to love, to understand
i'd like to share the insight that came to me in this wednesday's meditation session - it's true that it is easier for us to love some people over others. often because we find we have more in common with these people that we love more, that we understand them better in some ways that we find important to us. it should follow, then, that to love those that we find more difficult to love, we just need to make a more concerted effort to understand them, to understand where they come from, what beliefs lie behind their actions, how we may better relate to these beliefs, etc.
the other day, s said something about my disagreeing with him. i told him that i did not disagree, i just did not understand well enough. the line came spontaneously, and later, as i thought about it, i realized that it spoke to the core of the problem. each time i'd harbored any hurt or unpleasantness, the problem was a lack of understanding - sometimes at a superficial and easy-to-spot level, and other times at a much deeper level.
the lessons i take away from this insight are two-fold:
the other day, s said something about my disagreeing with him. i told him that i did not disagree, i just did not understand well enough. the line came spontaneously, and later, as i thought about it, i realized that it spoke to the core of the problem. each time i'd harbored any hurt or unpleasantness, the problem was a lack of understanding - sometimes at a superficial and easy-to-spot level, and other times at a much deeper level.
the lessons i take away from this insight are two-fold:
- whenever i wish to love someone a little more, i have only to try and understand them a little more. understanding then becomes the practical aspect of loving.
- whenever i find unpleasantness crop up within, i have only to tell myself that it stems from an inadequate effort to understand. directing my energies towards understanding then does a lot of good.
10 comments:
This is a brilliant perspective! Thanks N for a very practical way to realize an unbiased love for all.
it felt like a revelation, a, when it struck me there in that house. must be the positive energy of all those people there :).
the question is - how to internalize all these things that we know are right?!
yes, this is so true. in my own life, at various points, i've thought that i've loved someone as much as i could. then i've understood them a little better, and found that i've love them even more :)
To play the devil's advocate, what if understanding eludes us? Or the other person doesn't open himself/herself to us understanding them? If, despite all efforts, we fail to understand the other person or the reasons for their actions, and fail to see anything where we can identify with them... Likewise, how can we work on loving people we meet fleetingly, when we don't even get a chance to understand them?
Also, to clarify, do you mean to say that with greater understanding you would eventually find a point of agreement/commonality, and therefore find a reason to love the other person? What if greater understanding led to greater disagreement, or uncovering of other aspects of the person even more disagreeable to one?
thanks, nik.
1: so by understanding, i also meant making an effort to think from the person's perspective. that is, if they did something that i didn't understand or agree with overtly, i would think about it more to see what could be underlying causes/factors guiding that conduct.
2: i feel that if you try to go deep down enough, we're all the same. empathy will eventually come.
so if one were able to understand and accept (truly) that deep down we are all the same, shouldn't that be sufficient to cultivate love for all? Then we don't even have to depend on the process of trying to achieve greater understanding - we can start off with an attitude of love towards everyone we meet, even before we get a chance to really understand them - and then no doubt, as you say, greater understanding will breed greater empathy...
In other words, maybe one way to make that love a more constant/permanent outward flow, is to base it not on the specific characteristics of the people we meet, but on greater and more universal principles that apply to one and all... And that then gives the motivation to even make the effort to understand people (for if we love them, of course we want to understand them), which will bring about greater love etc...
nik, i agree with you. i think that is the ideal too. i'm trying to figure out how to get there from where i am though. this post falls somewhere in the middle. know what i mean to say?
can you suggest other ways of getting to the ideal from my level of mortality? :) i'd love to hear...
oh who knows :) i totally agree with everything you said in ur post, and understanding is definitely the way to cultivate that love for people. maybe as we walk that path, and find that we can apply this process to more and more people, we can eventually just extrapolate and accept that in theory it would apply to everyone...
hmm...interesting, somehow i did not think of the process of understanding causing the love to develop, but as enabling a more practical doership to loving...the premise being, one must love all, irrespective of whether we understand their actions or not...but let us for a moment, the consider the case of a therapist and an addict or a convict...while the love of the former for the latter would no doubt help the latter transform, understanding what underlies the addiction or criminal tendency will help overcome the problem, and lead to a more sustainable transformation...i think understanding could help one show that love in more ways than perhaps previously thought...thoughts?
right. i totally agree. i think, in fact, that greater love leads to greater understanding and greater understanding leads to greater love. it is one of those happily self-propelling feedback loops that i don't think we need to think too much about once it's set in motion :).
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