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What sensations have no opposites?
banned_crab
Veteran
I have experienced for my self that love has no opposite feeling. What else is there?
1
Comments
Is an orange the opposite of an apple? Opposite is sometimes just definitive like on or off. But on and off in a flashlight versus a ball on or off the table is pointing to two different situations. Things are merely defined as opposite. There is no essence that can be opposite. Words like 'happy' or 'sad' point to a range of feelings in a range of people that cannot be totally captured. It would be like saying all cheese tastes like cheese. The cheeses are different and any categorization is just mental designation or definition as cheese made in this place by this process we call cheddar. Ok you know my secret I want cheese! (and wine haha).
I suppose it depends on how you define love.
If you says love is wishing for someone to be happy then the opposite would be wishing harm on someone... hate.
If love is more a feeling of attachment then the opposite would be a feeling of aversion towards a person or thing.
Maybe you mean something else that I'm missing, maybe you could try to explain yourself a little more?
I'm not sure I'd say love, or anything else of that nature, doesn't have an opposite. But I'm not sure exactly what you are getting at. As the saying goes, you cannot experience one thing without having it's opposite to experience as well. We would not know what it was like to feel in good health, if we had not experienced ill health. I think it's pretty much the same for a lot of things. Love, I think, tends to consist of a lot of things, and when we get a little older, we cannot identify love without being able, in some way, to compare it to not-love.
I have no idea, but I don't think it's a "buddhism for beginners" topic!
Bravo. Exactly so.
Wisdom.
What is the difference between love and wisdom? We shall leave that for the opposition . . . that does not exist . . .
nevermind
Its true, I read once that experiencing love is actually something that is "outside of this dimension". In a way that makes sense to me.
I dont see the purpose of this post.
@heyimacrab My bad, I thought it was pretty self-explanatory. I think they have different categories here to put threads in so they don't all get jammed together, and then people can category-hop to find topics that would generally be in that category. All I meant is that this question ("what sensations have no opposites?") doesn't strike me as being of type "Buddhism for Beginners". I could be wrong!
in ultimate sense, since there is no thing at first place, so question of its opposite do not arise. in conventional sense, since there is something, so everything has its opposite also.
There most certainly IS an opposite to love.
And it's not 'hate'.
The opposite to Love, is Indifference.
And I cannot believe for one instant that you have never experienced for yourself, the opposite to love.
You also need to define Love, because I love my daughters, but I also love my Mother.
I can feel, subtly, that these 'loves' are different.
And for that matter, I also love Kimchi.
So, what EXACTLY do you mean, by 'Love'...?
Our practice is trying to help us rise above opposites and dualistic thinking, @heyimacrab.
I'm not sure how enumerating all the opposites to each feeling will help us make more skillful choices in our life.
We should know better by now: things tend to be grey, not black and white.
Love in the spiritual sense is indifferent. It bestows equally, like the sun.
I think indifference is in between love and hate. But yes, it depends a lot on how we define "love".
As I said earlier, 'Hate' is not the opposite to love. In fact, cerebrally, the receptors and neurons in the brain which determine 'love' are in extremely close proximity to those we use for 'hate'; the dividing line is almost imperceptible.
Which is why the repeated question of 'how somebody you thought loved you so much, can now hate you to the same degree' is answered. Because the two emotions are extremely similar.
I disagree, I think they are opposites. I think they are closely related to craving and aversion, a pair of Buddhist opposites.
Opposite of love is indifference.....I agree.
My aunt used to say ...."every time you tell a guy you hate him, you're only reaffirming to him that you still care" ..
..
I agree that love can rise above anything, even it's own opposite if it exists, but you would have to accept two things before that happens.
The forces against it,
and the emptiness or lack of it.
Stay with it long enough and it can go beyond those two factors.
If love had an opposite it would self. The way i see it true love implies that
youdo not love anybody but that you simply experience love. love Is not an idea nor an attachment that you may have towards family members. To love your children usually means that they are only an extension of your ego.No experience in this world is more humbling and ego-busting than giving birth to a child.
Children teach you the meaning of absolute and unconditional love and NO, you don't love your children because they are an extension of your ego. You love them because for the first time in your life you understand what real love is and the whole universe fits into place. Once you have a child, the ego part of the equation gets flushed down the toilet.
Before having children, I saw myself as a teacher. After having children I realised I was a pupil.
Of course, you need to be a parent to know that...
^I agree. I think for a lot of people (and I am not saying having children is required by any means) having children is the first real insight into giving up ego. It is the first time (often) a person is willing to truly give up all that they thought was important before, for someone else. Including their life. For me, my Buddhist practice is so much easier because I have children. They are constant teachers, in every, single moment. And because having experienced that level of love, devotion and compassion, I can use that experience to expand it to the world around me.
Tonglen is one thing to sit and practice, to envision suffering as a cloud and send puffy heart of love to the suffering person. It is another thing to sit with someone (and it doesn't have to be a child, but for me, that was the first time I felt that way) and truly attempt to take on their suffering onto yourself just so that they don't have to suffer. I was practicing tonglen with my children far before I knew what it was. So doing it for other came very easily and naturally for me because of those experiences with my kids.
But one can also love them in a craving, clinging, controlling way, as well. Some people most certainly do. That doesn't mean everyone does. IMO, having children provides lessons that cannot be attained any other way, for most people. And no, I don't mean that one has to have children to learn love or compassion or that everyone should have children. I'm just saying, I've experienced things in having children that I cannot imagine ever experiencing if I did not have them.
I am much more able to simply be love, because of the experience of having children. Prior to that, love was seen (by me) as something to own, something to have, something to attain. Not something you are. I learned how to "be love" because my children require it. Likewise, there are people who embody indifference or even hate.
The problem I see with parents is that they favor their children over everybody else in the world by miles. This is against what I want to be and it bothers me to see it. Its funny how people who 'love' their children are usually more selfish than people without but all of the selfishness is directed towards the children . I truly believe that children are an extension of ones ego.
I think that means there's still attachment there - not love.
I truly believe you have a lot to learn...
@heyimacrab It is fine, of course, if you do not want children. I'd never tell you to consider otherwise. I will tell you that judging parents when you have no idea what it is to BE a parent, is rather unskillful. What you see of a parent (or anyone for that matter) is a very small snapshot of their lives, and judging them and their love and their relationship with their children based on that small snapshot just doesn't make sense. Also, then that makes you solely an extension of your parents ego, and I find it hard to believe that that is what you think you are.
Of course there are parents who view children in that way, unfortunately. But to generalize all parents as the same is quite silly.
Attachment to what?
Most of the time it's an attachment to what the person thinks love is, should be, or will be. An attachment to the idea of love.
Thought that Fear was Love's opposite and that Hate was simply love misdirected. But then, I'm Old School.
Every thing has some imaginable opposing force, I think —with the possible exception of sheer idiocy and things like that: intransigence and incorrigibility.
Yes, could be. Or attachment to an idea of how you want / think the other person should be.