I would like to do am meditation and reflection with you about ‘ the most important thing in the world ‘.

Please sit down in a comfortable position, on your own, upright and relaxed.

Look around, and make sure that everything is ok.

--- Please close your eyes now, and try to remain silent for the next 5 minutes. ---

Bring your attention to the sensations of breathing in and out. --- You can feel your breath going out at your nostrils ---, and then coming in again, flowing down into your body with the in- breath ---, then there is a kind of turning point, and with that, the out-breath is starting, the breath leaving your body again through the nostrils. Just feel that for a while. -----

So it seems, as if you have a sense of INSIDE and OUTSIDE , isn’t it? --‘Inside’ of yourself seems to be where your body is, and ‘outside’ of yourself seems to be all the space around your body, including other people and things. – Right?

You know that from situations, where you have hurt yourself, like knocking with your elbow against a table – ouch –, and after that you know that you have to be more careful with moving, watching where your body ends and other things start, because you don’t want to hurt yourself! So, coming to know that this body, we inhabit, is a sensitive form, we learn, what is good for ourselves and what is not, right? And from this sense of self we develop our insight that we are responsible for our actions, that we don’t want to do anything which might cause us pain and suffering, isn’t it?

So, since you were a little child, you have developed this SENSE OF SELF, and a sense of OTHER THAN SELF.

--- When you are sitting with eyes closed now, really investigate, where your sense of self is located, how far it extends, and where exactly it seems to end. ---

Can you feel the area, where your body touches the ground?

--- Can you feel the boundary right there, where your body ends and the mat begins? ---

Take some time and try to sense this boundary between ‘yourself’ and ‘other’ in different areas of your body. – Where is it easy to feel this boundary, and where is it not so clear? ---

Try if moving a bit helps to feel the boundary between inside and outside more clearly? -----

Now listen first to what I say, before you do it: Take your hands to your ears and try to close your ears with a finger. – And then try to feel out, if the sense of touch is coming from inside or from outside of your body. – Do it for 5 seconds, and then take your fingers off again. Start now. ---

And what about sound, when you close your ears like this? – What would you hear? --- Does this sound come from inside or outside? – Try it out for 5 seconds, now. ---

And can you listen to sound from inside of your head now, without closing the ears? -----
How do you know, what sound is inside and what sound comes from outside? -----

- Bell -

Now I would like to read a short Story of the Buddha to you, a Sutta.

It is called “ Is there anyone more dear to you than yourself ? ” (Mallika)

Once at Savatti in the Palace. King Pasenadi of Kosala had gone together with Queen Mallika to the upper terrace. Then King Pasenadi of Kosala addressed Queen Mallika: “Is there, Queen Mallika, anyone more dear to you than yourself?”
“There is no one, great King, more dear to me than myself. But is there anyone, great king, more dear to you than yourself?”
“For me as well, Mallika, there is no one more dear than myself.”

Then King Pasenadi of Kosala left the palace and went to the Blessed One, the Buddha. He sat down to one side, and told the Blessed One about his conversation with Queen Mallika. Then the Blessed One, having understood the meaning of this, responded with this verse: <172>
392 “Having traversed all quarters (the whole world) with the mind,
One finds none anywhere dearer than oneself.
Likewise, each person holds himself most dear;
Hence one who loves himself should not harm others.”

(Samyutta Nikaya 3,8 (8) Mallika - Simplified version of Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation of the Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Wisdom Publications 2000)

Question to the group:
If it is true, that everybody who loves himself, should not harm others, why are there some people, who harm others deliberately or who don’t care for others??? –

This is a discussion point - we did not use this in the meditation

Our perception is structured as if there is A SELF AT OUR CENTER. Every intention to do something or try not to do something goes back to this sense of self.

Although in his higher teachings the Buddha speaks of ANATTA (not-self), in this Sutta the Buddha respects and protects this way of perceiving this sense of self and taking care of oneself. – Why? –

If we have loving kindness and respect for ourselves and for our feelings and needs, we can learn to take care of ourselves. If we do that as teachers, parents or peers, we can be a good example for our kids and friends, so that this attitude can become natural for them as well, and we can feel confident and at ease, safe.

Then, we can also feel more relaxed with others, so that we are open to their feelings and needs and can have empathy with each other. That is a natural opening of the heart, which is recommended by the Buddha in this Sutta, starting with the love for oneself.

With an upbringing like this, everybody knows for oneself that he/she is worth or love and respect, knows how painful it is to be hurt, and so doesn’t have a need to harm others. Instead, there will be a need to be kind to others and to treat them with respect – as we do it for ourselves.

But imagine somebody who has never learned as a child or teenager that she/he is fully worthy of love and care, who perhaps has been neglected by their parents or even beaten up and abused – they will know how painful it is to be hurt, but they will believe that it must be their own fault, that they DESERVE it or that it is FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, and that it is the person in power to show them what needs to be done – by means of punishment and revenge. And quite naturally, that person will do that to others as well, or at least, try, if they don’t see anyone around who might have the power to punish them for it.
That is a deep, painful conditioning. It is self-harming as well as dangerous for others.

In order to heal such a self-harming or abusive conditioning, it needs a person who has enough love and respect for themselves and others and also clear boundaries, and who is able to give these emotionally confused children or adults so much empathy that they finally start to feel safe enough to become aware of and respect their own feelings of loneliness, despair, anger, grief about not being loved … - often that person needs to be a therapist.

Recommended reading: The latest book of Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child – Revised Edition 2004/5

---

---