Cattāri Brahmavihārā

Yesterday I had the opportunity to sacrifice my own comfort and go against the grain of my own desires to give something to a person who has been consistently hurtful of late. In any normal calculus, this person was not deserving of my generosity and I had to stake with that briefly before I was able to overcome that and realize that it was about developing the skills of letting go, of kindness and compassion.

I won’t dissemble however: in the short term or can be painful to feel taken advantage of, unappreciated and belittled. But, how else would we develop the paramis? What’s more, there is something invigorating and refreshing in confounding any attempt to make you react poorly and in surprising the receiver of your gift.

As Lord Buddha said, if one must endure short term hardship for long term gain then it should be done. All of which makes the teaching of New Age gurus and life coaches highly suspect. I have felt uncomfortable with teachers like Betinho Massaro for some time but couldn’t put my finger on it. It now seems to me that it had to do with the way they eschew the hard and sometimes painful work of purification and cultivation not to mention their specious metaphysical reasoning.

In short, if it sounds too good to be true it almost certainly is.