecurity (and suffering) within the mind. A mythology of separation which, under the cohesive power of loving-kindness (metta), altruistic joy / gratitude (mudīta) and forgiveness dissolves, reuniting our hearts within themselves and with the hearts of all sentient beings with whom we share this planet. The result is a return home to our rightful place (vihāra) within the intrinsic interconnectedness of life itself.
This intensive is accessible to all levels of experience and is an essential undertaking for those practitioners interested in gaining the highest benefit from their mindfulness / vipassanā (insight) meditation practice, those dealing with physical, mental and emotional injuries, those interested in embodied and societal well-being and anyone curious about accessing the limitless potential of the human heart.
Each session includes a Dhamma (philosophy) talk/presentation and three meditation (mettā, mudīta, forgiveness) practices.
THE WORKSHOPS
Session 1: Metta, Mudita & Forgiveness Towards Self
In our first session we will explore how the evolutionary survival mechanism that has enabled us to be here today is, paradoxically, that which gives rise to divisions and conflict within oneself, and how these internal divides act as the basis for the mind’s self-generated experience known as dukkha (suffering).
From this intellectual understanding we will begin to lay the foundation for the reunification of being imperative for the cessation of suffering, cultivating loving-kindness (mettā), appreciative joy/gratitude (mudīta) and forgiveness towards our selves.
For, it is only through the reawakening of these innate qualities towards our selves that the internal divisions and separations between mind and body fall away, freeing up the infinite natural resources of mettā, mudīta and forgiveness to expand outwardly towards others.
Session 2: Metta, Mudita, Forgiveness - Towards A Friend
Our second session will begin by intellectually exploring the conceptualized dualistic (pseudo) reality concocted through the arising of the ego-instinct, and how this phenomenally efficient evolutionary response, paradoxically, afflicts the well-being of our relationships to those closest to us, their own relationship towards themselves, towards us and towards others within their relational vicinity.
The experiential (practice) portion of our second session will entail dissolving the illusory gap between ourselves and those beings we hold closely within our heart’s inner circle - our friends - coalescing and stabilizing our friendships irregardless of the ever changing feeling tones of experience that inevitably arise within the dichotomy of human relationship.
Session 3: Metta, Mudita, Forgiveness - Towards A Neutral Being
In the penultimate session of our systematic cultivation of the heart, we will look at how the instincts for survival have created a myopic experience of life that obstructs the boundless capacity of the human heart to embrace, with altruistic loving-kindness, beings from all walks of life, and not only those that the conditioned mind compartmentalizes within its inner circle.
As the mind’s conditioned fortifications erode through the expansion of the mettā, mudīta and forgiveness practices, the barriers of separation between ourselves and beings we know nothing about, have never met or may never encounter again fall away. The result is a newly awakened heart-mind residing within a whole new territory of altruistic stability, birthing an inner-peace, security and equanimity capable of radically rewriting our relationship to each being with whom we encounter upon our path.
Session 4: Metta, Mudita, Forgiveness - Towards A Difficult Being
We culminate our time together with a dive into our own intellectual and burgeoning empirical understanding that all beings, regardless of past and present actions, are worthy of our loving-kindness, altruistic joy and forgiveness, each of them equally deserving of their birthright of embodied well-being.
We will explore how the cultivation of the heart-mind and concomitant reawakening of the boundless qualities of mettā, mudīta and forgiveness carry with them the power to unearth the limitless wellspring of our human potential, and how its sourcing can act as a catalyst for the societal and environmental changes so desperately needed at this point in our human history.
This final practice will continue the systematic expansion of the human heart, leaving each practitioner grounded and empowered for the continued, and much needed, cultivation of the heart that lies ahead for each of us once our time together has completed.
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