I feel that using the mother as a model in meditation fascinating because one can
             Personalize their own experience by visualizing his/her own mother and in effect,
             associate inner emotion & raw compassion for the one who created and protected them.
             I also thought that the realization of immense inapplicable rebirths, that everyone has
             been everyone’s mother in a sense, is a powerful tool towards introducing compassion for
             all beings. Just understanding the respectful nature of this compassion in general is a
             basic fundamental towards what the second Dally Lama, Gendun Gyatso calls ‘giving
             It (‘giving and taking’) has many phases, and taking responsibility, and
             feeling empathy, towards all things is essential throughout. First one pictures his/her own
             mother personalized in his/her own frame of reference and associates the compassion of
             his/her mother towards other people close, like friends, family and pets by ‘giving and
             taking’. The second level of this concentration of the mind is feeling compassion for
             his/her enemy and even strangers he or she has never ever met. The next stage of
             this meditation is of course having compassion for all beings through compassion for the
             sake of helping other people to fulfill enlightenment.
             I should mention that anyone who wishes to practice the meditation of ‘giving
             and taking’ must have the self control and discipline attained by more basic meditations,
             for example 'mindfulness of breath'. With out such discipline, his/her mind may easily be
             swayed by any various stimulation that ‘giving and taking’ may evoke.
             I thought it was interesting the book said that realizing the love of my
             Mother is indirectly responsible for who I am today, and here I sit writing and studying
             the holy practice of Dharma. And here I am appreciating my good fortune. And of course
             ...