Hello Frank, Daniel and all,

On 2/5/06, Frank <frank@...> wrote:
> 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?

Don't forget that everything arises and passes away, and that
everything is conditioned so talking about "the love" of a mother is
like talking about an ever-lasting entity, and the Buddha pointed out
that such a thing doesn't exist. So, at one moment the love of a
mother for her child may be tainted, at another point it may not. So
there is no point in discussing if it is "pure" or not. It will be
Metta when it is not tainted, it will not be Metta when it will not be
tainted.


--
Hugo