Monthly Archives: November 2012

Lovingkindness: Gandhi, World Peace, and Family Happiness

Posted on by
Reply
Share

I woke up this morning ready for a fight.  I had some left over resentment from a disagreement I had with someone very close to me…my lovely wife to be perfectly honest.  All the while, I began to prepare for my next post about lovingkindness.  Oh the Irony!  To write about loving all sentient beings with unconditional love, yet holding back even a little to those close to you.   It doesn’t make much sense does it?   And yet, it happens all the time; while we are severe with those close to us, we put on the “happy” mask and interact with civility and agreement with complete strangers.

This got me to thinking (yes, here I go again).  Did Gandhi ever just wake up and decide to be a pain in the rear to those around him that day?  This question sent me on an internet journey to find out.  In retrospect, traveling down THAT rabbit hole consumed far too much of my time, but I finished the journey to my liking and learned a thing or two.  As it turns out, I found this internet entry where it explains that, “[Gandhi] was exceptionally demanding of himself, and demanding of those closest to him.  Whereas he displayed loving kindness to virtually everyone, with his family he could be quite severe.” I also found this Wikipedia entry about Kasturba Gandhi, his wife.  While the article was fair, I think you might come to the conclusion that Mr. Gandhi’s domestic life was far from serene.

After even further internet research, I discovered two very important concepts about Gandhi, the peace-warrior:

  1. Gandhi’s family life was very complicated, and it seems no different than many of our own internal family issues.  In fact, it may be that his extreme views and justice efforts made his family worse for the wear.
  2. Don’t go to the Internet for information if you want a straight answer.  There is a lot of unverified and conflicting stuff.

OK, the second one was not really about Gandhi, was it?  In any case, I think I have come to some closure on this Gandhi question.  If my current view of Gandhi is correct, that he spent far more energy on justice for his community than on tranquility in his home, then I do not want to emulate everything about him.  I think he missed a key portion of “how to live” if he did not convey lovingkindness to his wife and children, as he worked for peace in the macro sense.

In fact, there may be some validity in the idea that tranquility and lovingkindness begin at home.  I have often struggled with the concept of how difficult it would be to attain world peace, when I think about how difficult it is for those who are very close (like family) to come to be “at peace” with each other.  Marriage statistics alone tell part of the story.  In the U.S., around 45% of first marriages end in divorce (see http://www.divorcestatistics.org).  This does not even include those who never get married because they gave up, or those who stay married even if their relationship is violent, miserable, or fattening (I just put “fattening” in to see if you were paying attention).  Rhetorically I must ask, how many brothers and sisters don’t speak to each other?  How many father – son relationships are estranged?  Where is the love?

So what is the point, if I should have one?  I think the big take away is that “we” as humans have a long way to go to showing true lovingkindness.  I know “I” certainly do.  How can we show lovingkindness to all those around the world, when there is so much work to do with those we are closest to?  This REALLY seems like bad news!  Indeed, it is the bad news.

Now for the GOOD news!  Because there is such a gap between the kind of lovingkindness we strive to attain and what the reality of the situation is, creating more of it in your life is LOW HANGING FRUIT.  It should be very easy to send out even a little more to those close to us.

Well, as for my agitation with my wife, it’s gone; it was just silly.  In the end, it was more my faulty interpretation of things that really created the problem…I’m over it, except that I’m a little embarrassed about feeling that way.  As for the rest of my day, I am committing myself to conveying lovingkindness to those closest to me.  World peace will have to wait.

I am not worrying about “World Peace” today.

Will you join me?

Low Hanging Fruit

Aside

Reply
Share

 

Low Hanging Fruit –  Phrase that refers to achieving a goal that is easiest to reach.  Certainly it has some roots in the natural state of food gathering.  If you were ancient man or even an ape, you would tend to grab the fruit nearest to the ground rather than climb to the highest point on the tree.  Why put yourself at great risk when you can eat just the same by safely keeping your feet flat on the ground?

Low Hanging Fruit

A common approach in business process improvement is that fixing simple problems first to get immediate gains, provide people with a feeling of victory and motivate them to continue to do better.  “Let’s get the low hanging fruit in our production process first, then we can work on the more complex issues.”

I contend that you can apply this concept in your quest for virtue as well.  More to follow…

 

Anchor #7: Lovingkindness

Posted on by
Reply
Share

Lovingkindness (Metta) is sometimes shortened (even by me) to love.  This is fine; it’s easier to remember, but I think to absorb the true meaning of lovingkindness you have to remember that it is so much more than “love.”

Not this Metta!

Lovingkindness is to wish good will and happiness to all sentient beings.  First and foremost of these are humans…not because they deserve it, but probably because they don’t.  Seriously, when is the last time a bison or a worm ticked you off?  In other words, people can be much harder to express lovingkindness to, precisely because they are so complex.  That darn neocortex (see triune brain)!

In any case, the lovingkindness I focus on is that for those in the human species.  Like compassion or sympathetic joy, you can express it for

  1. Yourself
  2. Those you already love
  3. Those you don’t know
  4. Those you can’t stand
  5. Those you absolutely hate (you know there are a few, yes?)

As soon as you master these five, then maybe you can expand towards all sentient beings.

Lovingkindness is not that Eros kind of love, where the passion is returned.  It is a selfless love extending out as brotherly (remember philia?) love, and then all-embracing unconditional love, possibly an agape (godly) love.

You can meditate and wish lovingkindness to your world, person by person, being by being.

It all starts with a quiet moment and contemplation…

(Feature “Hands” photo by Penny Mathews)

Sentient

Posted on by
Reply
Share

Sentient – term used to describe living beings that can experience suffering (as in sentient being).  In Eastern thought this attribute is given to living beings other than humans.  Some lineages of Buddhism take this to the extreme.

An example of this extreme view might be in the movie Seven Years in Tibet, when the monks worked painstakingly and slowly in digging a foundation for their building so that they would not kill the worms that were in the ground.

Much of this Buddhist thought connects with the concept of reincarnation.  In “Seven Years,” the construction worker states, “This worm could have been your mother.”

A kitten could be considered a sentient being.

Anchor #6: Equanimity

Posted on by
Reply
Share

Equanimity:  the sixth anchor in my CUPPJEL meditation.  I have mentioned it at least twice before (here and here).  Although I am writing about equanimity sixth, it very well may be the greatest of the anchors, or the Sublime States for that matter.

Not only is equanimity a means to virtue, but it could be an end state.  Equanimity implies tranquility, which in the end is the goal of virtue, no?  Once you have it, it permeates all of your actions and thoughts.  Once equanimity courses through your veins, it fundamentally changes you!  It is a marvelous state of being that makes you a better person.

So, that’s great and all, but what is it?  Well, first of all I’ve described equanimity quite a bit in my passionate equanimity post.  In short, it is the ability to see and know existence as it is, with all of its ups and downs.  It is not to be indifferent, but rather to be aware and accepting.  However, true equanimity goes much further than that.  It is to let go of yourself, your ego.  It is to be the ultimate observer in an unselfish way.  In the end, nothing is truly yours…you are infinitely connected to every atom in existence.  You are part of this divine interconnection, you always have been and you always will be.  Someday, the atoms you are borrowing from all of existence will go off to other uses.  In fact, the the vast majority of atoms in your body now will probably not be the same ones that are in your future body.

You are a collection in the Primordial Soup

Even tomorrow, your own mind and body will be entirely different.  The cells, molecules and atoms of your body once belonged to a cow, a pig, fungus, manure, the air, a carrot, etc.  As you expel your own cells, your own composition will be used by plants, by others, by bacteria, and the rest of existence.  Even more awe-inspiring, some of those atoms will escape, and travel throughout the universe.  Others within you now, have already been to the outer reaches of space.  You are helplessly and forever part of all of existence.  There is no “you” there.  As you accept this, little things become nothing and big things that bother you become much smaller.

As a result, you can rationally and methodically see things as they are…and accept them, and be more virtuous.

Are you there?