| Buddhist Words of REAL LOVE | Topic: Love | Books about Love |  Print  E-Mail
This page has been viewed 16827 times | “If the LOVE within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue.”
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama from “The Little Book of Buddhism” -
The “near enemy” of LOVE, or a quality, which appears similar, but is more an opposite is: conditional love (selfish love).
“LOVE” in Buddhism refers to something quite different from the ordinary term of love which is usually about attachment, more or less successful relationships and sex; all of which are rarely without self-interest. Instead, in Buddhism it refers to de-attachment and the unselfish interest in others' welfare.
How Buddhism presents and develops its concept of “LOVE” or Respect and Concern for ALL that lives…
The Buddha preached and maintained that ALL life in the Universe is a product of natural evolution, EACH LITTLE THING therein in the diverse eco-systems possessing its own Right to Exist. This thinking blossomed out in Buddhism's greatest contribution to mankind, namely the concept of mettŕ [Skt. maitră ] or UNIVERSAL LOVING KINDNESS. One LOVES EVERY OTHER THING IN THE UNIVERSE in a direct relationship of one to another, without a mediator or creator. We are, after all, in the world we live in, a part of a complete network. In spite of our differences, we are integrated into a WHOLE and each one of us LOVES to be LOVED. Therefore harmony and healthy relationships of one to another are considered a must, which necessarily leads to a smooth running order in the Universe.
In “LOVE”, ALL have to become EQUAL, and where Honest Equality prevails LOVE MUST KNOW NO BARRIERS, as known or unknown, friendly or otherwise. Not even as I and another. The amount of LOVE one is required to give to others cannot in any way be less than what one wishes and expects others to bestow upon oneself.
UNIVERSAL LOVING KINDNESS [or UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE of FRIENDSHIP with EVERYTHING THAT LIVES] practiced in this manner contributes to the much-needed Buddhist virtue of ego-destruction or ridding oneself of the menacing notion of I, Me, Mine.
Let NONE in the world we live in suffer for want of LOVE. And let NONE suffer because we do not TRULY practice LOVE towards ALL that live, like ourselves. Let us not forget our callous disrespect for the lives of other beings and the pain we thereby bring upon them.
How would Buddha LOVE? By seeing EVERY SINGLE BEING, human and otherwise, as fundamentally like himself, and thus able to treat them and LOVE them in the way he would be treated. We call this INFINITELY BENEVOLENT, SELFLESS LOVE, Bodhicitta or the Awakened Heart, the Very Spirit of Enlightenment.
When will that ever be,
When I can compare All infinite components of which I am made,
Those within me, with those without,
Like trees and grass and creepers that trail?
Seeing them ALL EQUAL, well and true!
When will such vision, mine ever be?
| Suggested Reading On
the Bus: The Complete Guide to the Legendary Trip of Ken Kesey and
the Merry Pranksters and the Birth of the Counterculture by Paul Perry.
This book follows Kesey, Neal Cassady, and the Pranksters as they made
psychedelic history "on the bus". |
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