Hi Daniel,
You made a valid point that a mother's love for their child is often tainted or impure, but what would you propose as a better example to demonstrate pure love? Since everyone has a mother, and the vast majority of us have personally witnessed what mothers sacrifice and are willing to do for their children despite ungrateful or ill treatment they receive in return, I can understand why the Buddha chose mother/child relationship as the best example of metta.
So what would you propose as a better metaphor?

-fk
-----Original Message-----
From: Pali@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Pali@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Daniel
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 4:20 AM
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Pali] Re: Re: Love


Hi,
I beleive that a love of a mother to a child is not always pure love. For
example, mothers often wish for their offspring to have a high social status.
To me it seems not to come from love, but from a desire to be proud of oneself,
due to having such a "successful child". So, it does not seem pure love to me.
In this case, I would doubt if this should be called "love" at all. Don't you
think so?

Regarding "pema" - I never heard of this word. Do you know perhaps what is
the sanskrit\tibetan equivalent?




frank@...


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