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love relentlessly
lobster
Crusty Veteran
This
Can we? How? What does it mean in a Buddhist/spiritual/dharma context? Should we on occasion practice tough love? Is all love tough? Should we be gentle?
love relentlesslywas advice in another thread . . .
Can we? How? What does it mean in a Buddhist/spiritual/dharma context? Should we on occasion practice tough love? Is all love tough? Should we be gentle?
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IMO
Tough love compared to gentle love just describes the different time frames we focus on.
Tough love says, "this will help you in the long run."
Gentle love says, "how can I help you right now"
At least to me . . . it's hard not to experience warmth and connection to others, in a general way, knowing we all want the same thing.
When I first learned to do metta in meditation (or driving, walking, spinning), I'd cringe at the thought of wishing my ex husband happiness and peace. Thing is, if he really was happy and peaceful, he wouldn't go around wreaking havoc in all these people's lives. I'd still like to thump him upside the head sometimes, but I 'get' doing metta for destructive, difficult or dangerous people I'd as soon ship off to another planet. I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole under most circumstances, but I know they want the same happiness and peace that I want. I can see them as needing critically needing happiness and peace (the kind you get WITHOUT exploiting and hurting other beings). Then they wouldn't be so dangerous and destructive.
As a nurse I've taken care of a few people who were hospitalized after doing horrible things. One man had murdered his girlfriend and set the apt on fire with their one year old infant still inside (luckily he wasn't good at starting fires, baby was fine). Several weeks ago I took care of a woman on police hold for manslaughter of her grandchild who had a three decade history of drug use, arrests for robbery and other stuff. One other guy molested his four year old niece and then in a fit of psychotic repentance tried to pull out his eye. This is nothing compared to nurses who work in corrections or emergency departments in bigger cities. A nurse has to shut out the crime and whatever she/he thinks of it and deliver the care. When you do that, you're just left taking care of another human being. It's a real head trip. I'm no romantic, I promise that, and when I took care of the grandma I didn't feel a stitch of 'love' for her. But I did feel connected to her, and cared that her pain was controlled and she was comfortable. If she had the happiness, peace and love connection we all yearn for, her grandchild would be alive. The circumstances that caused the baby's death would not have risen, right?
It was really, really tough and I keep re-writing the same thing over and over, it's tough to put into words.
I watched a documentary the other night highlighting the prejudice gay people still face in certain parts of the world. There was a mother on telling how her fourteen year old son was physically and mentally tortured by three men for two hours then strangled to death with his own t shirt at a party because he came across as camp.
I cant help but feel if that were my child I would do everything in my power to kill those responsible but would that do any good?
They killed my children, humiliated my mule etc.
http://www.hark.com/clips/yggsssmbtj-my-mule-thinks-youre-laughing-at-him
And now back to the good, the bad and the ugly . . . :wave:
"Guard your intention for good will as though it were more precious than your only child." (my paraphrase) Hmmm, wow.
Apparently, the Buddha never told anyone to they had to love everyone, and he gave tons of useful advice for dealing with people whom you loathe or wish to harm in revenge. "Guard your intention for good will as though it were more precious than your only child" in the unpleasant presence of a baby killer or your choice of politician; that's some really heavy stuff.
I have to be careful about watching too many documentaries like you mention @Bunks, the emotional hangover lasts for days sometimes. I also believe it's important to witness and know about such things, so it's a balancing act to keep from hurting myself past my ability to stay balanced.
Cultivating the Brahma Viharas in spite of every possible atrocity one human can do to another is the only way to make any 'good' come from some bad situations. If my child were murdered, maybe the good will I grew in the aftermath would make their death 'not in vain'. The kind of hatred that is a natural in response to the murder of a loved one isn't something I've had to feel. It makes me remember some story told by a western Buddhist teacher about this mother, who's son was murdered by another young man during a robbery. This mother ended up visiting her son's murderer in prison, and when he was released on parole, she advocated for him and moved him into her own home. She took responsibility for his 'supervision' and work rehabilitation. Hell, I don't know if this story is even true but I think the 'moral' of the story is true. The mother was asked how she could do what she did for her son's murderer and she said "The hate and pain would have killed me, and what good would that have done?"
A person's whole 'self' would have to destroyed in order to come back together like this, or so it seems.
The forceful deities (often translated as wrathful) are forcefully compassionate, they are forceful because the peaceful methods didn't work. Thus part of compassion DOES entail forcefulness is the situation calls for it.
With that said, it is only in the beginning and middle stages of a Bodhisattva that we have compassion for someone or beings, later on as the vajraprajaparimita sutra mentions, to save sentient beings, you see there are no sentient beings. In other words, eventually bodhisattvas must drop the notion of their being sentient beings, or "others" to save at all, and so the compassion then stems from not a mental subject with compassion towards objects (such as other subjective agents), but rather from the natural state of mind. There is then a non-discriminating, all encompassing compassion without object.
It all comes down to 4NT.
Losing someone or something precious in a criminal act is dukkha. Getting angry and plotting vengeance is only going to add more dukkha. That does not mean however that action should not be taken to prevent further dukkha - the criminal minded still need to be put away.
You still need to keep your doors/cars locked at night and stay safe until such time that one truly realise that there is no-thing to lose in the first place.
I fear that my answer would be nullified next to all these insightfull comments. Me as a novice can only bring my novice perspective. I believe that kindness should be given to everyone. There is a certain person i know. My gf's uncle, who can only be defined as evil incarnated. It is undescribable how evil he is, yet i feel still feel a certain level of symphaty for him because i see him as lost, so deep in samsara that he may be unsaveable in this life.
It just comes to it, for me, that i see different forms and levels of 'love'. Family love, friendship, respect, compassion, kindness. They are all forms to the same. But i have already found, that the theory is easier to grasp sometimes than the practice.
Ha ha ha .... only 'sometimes'...?
If only!
It is said, that Buddhist practice is simple in the extreme.
However, it's crucially important to not mistake 'simple' for 'easy'.
I know ^^ never made the mistake yet
"Guard your good will..." I like that, @Hamsaka
To me, love is simple. It's giving. Only giving. Give with no expectation in return. Give because there is nothing else you can do. Give what you can. Give your time, your attention, your words, your compassion. Just give.
It's so simple, it's almost impossible.
Perhaps he is one of the kitten roasters. Perhaps he is a banker. There may be reasons for his behaviour, which you need not describe.
When I taught in prison, I came across child abusers, violent offenders and prison guards. The guards for me, were the most scary of all.
The only person who ever attacked me, just as we were leaving the prison grounds, hitting me repeatedly, was the yoga teacher. Was she evil? No just partially ridiculous and incensed at my suggestion that yoga could be a physical system that could provide prisoners with a much needed certification. To her yoga was a spiritual art, too worthy of such crass assessment . . . I am still bemused by her 'expertise'. She never apologised incidentally, apparently I deserved the physical admonishment.
People whose behaviour has been modified by environment, religion, illness, drugs etc are still worthy of compassion. It is not easy. Some of us think the toaster is evil because it burnt our bread . . .
This is why we have to stress offering love to a pure symbol, perhaps by chanting Amitaba or to one of the Purelanders, as beneficial for those overtaken by circumstances.
Forceful or wrathful compassion that @atiyana describes is an advanced practice. Sometimes we need a little dharma drama, sometimes a little Oprah opera . . .
http://www.oprah.com/relationships/How-to-Increase-the-Love-in-Your-Life-Brene-Brown