“Deliberately Diverse” represents the individual thoughts and opinions of a group of Taylor friends who almost never completely agree about anything but are gratified by the opportunity to stimulate deliberately diverse discussions in our beloved community.
Today’s column represents the thoughts and opinions of Jerome Bump, not the Taylor Press.
What does the word “love” mean in the phrase, “Love thy neighbor”? Unfortunately, in common English usage the word “love” usually means lust or romance.
Indeed, English, the world language of science, technology and business, may well be the weakest major language for the expression of the kind of love Jesus personified. This is a significant omission.
Where there is no terminology there is no consciousness. A povertystricken vocabulary for any subject is an admission that it is inferior or depreciated in that society. Sanskrit has 96 words for love; ancient Persian has 80, Greek three, and English only one. Some of the best words for the kind of love that will be needed to save ourselves and our planet are in Sanskrit, the classical language of India. This kind of love was practiced by 800 BC, 400 years before Buddha defined it. Presumably it also influenced the author of Leviticus when he wrote “love thy neighbor” and “love the stranger” (500 BC: Lev.19:18,32), as well as Jesus’s “Love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you” (25 AD: Luke 6:35).
Sometimes we hear someone trying to invoke this meaning today, as when Marianne Williamson spoke at the first Presidential Debate of 2019: “Mr. President — if you’re listening — I want you to hear me please: You have harnessed fear for political purposes and only love can cast that out. So, I, sir, I have a feeling you know what you’re doing.
I’m going to harness love for political purposes.
I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win.”
In any case, the definition of love that presumably influenced Buddha and Jesus is composed of four strands fused into one. The first could be translated as something like “boundless loving kindness radiated to all beings.” The second is sensitivity “to the sufferings of others,” so great that they one cannot rest until they act to relieve that suffering.”
The third is sympathetic joy in the wellbeing of others, helps without envy or jealousy, even when we are facing tragedy ourselves. The fourth helps us prevent burnout. It is something like “equanimity,” the opposite of clinging, not to be confused with indifference. In Buddhism about eighty per cent of suffering is defined as clinging of the mind. Letting go of this suffering of attachment requires seeing the big picture of all beings past and present with a clear, tranquil state of mind, accepting all results with impartiality, regarding every living being as equal. (A related, but very rare emotion in the West is “tough love,” love with detachment, accepting all results, no matter how tragic, including even the death of one’s only child.)
To practice this kind of love, incorporate it into your daily prayer and begin each day by setting your intention, invoking all four aspects of this “sublime” love, repeating as needed throughout the day.
