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Indifference is the right way
in Philosophy
Hate is one extreme; love is another.
There are many, many things to hate about ourselves and the world. But hate is unpleasant and won't solve anything. Love is a silly sentiment - honestly, there is nothing to love in this world of brutality and greed. Even otherwise, love is such a foolish idea - love what, exactly? the trees, the clouds? Children can do that. It won't lead to liberation.
Indifference is the middle path, the path of the Buddha, the way of liberation. Even if one sees a starving child or a cancer patient (or read about untold destruction due to tsunami or some such tragedy), one should maintain a stern indifference and NOT be overwhelmed by love, grief, etc. That will only keep us attached to this world.
Perfect detachment is enlightenment.
There are many, many things to hate about ourselves and the world. But hate is unpleasant and won't solve anything. Love is a silly sentiment - honestly, there is nothing to love in this world of brutality and greed. Even otherwise, love is such a foolish idea - love what, exactly? the trees, the clouds? Children can do that. It won't lead to liberation.
Indifference is the middle path, the path of the Buddha, the way of liberation. Even if one sees a starving child or a cancer patient (or read about untold destruction due to tsunami or some such tragedy), one should maintain a stern indifference and NOT be overwhelmed by love, grief, etc. That will only keep us attached to this world.
Perfect detachment is enlightenment.
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As for your advice on how to view the middle way, I'll have to give it some more thought
Indifference
Noun
Lack of interest, concern, or sympathy: "his pretended indifference to criticism".
Synonyms
unconcern - apathy - nonchalance - listlessness
Compassion
Noun
Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others: "the victims should be treated with compassion".
Synonyms
pity - mercy - sympathy - commiseration - ruth - clemency
There is a word called Equanimity, which is sort of similar but vitally different from indifference. Equanimity is the right way. Indifference is the wrong way.
A lot of people think Buddhism promotes indifference, but No. What it promotes is equanimity.
Indifference is like the negative flip side of equanimity.
The Buddha taught that all four divine abodes are to be developed together, these are, loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. All of these qualities have a near enemy that one must always be careful not to confuse with the wholesome qualities of the actual four divine abodes.
See below an explanation of the near enemies taken from A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield:
"The near enemy of loving-kindness is attachment. We have all noticed how attachment can creep into our love relationships. True love is an expression of openness: "I love you as you are without any expectations or demands." Attachment has in it a sense of separation: "Because you are separate from me, I need you." At first, attachment may feel like love, but as it grows it becomes more clearly the opposite, characterised by clinging, controlling, and fear.
The near enemy of compassion is pity, and this also separates us. Pity feels sorry for "that poor person over there," as if he were somehow different from us, whereas true compassion, as we've explained, is the resonance of our heart with the suffering of another. "Yes, I, too, together with you, share in the sorrows of life."
The near enemy of sympathetic joy (the joy in the happiness of others) is comparison, which looks to see if we have more of, the same as, or less than another. Instead of rejoicing with them, a subtle voice asks,"Is mine as good as his? .... When will it be my turn?'--again creating separation.
The near enemy of equanimity is indifference. True equanimity is balance in the midst of experience, whereas indifference is a withdrawal and not caring, based on fear. It is a running away from life. Thus, with equanimity, the heart is open to touch all things, both the seasons of joy and sorrow. The voice of indifference withdraws, saying, "Who cares. I'm not going to let it affect me.""
"Another near enemy of compassion is grief. Compassion is not grief. It is not an immersion in or identification with the suffering of others that leads to an anguished reaction. Compassion is the tender readiness of the heart to respond to one's own or another's pain without grief or resentment or aversion. It is the wish to dissipate suffering. Compassion embraces those experiencing sorrow, and eliminates cruelty from the mind."
Therefore, equanimity can work to prevent or help us abandon the unwholesome qualities of grief which may arise instead of true compassion. Joan Halifax Roshi explains it quite well, as follows:
"... equanimity is the perfect partner of compassion. Equanimity is the stability of mind that allows us to be present with an open heart no matter how wonderful or difficult conditions are... Equanimity is the capacity to be in touch with suffering and at the same time not be swept away by it. It is the strong back that supports the soft front of compassion. These interdependent qualities are the foundation for effective work with suffering. Equanimity allows us that radiant calm, peace, and trust that receive the world and at the same time make it possible for us to let go of the world."
my native city is in North India and is considered as a religious city.
as far as North India is considered, it is nice. i have been to South India as well, and my experience of my stay in South India was also nice.
In the former, for example, he mentions that, while the idea of loving-kindness being salvific is often neglected in Theravada, there are texts in the Pali Canon extolling kindness and how it can lead to enlightenment. One is the Metta Sutta (found at Khp 9 and Snp 1.8), which begins with extolling kindness towards the world, and climaxes with this passage: He notes that, "This conclusion to the poem surely corroborates that the whole poem is about how one may become enlightened. Moreover, it is natural to interpret 'not returning to lie in the womb' as meaning that one will have escaped altogether from the cycle of rebirth, which is to say that one will have attained nirvana" (87). Of course, he's careful to point out that the poem doesn't state kindness alone will produce salvific results, and that it mentions other qualities of great importance (e.g., insight and self-control), but then he brings up Dhp 368: Gombrich concludes that this passage is "saying that kindness is salvific, and it is surely no coincidence that the term for nirvana, 'the peaceful state', is the same as the one used at the opening of the Metta Sutta" (87).
So while I'm not entirely sure if loving-kindness or any of the other 'divine abiding' can lead to nibbana on their own, I'm more inclined to agree with Gombrich (and others like Leigh Brasington) that it, especially along with the other three, can be salvific in the proper context. It's one of the ten perfections, after all, which are not only the skillful qualities one develops as one follows the path to nibbana, but the basis of the path to full Buddhahood as well.
metta to you and all sentient beings.
Love, with all emotion, is a mix of left and right brain input, not just left brain.
To be indifferent is to turn away from the world, the opposite of Buddhist doctrine which teaches to turn towards all things.
Posting this on a Buddhist forum is like posting on a vegetarian forum "Eating meat is the right way". It is the absolute opposite of the attitude a Buddhist holds to others.
Perfect detachment is capable of complete involvement or uninvolvement with equal indifference.
As such it takes the option that eases suffering . . . even if only that of others.
As you might suspect, perfect depression has other options . . . :wave:
Anyway, you're right in that we shouldn't really love or hate (I personally don't like the word love, too vague, but that's tangential). Hate is extreme aversion, love (I suppose) is extreme attachment.
However what you're proposing sounds more like the Vulcans from Star Trek, suppressing our emotions and acting purely logically. Good in theory, but we aren't Vulcan, as humans suppressing emotion causes mental anguish. Thus, as the Buddha taught, we should cultivate a kind heart alongside detachment from the mundane world, because kindness leads to peace of mind whereas indifference can lead to feelings of guilt if we later regret not acting when we could have.
I believe I see your problem. You think love is an extreme, the opposite of hate. That's wrong. A person can love and hate something at the same time.
It is, in fact, indifference that is the opposite of love.
To not care anything one way or another for someone else is to say they're not even worthy of your attention. It reduces people to objects and ignores their own worth as a suffering, struggling human being.
But you might simply be struggling with a language that can't handle the concept of non-attachment very well. As @jamesthegiant points out, perhaps equanimity is the better term.
Love is a word used for so many emotional states and modes of action that it's practically meaningless.
Thank goodness!
This is stated repeatedly throughout all of the canon.
If the "indifference" does not involve the above or if your indifference does not allow for sympathy, it can rightly be called "wrong view" of detachment. Why, because "Tathagata has sympathy for living beings."
If you have no sympathy for living beings, what you have is not enlightenment.
Nor can love be obsessional. You can be attached and obsessional but love doesn't obsess.
Love can't because it isn't based on any conditions being met.
There isn't anything to 'flip' it.
In religious terms the love we usually talk about means wishing for a beings happiness and well being.
Certainly the two can overlap and the best type of romantic love has more in common with the latter than the former, but I think a discussion about love can get confused by this distinction in definition.
I'd say that when talking about love, English just won't cut it, so we have to make some distinctions. Unconditional love, as I understand it, is compassion (agape, or caritas). And the reason the qualification is necessary is because in English, the word "love" is more often used in the sense of romanic love (eros, or amor).
So:
1. Unconditional love = compassion = agape = caritas (where we get "charity" in the ORIGINAL sense of the word, which has also been degraded) = karuna = impersonal
2. "Love" = romantic love (in most cases) = eros = amor = personal
I wouldn't go so far as to say romantic love is "bad" per se, but it can easily lead to some inner confusion because of its link to sexual desire. And familial love (philia in the Greek) also is a conditional love (conditioned by blood relations). There are many other kinds of love one could say too, such as love of country, or of one's race, or one's political affiliation. All of these conditioned loves are tied to desire, various kinds of attachment.
Of course, the Beatles song wouldn't sound as cool if the chorus went "All you need is unconditional love!" would it? haha
Personally I prefer to just say "compassion" rather than [unconditional] love -- just saying "love" -- certainly in English -- is incapable of expressing it.
Be confused about the differences between mundane and spiritual.
Call compassion Love.
Sensuality? - high dharma drama.
Nothing can oppose Love.
Love Nothing
:clap: