You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:39
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians, 13
I think this is the first time I have quoted from the New Testament in my blog. These words, learned decades ago, came to me as I was thinking about love - not romantic love, but another broader, unsentimental kind of love. The above-quoted words had meaning for me when I was a child, and they continue to challenge me today. (While I have issues with institutional Christianity, the words of Jesus still resonate.)**
I have been thinking about love a lot lately. Perhaps, in part, because I recently participated in a book study group, where we read Love Is the Way by Bishop Michael Curry. Bishop Curry writes of a love that can bind a community, a radical love that might bring about social justice. I believe this is the same love Martin Luther King, Jr. was referencing when he said. “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." It is, I think, the love the Beatles were singing about in the song from which I took the title of this post.
Of course, it is all well and good to set forth quotes about this kind of radical love, but how, I find myself asking, are we to cultivate and embody such love in a world so filled with hate and violence? I don’t know about you, but I am not making a lot of progress in loving certain of my neighbors. And I am not referring here to the people in my immediate neighborhood, but to some of the people I see and hear in the news. People who spew hate. People lacking in compassion.
You get the idea.
One way I try to cultivate love, with varying degrees of success, is through the Buddhist loving kindness meditation. Some of you are, no doubt, familiar with this meditation. It is quite simple, although there are multiple versions. Here is the one I like:
May I have an open heart.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be happy.
May I be at peace.
After reciting these lines, the next step is to substitute someone you love, as in “May (name your loved one) have an open heart, etc.” After reciting the lines for as many loved ones as you like, the lines are recited for a person or persons about whom you feel neutral – e.g., the person who checks out your groceries.
And then comes the hard part – reciting the lines for a person or persons about whom you have negative feelings. I struggle with this. Can I do this for those I believe are destroying the institutions in our country or preying on fellow citizens or starting an unnecessary war?
When I try the meditation with these people in mind, I find myself reciting the words through gritted teeth. And so, I often change the words to something like this:
May (the person I struggle to like, let alone love) have an open heart.
May they find compassion.
May they find empathy.
May they find humility.
Not perfect love, but the best I can do at the moment.
And what actions can we take to drive out hate with love? Perhaps we can take baby steps. In the words of the Dalai Lama, "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Maybe this would look like supporting our local food bank, protesting cruelty and injustice, smiling at strangers, picking up litter, helping a friend.
And what of faith and hope?
I have faith, against all evidence to the contrary, that our lives are undergirded by love. I do not know where this faith comes from. Maybe from my childhood religion. Maybe from reading about near-death experiences. Persons having had such experiences routinely report experiencing, and being surrounded by, an indescribable love, a love beside which any love experienced during our lifetimes pales to a mere shadow of that encountered during the NDE.
As for hope, I have hope that people of good will, working together can bring about a kinder, gentler world. Without this hope (which I sometimes struggle to hold onto), despair will surely drown out both faith and love.
I will leave you with this thought:
“Even practicing loving-kindness for the time it takes to snap the fingers is beneficial. Each drop of practice is significant and, as the Buddha said,‘with dripping drops of water, the water jug is filled.’”
- from insightmeditationcenter.org
May we each, in our own way, contribute to filling the jug.
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
** I was raised in the Congregational church. I now describe myself as a mystic with Christian roots and Taoist inclinations.
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