Love Encompasses All Human Beings

By Category: Harmonious LivingTags:

Love and affection are infinitely valuable. There are various levels of love and affection that we can aspire to. Some people describe how people love this way: Young people love with their words, middle-aged people love with their actions, and elder people love with their hearts. 

This means that as we age, our love matures. Spiritual development also deepens and expands our love.

Love starts at home. We love our spouse, our children, and our siblings. From here, we extend our love to our relatives and friends. Further, our love encompasses all human beings and then all beings. From a possessive kind of love, love matures into a giving kind of love, and finally into the enlightened love that bodhisattvas and Buddhas have for everyone. This kind of love is the great compassion that is described by the saying: “I will not seek pleasure just for myself. I long for all sentient beings to be free of suffering.”

Love is like water. On the one hand, it can nurture our lives; on the other hand, it can drown us. Thus, if we do not know how to love properly, love can bring us many problems and ruin our lives. If we are ordinary and selective about whom we love, instead of embracing all beings, the vast dimensions of love are hardly actualized. How do we love properly? Let me offer the following four guidelines:

  • Love wisely—We should use our wisdom to purify our love.
  • Love compassionately—We should use our compassion to manifest our love.
  • Love in accordance with the Dharma—We should use the Dharma to guide our love.
  • Love morally—We should use morals and ethics to direct our love.

Love is such an important subject of our lives. How do we love selflessly and offer our love to all? How do we transform a possessive love to a giving love, to a love for the Dharma? How do we purify our love from one of discrimination to one of great compassion? How do we love in the spirit of this common saying: “Cultivate our loving-kindness without conditions, and ground our compassion on oneness”? How do we manifest the true potential of affinity? These are very important questions for us to ponder! When we seek to go beyond ourselves and offer our love and affection in service to the community, then our lives and the lives of others will be more rewarding and more joyful!

From Living Affinity, written by Venerable Master Hsing Yun.

Image from Pixabay.

More Featured Articles

From the Space outside Us to the Space inside Us
Most of us have an idea of what constitutes the space outside us; it is the environment in which we live. This includes the house we live in, the city we live in, or even the world we live in. Just as we need to skillfully manage our relationship to others, to the environment, and to wealth, we also need to properly manage our relationship Read more
Inspire and Be Inspired
Do you feel inspired when you see people help each other? Not everyone is. Some people may look at a generous donation and say, “Donating such a small amount of money is nothing extraordinary for such a rich person.” When other people suffer from disasters and pain like the many people killed in the South Asian tsunami and earthquakes, don’t you feel for them? Doesn’t Read more
I Am Not a Monk “Sponging Off” Buddhism (III)
It is my hope that our Buddhist monks will all become monks who give support in all directions and not become monks who live off all directions. Whoever it may be, the monastic followers or the lay disciples, although we have not yet attained enlightenment, we can still broadly make affinities with others first, so as to become aspiring bodhisattvas who will ensure that “Buddhism Read more
Adapting Oneself to Others
If we want to understand what the Dharma teaches us about building affinity and living in harmony with others, we must first understand the four great all-embracing virtues. The Buddha teaches that for us to realize our true capacity of connecting with and serving our fellow citizens, we have to first build a good rapport, and the four virtues are tools to that end. The four Read more
Putting Teachings into Practice
Dharma is for people. There is one thing about the Dharma that I am completely sure of: the Dharma is for people. The Buddha’s teachings are not a cold philosophy designed merely to rearrange the concepts in our minds, they are a living act of compassion intended to show us how to open our hearts. I learned this truth just as everyone must learn it—by Read more
Turning Around and Going Ahead
On the path of life, sometimes we need to go straight ahead, other times we have to make turns in order to reach our goals. If we do not turn around when we need to, we will not “see the other shore.” But when we need to move ahead and we do not, we will miss a prime opportunity. When we have to make a Read more
The Buddhist Tradition of Protecting the Environment
Most people regard the Buddhist religion as conservative and passive. Many think that Buddhism only teaches people to meditate, recite mantras and be vegetarians. They do not associate the religion with active and progressive ideas such as environmental protection. In truth, Buddhism is a religion that embodies the spirit of environmental protection and it has a long history of being active in such matters, well Read more
True Stature
True stature is not created by form or ornament; words spoken out of jealousy and greed oppose it. Only when evil has been stopped at its roots, and when there is wisdom without anger is there true stature.— Dharmapadavadana Sutra The False Stature of This WorldEveryone wants to be well regarded by others. However, in seeking true stature, people too often waste their time in Read more
Take Deep Joy in the True Dharma
“True Dharma” means those teachings which are right, correct, and do not deviate from the Middle Way.The word “Dharma” has several different meanings. One meaningof “dharma” is “phenomena.” In this sense, “dharma” includes phenomena as large as the universe and as small as a mustard seed. “Dharma” also refers to the truth, the teachings of the Buddha. The Dharma the Buddha taught is what allows people Read more
To Think Positively
Humans are thinking animals! Since the beginning of time, there have always been people who fantasize, who have delusions, who dream—and many who have ideals. When we lie in our beds at night, we should be free from worry. Yet thoughts about our lives often arise then; thoughts about family, country, or even the world. Everything is within our minds.The average person often tends to Read more
Transcend the Ordinary and the Sacred
What, exactly, is the meaning contained within this gong’an? For instance, some have asked, what are people like? This is a very difficult question to answer because if there are things they are like, then there are things they are not like. If we answer that people are like ghosts, then there are also people among ghosts. If we say ghosts are like people, then Read more
To be Flexible
If someone is too tough or stubborn, one can say that they have a cold heart, or even a heart made of stone. But consider this: our teeth may be hard and rigid, but they will each fall out as we get older. On the other hand, the tongue more or less retains its form even after we die. In general, things can sustain themselves Read more