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Loving your enemies?
Omar067
Veteran
Well, like always I have a question. Can you really love your enemies? I here the quote from a lot of people ,but I don't think it is true. If you consider a person an enemy, you can't love them right? It is impossible to love something or someone you oppose right? Well I'm confused on this so I'm looking for great comments.
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Comments
"I love watching this TV show"
"I love my partner"
Although these people could actually maybe truely love 1 and 3, a lot of the time people don't, they are attached to this person or animal. Compassion is true love.
I think I'm doing well if I can put the concept of "enemy" aside, and not wish the person any ill will at all. I'm not sure if I would call them enemies, but when I retired from being a school principal, a couple of teachers whom I truly and immensely disliked came up and told me how much they enjoyed working with me and how fair they thought they had been treated by me. They had no idea of my feelings toward them.
Am I always that successful at it? No.
As Ajahn Brahm explained, when his dad died he did not cry at all. He remembered the good times and thought of his dads life as a movie, you enjoy it whilst it is playing, but because of it ending, does that make you cry?
Experience whatever comes your way, embrace it and let it go from moment to moment like the flowing of a river. I like to often use the metaphor of the hot coal. Think of attachment in this way. When whatever you are attached to has changed or gone you at still attached to what it was, so you cling to it, this burning coal. It burns and burns and it will do until you let go of it.
Whether we love our friends and despise our enemies is of little value - all things change and friends can become enemies as enemies become friends.
But such does not stop us acting with compassion - which is a different matter.
Reams and reams have been written about it, poets have gone on for pages, verses and cantos for as long as anyone can remember..... but still, it's core essence eludes people....they can describe what they believe it is like, they can describe the emotions and feelings they have.... but the central definition is elusive.
And always will be.
You know why?
Because the essence, feeling and emotion of love, is not only perceived differently, from person to person - but that person feels that love, differently, every day.
sometimes, even during that day.
So, 'Love your enemies' is a very vague, simplistic and nondescript instruction, to try to follow.
If it cannot be more precise - how can we know what it means - what we should do?
Well, let's look at this in context:
this quotation comes directly from the New Testament:
Matthew, chapter 5, verse 44. (Matt.5:44)
However, if you "scroll up" back to verse 39, you get the other famous quotation, about 'turning the other cheek.'
seems pretty definite, doesn't it?
"Jesus wants me to be a doormat and kow-tow to those people who really don't like me very much - and whom i'm not too keen on, either....."
what, we're supposed to just succumb and take it?
And like them too?
REALLY ??
you're kidding - right?
Well, yes and no....
No, because kindness, compassion and 'love' are far better qualities to hold within your heart, than cruelty, disdain and indifference.
... and Yes - because once you know what they actually mean - it's far easier to implement.
Let's take them in order, and look at the 'turning the other cheek' bit, first...
This quotation has been misunderstood for so long, even church-goers priests, vicars and elders aren't all sure what it means...
what it means, is "Be defiant but without violence. "
Wait... what?
Rather than go on for reams and reams, i'm cutting and pasting: Read the preamble and follow-on, here:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/9385
so in effect, what Jesus is saying, is 'by all means stand up to your enemy - but be the bigger person'...
and so, (FINALLY!) we come to the main crux of your thread.
your question.
'Love' is a mis-labelling of what you should be trying to cultivate and develop.
A famous quotation states - "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer".
Love is a nice, short, convenient term for:
'Understand that just like you, they are human; just like you, they haver a head, two eyes/ears, one nose, one mouth, two arms, two legs.... in other words, cut them, and they bleed - just like you.
They're a human, with all of their own anxieties, issues, agendas, insecurities, worries, problems and baggage.
Just - like - you."
Little word, for such a lot of meaning, huh?
So, if you bring it down to a level where you realise that 'just like you' is an equal human being, on equal footing, with equal matters to deal with - it's much easier - if you then metaphorically change places with them - to understand that however angry or mad they make you, you probably do the same to them.... and how is that going to help make matters better?
The only thing you can do, is to develop and cultivate a kind attitude to someone who riles you.
what life are they having at home? what upbringing have they had?
What influence has made them this way? why would they respond in such a negative manner?
who knows? how could you find out?
At best, they're just having a bad day, due to an argument with their dad.
At worst, their culture, programming, influence and conditioning has brought them up and led them to believe that resistance, cruelty and harshness is the way to go...
but you too, are a product of your culture, programming, influences and conditioning.... and you too, might have had an argument with your dad.... major bummer! That's enough to put anyone in a grumpy mood for kick off....!
so:
'Love your enemy' is really short for - look in the mirror: how could you not love that?
This is true commune or to be "one" with. But the metaphor of oneness is more a tactile sensation in relationship to all prevading awareness/presence.
This love can be shared with anything/anyone.
In another sense love can mean the act of falling in love which is defined by seeing something in another that resonates deeply with you. This could be presence awareness but generally it is the opening of the heart.
The enemy dies when the heart links with the eyes. We call this loving awareness. To fall in love with the enemy is to fall in love with a part of yourself. The enemy and lover are both projections.
Fun thoughts for the morning.
However, if you were to say it's impossible to come to love the people you currently hate, that would be essentially saying "Metta practice simply can't work", but that isn't true. It can and does work. It works by transforming your current enemies into friends. So on that note, no it's not impossible. Yes and no.
Now, how to love our enemies? I think Alcoholics Anonymous has a brilliant process for this contained within Steps 4, 5, and 9. It's very much like an aspect of Lojong Mind Training (not that I know much about Lojong mind).
In Step 4 you get it down on paper in columns; you write your enemies name in column 1. In column 2, you write what they did to you. In column 3 you write how that made you feel. In column 4 - this is the tough bit - you write your part in the situation.
And we will all have a part; even if we were sexually abused as children, now as adults, our part is our inability to come to terms with what happened as a child, and a lack of understanding towards the abuser. I have a male sponsee who was raped as an eight year old; he was tied up, had photos taken of him, and raped. This abused child grew up to become an alcoholic and a dangerous man; he's been in and out of prison his whole life. He went through this process and had to understand that his abuser was spiritually sick, the same as he himself was spiritually sick. He had to stop the harm he was doing to himself through his hatred of this abuser (who has committed suicide BTW).
Anyway, I digress, Step 4 is getting it down on paper, Step 5 is talking about it with another understanding human. And Step 9 is that we make amends to our enemy, if we were wrong.
Lojong takes this further and teaches us to love our enemy (rather than just amend the situation).
All hate does is damage us, not the person we hate. We could forgive them, but that would not increase our understanding. Or we could love them, which creates the causes of happiness for both ourself and the person we 'hate'.
It's our choice.
Of course, in definition it depends on what you call an enemy, but that's not the important thing.
For example, imagine yourself in the days of the Roman Empire. You are a slave, thrown into battle against a fellow slave, to the death. The man is your enemy. You must kill him, or be killed by him. You are hostile towards him, and he you. Do you hate him?
I'd think not. You realize he has no more choice in the matter than you. You both have been forced into the situation by random circumstance (or karma, as some would have it) and now must play with cards you've been dealt, as it were. Compassion towards him is not only possible, but inevitable, I think.
I apply this same mentality to all the "enemies" in my life. I just simply realize, we're both people. We are both human. We are brothers, or sisters, in this life. The situation we are in currently pits us together, but as it is said, "This, too, shall pass."
All is impermanent. How can one hate another being when this is realized? Truly, the only things deserving of hate are the decisions that led to whatever regrettable situation we are in. I will not, can not, hate anyone. Because from where I'm sitting, all of us are in this together. All of us are part of one family; I love my family.
The woman doesn't love the man who screams at and hits her. She hates and fears that man. She loves the man he is when he's not drinking, when he's funny and considerate and loves her back. To you or me, he's the same person. But not to her. Allowing him to hurt her is harming both of them. He never has any reason to change or get help. So that's incorrect love, love as attachment.
But if you love your enemy correctly, you don't assume the role of enemy in return and pick up a weapon to see who hates the most, you try to fix the situation. Sometimes that just means walking away. Sometimes it does mean standing up to someone, but not out of hate. Out of a desire to help everyone.