I'll tell you what I've already told you - that doesn't speak to me all. You are addressing a problem I don't have. I don't hate anybody, and when I have in the past, it's ben brief - a few days to weeks at most - and following some egregious event. That's a feeling I wouldn't want to harbor, or even a lesser version of some dysphoric feeling, but it's not an issue. It evaporates away effortlessly.
That's fantastic you have this natural ability. I think for most people it's the opposite. They have to consciously work on overcoming nursing their wounds, harboring resentments, holding grudges, wanting to payback others for harms done, feeding hatred, and so forth.
So what came to mind immediately for me was this verse. "
Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
What that last phrase "sinners to repentance" can legitimately be heard as, stripping away all that religious baggage such language has accumulated, as "those who are making errors, or doing it wrong, to modify and correct their behaviors". That's really what it means ultimately.
Now, while you have no need for guidance or a teacher, or a physician or a therapist to help give you better tools in order to have a more healthy mind and body and emotional states, others are not so gifted by nature. Most people need help from time to time, and some more than others. Some need a therapist. Some need a doctor. Some need a teacher.
In my experience, often times it's the ego that gets in our way by assuming we have everything under control. I have found the best way towards the fastest growth is to admit a need and be open to the knowledge of others. Simply getting by and find ways to "deal with it", is not actually living free of it. Coping mechanisms is not really freedom, in my experience.
So you keep saying. I've told you that without concrete specifics, these words mean nothing to further your case.
I still don't see how it doesn't. Where there is smoke there's fire. One doesn't have to identify the match that started the blaze and tell you specifics about its make and model and original store it was purchased from, in order to know that there was a flammable source. Isn't that a bit of a red herring, a distraction to say unless you can tell me specifics if it was a wooded match or a cardboard match, why should I accept that the fire happened?
But that said however, I suppose we can piece together most likely specifics things we can safely assume to have been the reality on the ground about Jesus as a person. He was a teacher who taught in parables. That's a safe assumption. Those parables drew a lot of attention, both positive and negative. Therefore, he was an impactful speaker. He was targeted for execution by the Roman government, so they saw his words and the followers he garnered around himself to be a threat to Roman order, so they killed him.
These alone are some safe specifics to assume, backed up by what we know from multiple sources, through critical secular scholarship, not theologies or faith-based views of Jesus.
Now, as I said from the outset, from this is entirely safe to see that whatever the specifics of what he said or did was actual history or stories made up about him, or teachings attributed to him, clearly his person created a large enough stir in the pot that it both started a major movement in his name, and got himself killed over it. That equals someone beyond just an ordinary person, or "extraordinary".
Nobody I know loves their enemies, and none are the worst off for their indifference to them.
I really think your understanding of what love means here in this context is what is the source of your own confusion of that saying. I'll use another word to say the same meaning. "Hold your compassion in your heart to those who have wronged you". That's what love is. Compassion.
That's what is the cornerstone teaching of all Buddhist practices, to cultivate compassion, or "love". "Don't hold hatred in your heart toward your enemies, but instead replace that with compassion." Does that help make more sense to you? I think you are assuming loving them, means invite them into your inner circle and
trust them. No, it does not mean trust them.
Who are you posting to? My enemies have no power over me. They might if I felt obliged to love them.
Do you not understand that when you, or I should say most everyone else alive holds resentments or allows the actions of others to control their own emotions and actions, that that is in fact giving your power over to them? While someone may insult you once, when you stew over it and resent them, and relive that experience of injury over and over again, you are in fact giving them all the power. You let them inside.
Now that you seem to not have that problem, I would argue most everyone else does. Enough so that teachings abound in all the major religions admonishing us to let go of those negativities because of how damaging they are to our spiritual well being. You see it in Hinduism, in Buddhism, and in the teachings of Jesus, using different language and words and style, to all teach the exact same principle as a guide to a common human malady.
Footnote, unless someone has specifically done work around this, having become aware of this and consciously acknowledged it and reprogrammed themselves to not do it, for those who say that they've never done this themselves, I'd say one of two possibilities:
They were born with such a rare personality that they were forgiving by nature, born with a deep sense of compassion, like a reincarnated bodhisattva or saint; or they are repressing these things into the shadows of their own psyches. In which case, they are not truly free at all, as it will start manifesting itself in other negative ways, such as addictions, various neuroses, rage outbursts, and so forth.
So it's either born free of this natural tendency, repression of angers, or having faced the disease and done work on it to correct it, which typically comes by understanding the teachings of others and following guidelines and advice. "Those who are not sick do not need a physician". But one would argue, how many really aren't sick? How many are truly born with such a disposition they never become ill like the rest of us?
Once again, who are you posting to? Do you not understand what not harboring hatred means?
I most certainly do. I've been a master of harboring resentments and ruminations my whole life.
You want to know who hates perceived enemies? Atheophobic Christians (not you). The antipathy is palpable and manifests with language like attack, and statements about how immoral atheists are.
Of course, yes, they are full of hatred, and which is why I see them as "whitewashed tombs", all clean and white and righteous on the outside, but full of hatred and 'sin' on the inside. They deceive themselves that they are "saved" when they in fact are only cleaning the outside of the cup.
True healing happens within, and then the outside will follow the inside. They will have compassion towards everyone, their enemies as well, because they have Love as their ground and center, from which all external actions flow.
That is the very core and essence of my awareness and understanding of how this works, and what all these teachings in all the major religions, Christianity included are pointing towards.
Why don't you send this message to them?
I try to. God knows, Jesus tried to too.
Don't ask them to love atheists. They don't and they can't, but they might be able to join the critical thinkers and stop hating those who disagree with them.
They should love everyone. And they can't, not because they aren't critical thinkers, but because they hold onto negative energies and a desire to control others, instead of embracing love, forgiveness and letting go. All of these are the core, and 'critical thinking' cannot truly happen if the heart is a mess.
The heart, or the 'soul' in us, has to first have Compassion as the foundation of thought, which will in fact be able to be clear and accurate without the poison of negativities clouding thoughts, or our judgments. You cannot have clear reason, if the heart if full of hate. It cannot be done.
Buddha sounds more like me than he does Jesus there. That is not an admonition to love this person or even to interact with them, which is already my policy.
It is the same thing. As I pointed out above, I think you misapply love to mean trusting others. It doesn't mean that. It simply means
Compassion. That is something the Dalai Lama teaches daily. He is known as the avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of Compassion. That's what Jesus taught. That's why Buddhist recognize the teachings of Jesus.
I'm not interested in the similarities.
The Buddhists in that video are. The Buddhists I know are.
Fun fact here, why I have the perception of Christian teachings I have is in fact largely due to being exposed to the teachings of Buddhism. In fact, there is a book, which I've never read, that some priest wrote that the title alone resonated with me. "
Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian"
Now, while I do not identify myself as any one religion, the closest I might come in the right mood would be to say what I came up with is a "Dharmically informed Christian". But in reality, I see myself as trans-religious, meaning I see all religions as pointing to the same Goal, and all the rest is simple language and symbols and paths to all point to the same Realization. That includes being trans-theist, trans-atheist, and transhumanist, in the sense that these are all simply paths.
It is just that Christian language is my native symbolic language because of my training. So I favor it. That's all. I don't like to say I am a Christian, but at the same time, I'm not-not a Christian either. I like to tease saying, I'm the same religion God is. What religion is that? Does God have a religion? Or is it more along the lines of "I am all religions, and I am none"?
What sums me up best is from this quote from the 13th century Zen poet, "Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at its peak we all gaze at the single bright moon", but I favor the Christian language because of my previous training. But it hardly exclusive.
P.S. I just found that book I referenced in the library for e-reader. So I'm getting it today to finally read it and see what he has to say. I love the title of it!
