You can’t build without bricks

You can’t practise that which doesn’t appear in your mind. If you are to practise developing loving-kindness, for instance, there is a particular order to it, and this order applies to any practice.
Sticking with the example of love though, you first have to learn what love is. You have to be able to distinguish love from the love we find in the world, which more often than not is based on selfish sentiments such as, ‘I love my partner because he makes me so happy.’ Or ‘I find her captivating; I love her.’
So first we come to understand the correct definition of ‘love’, as it is meant in terms of the practice. What we gain at this stage, through hearing the teachings etc, is an intellectual understanding. You cannot practise based on that alone.
You then need to reflect on love, the wish for others to be happy, and come to feel what it is like. If through this reflection you feel love, in other words, the actual feeling of wanting others to be happy arises within you, love is now appearing in your mind, and it has transcended the intellectual understanding or the mere word ‘love’.
So now that love can appear in your mind, you can cultivate it in meditation.
These steps apply to any practice. It sounds simple but most of us are beguiled by the words and never get passed the first stage.

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