You Can Love Sentient Beings in a General way.

[icy]

It's very easy to love sentient beings in a general way. But it's more effective to be specific in our visualizations. Send light to the guy who squeese you off on the highway. Send light to the Inland Revenue employee who questioned your tax return. Send light to the terrorist who thinks that killing others in the name of God will cause him to be reborn in heaven. Send light to government leaders who think that bombing others solves problems. Send light to your teenager who leaves his room a mess and gets mad when you comment on it. Send light to specific people you know and care about, people who are having problems, strangers, and people you don't like. Send it to hospitals, the Middle East, the inner cities, Ethiopia and areas having natural calamities. There's suffering everywhere. The light frees sentient beings from their suffering.

[RedLantern]

The word 'love' can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contents.A person can be said to love an object,principle,or goal if they value it greatly and are deeply committed to it.People can also 'love' material objects,animals or activities if they insist themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with those things.The Bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism involves the complete renunciation of oneself in order to take on to the burden of a suffering world. The strongest motivation one has in order to take the path of the Bodhisattva is the idea of salvation within unselfish,altruistic love for all sentient beings.
For a Buddhist practitioner,the goal is to develop genuine compassion,this genuine wish for the well being of another ,in fact for every living being throughout the universe.

[Ensapa]

Sometimes its not really about 'love', its just about caring for another sentient being in general. You dont have to love the cat stuck in the drain to save it, just care about it enough. We dont have to care about the blind man trying cross the street, just have to care for him enough to understand that its not that easy to cross the road as a blind man and help him. There isnt much that we need to give out to take the extra step and care for sentient beings in general when we can care about our friends.

[Tenzin K]

It’s definitely not easy for one to love all, even though it sounds simple but when come to people your hate…it’s might not be easy but I like this practice of sending light to all in our visualization to free them from suffering. Even though we don’t like them but this practice could make us slowly habituated and mild down our hatred and eventually be more compassion to all regardless of whether we like them or not and whether we know them or not. It’s just for all sentient being.   

This is what I call as Buddhism practices. With result not just talk but truly changing ourselves for others.

[Midakpa]

The first principle of happiness is love. The Buddha taught, "First, think of loving others." It is the first immeasurable. It is a love that gives. Before we can develop compassion, we need to develop metta or loving kindness, a love that wishes all sentient beings to have happiness and the causes of happiness. What is it exactly to love others? It is a wish for others to be well and happy and to be kind to them without expecting anything in return. It is a selfless love, detached from personal desires. For those who cannot imagine what it is like to love others, think what it is like to love yourself. So this love is like loving others just as you love yourself. Sometimes, the word "cherish" is used. It is easy to love ourselves. We do not need to be taught how to love ourselves. It is instinctual. Unfortunately, we forget to love others. So this love for others must be learned unless we are already bodhisattvas at birth.

[Dondrup Shugden]

It’s definitely not easy for one to love all, even though it sounds simple but when come to people your hate…it’s might not be easy but I like this practice of sending light to all in our visualization to free them from suffering. Even though we don’t like them but this practice could make us slowly habituated and mild down our hatred and eventually be more compassion to all regardless of whether we like them or not and whether we know them or not. It’s just for all sentient being.   

This is what I call as Buddhism practices. With result not just talk but truly changing ourselves for others.

You are correct in saying that being the way we are it is not easy one to love all but with the recommended manner of visualization of light to others is very empowering and good practice to overcome our own bad and selective nature.

With time such general kindness will help us and the people around us or transcend on our path.

[psylotripitaka]

I find it very practical and encouraging to consider a generalized feeling of love as follows: if someone asked you 'wouldn't it be great if all living beings were happy and didn't have negative minds and actions?' we'd reply, 'of course it would'. This not only shows we have the potential for Universal Love, but that at the heart of all the complex layers of our perception of others, we do actually care about everyone.

[Dondrup Shugden]

I find it very practical and encouraging to consider a generalized feeling of love as follows: if someone asked you 'wouldn't it be great if all living beings were happy and didn't have negative minds and actions?' we'd reply, 'of course it would'. This not only shows we have the potential for Universal Love, but that at the heart of all the complex layers of our perception of others, we do actually care about everyone.

Although I agree that this is a practical and simplistic way, would such an answer be not conducive to some form of action whereby the Universal love can be cultivated. 

Sometimes it is easy to answer positively but really not have any inclination to what it entails as an action from us. Although it may be the seed to positive thinking for the goodwill for mankind.

What do you think? Thank you

[psylotripitaka]

Dondrup,

This simple question and answer is a quick and easy way to convince people they already love everyone in a general sense, but of course it is necessary to train in lamrim and lojong instructions about love, and combine this training with experience of the emptiness of persons. The quick assessment isn't meant to be the only training in love, it's just something that arose from personal training in the teachings on love.

[psylotripitaka]

Dondrup,

The same can be applied to other things too. For instance, if someone says to you 'do u want permanent freedom from suffering?' That's and easy 'yes, of course' and shows we have the seed of renunciation. I have found thinking like that is a quick way to remind myself and jumpstart such a mind.

[cookie]

Sentient beings consists of animals and spirits as well. How do we bring ourselves to truly love them ? For instance, animals, we kill them directly or indirectly for food and apparels. We may love our pets and some cute animals in the zoo etc but in reality we have very little compassion for animals.
Similarly with beings in the ghost and hell realms. How do we create loving kindness towards them ? Can we see the possibility of ourselves or our loved ones being reborn in such lower realms and devastating conditions suffering for long periods of time? If we can, we may develop some compassion for them and wish them well.
Hence in reality it is not an easy practice to love all sentient beings. We can try to accept them as our past life's mother. We may also meditate using the "exchange with others" method. Apply the Lojong teachings.

[yontenjamyang]

It's very easy to love sentient beings in a general way. But it's more effective to be specific in our visualizations. Send light to the guy who squeese you off on the highway. Send light to the Inland Revenue employee who questioned your tax return. Send light to the terrorist who thinks that killing others in the name of God will cause him to be reborn in heaven. Send light to government leaders who think that bombing others solves problems. Send light to your teenager who leaves his room a mess and gets mad when you comment on it. Send light to specific people you know and care about, people who are having problems, strangers, and people you don't like. Send it to hospitals, the Middle East, the inner cities, Ethiopia and areas having natural calamities. There's suffering everywhere. The light frees sentient beings from their suffering.

Lol. I know what you mean.

I take it the the light you meant is your loving kindness and wishes of alleviating the suffering of sentient being. Well it is all very good but as long we do not practice the Dharma and gain attainments there is very little we can do except send like and sentient beings still suffer.

My point is that by taking in all the above as suffering of samsare ie the First Noble Truth, knowing the reasons of these sufferings (Second Noble Truth) and the Third Truth of Cessation and the Fourth Noble Truth we then focus on realizing the law of cause and effects and the root cause of suffering ie Ignorance. Generating the motivations of altruistic intention we wish achieve the highest path of alleviating these suffering and that is to become enlightened ourself as the best way to help others. That to me is the best way to view the and the best way to love others.

[Dondrup Shugden]

Although I totally agree that when we practise until we are enlightened is the best form of love to all sentient beings, during the journey we must also practise loving kindness which is the main practice for Mahayana and Varjayana Buddhist doctrines.

Therefore we must find the way to have love for sentient beings in a general way.  Most of the recommended methods should be sound grounds for practice.  Thank you all.

[fruven]

Although we depend on others we still think the source of our problems are caused by others. This is the mistaken belief which causes so much of our own sufferings. As my guru had said it would be much better to focus less on ourselves and more on others. More doesn't mean more hate on others. When we focus hate on others it is actually focus on one ownself.

[Midakpa]

All our problems come from having unbalanced attitudes towards others - like, dislike and indifference. To overcome the affliction of anger or aversion, one needs to practise patience. It is the antidote to anger and hatred. One can also generate the four immeasurables or at least loving kindness, wishing all sentient beings to be well and happy. Other practices include the sevenfold cause and effect and exchanging self with others.