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Breaking Through Inner Storms: Cultivating Maitri and Karuna in Daily Mindfulness
Our mental formations—anger, frustration, despair—are like bad weather or a TV program we’ve turned on ourselves. Deep in us remain seeds of love, joy, compassion and mindfulness. As experienced practitioners, we learn to “break through the clouds” of anger by touching those positive seeds, changing the weather in ourselves and, with the support of Sangha, in others—just as a grove of orange trees shares sunshine, rain and fruit.
True love cannot be separated from hate or anger: love is its antidote. The Buddha teaches two interwoven elements of true love:
- maitrī (loving-kindness) – the willingness and capacity to offer happiness
-
karuṇā (compassion) – the willingness and capacity to remove pain
Both spring from deep understanding, the fruit of mindful looking.
Every step, every breath, every act of mindfulness—drinking, walking, sitting, smiling—can be an act of love. The concrete practice is to “make one person happy in the morning,” record your efforts, cultivate self-love, and extend maitrī and karuṇā daily, thereby transforming our inner weather and that of our Sangha.
