THOUGHTS FOR MEDITATING ON LOVE
Most meditations aim at the mind or understanding. The following reflections and suggestions aim at eliciting a response from the heart or love center. I will talk from personal experience, but since much of my meditative life has been formed by the Christian Gospels and Buddhist practice, I will call upon these two sources to complete this article, selections that deal expressly with love. I have no trouble taking inspiration from any source. This article is too long to use as a basis for a single meditation. There are many gold nuggets that others have contributed to this article which I am still pondering and carry over into my meditations. I suggest thoughtful reading and stopping for contemplation whenever it moves you. If something doesn't register with you, just let it go. At the end of this article there will be listed spiritual practices that could be made into subjects for meditation.
Life's Fabric
First of all, I imagine the fabric of my life. Is my life like the gossamer texture of a fine silk robe that is soft and smooth to the touch? Or is my life more like a roughly hewn heavy burlap sack that still has grass and weeds interwoven in the fabric? I think my life is somewhere in the middle of the two, being smooth and easy as I just sail along sometimes, and at other times being rough and heavy when I feel bogged down. If I apply this imagery to my life, I ask myself, “What is it that allows my life to be this way or that?”
To answer that question, I need to take a closer look at the fabric that makes up my life. What makes up a fabric is the warp and woof of the threads—the warp runs along a horizontal plane, and the woof is the transverse stitching above and below the warp. These characteristics of intermeshing of warp and woof are represented in my life. There are things that hold me back and other things that move me forward. I need to deal with both, the stumbling blocks and the stepping stones. Love must integrate and permeate the whole of my life, working always to remove the weeds and chaff that roughen the way so that I can realize the love that I am and am meant to share.
One way to discover what put me on this path is to search my childhood memories for clues. I have been conditioned by my past and in some ways I need to overcome that conditioning.
Negative Conditioning
As I consider my own childhood, I've realized that an incident in the sixth grade in a public school in the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania, had a powerful sway in my approach to people. I had thrown a paper wad in the class that hit a girl on the side of her head. It perhaps frightened her, but I know the paper wad did not do serious damage. In any event, she complained privately to our teacher. The next morning Miss Tragicy, our home room teacher, gathered us around her, touching and embracing many of us. She promised that what was said there would go no further, but she had to know who threw the paper wad. Under what I thought was her loving care for all of us, I fessed up and told her I was the one. That afternoon I was summoned to the principal's office where I was told to lean over the desk and was painfully struck over and over with a wooden paddle.
I remember how hurt I was, and not just my backside. This was my home room teacher to whom I felt very close. I trusted her word and was deceived—I was crushed! I now see how it led me to be suspicious of others. It does not stop me cold, but my first instinct is not to trust, but rather to be wary. It is an incident like this that makes up the warp and woof of my conditioned life.
Positive Reinforcement
I'd like to share another incident that had the opposite effect. On a trip to Rome, I visited the Sistine Chapel for the express purpose of seeing Michelangelo's painting of the ceiling and walls. I had just come from Florence where I had been enchanted by his statue of David. When I walked into the Chapel, I couldn't help but be awe-struck by its overwhelming magnificence. Here was the masterpiece of a man who frequently had to lie on his back, with paint dripping onto his face, during the four years it took to accomplish such a colossal feat.
Michelangelo lifted me beyond the ceiling to know that such a grand work could be wrought by a fellow human being like me. It leads me in wonder to strive to be the best that I can be, to use whatever talents I have for my own growth and for others. This also works itself into the warp and woof of my life's fabric.
For my own development, I think it is extremely important to recognize how the fabric of my life was woven. So many of my patterns were formed in my childhood when feelings and emotions held sway. I need to see the negative aspects. They often are stronger than I had thought. I do this so that I may be clearly aware of what has actually happened. Calm awareness is very powerful. Since energy follows attention, I can change. By revisiting and reliving those incidents I soften the hold they have on me.
It is important in this kind of meditation to go back and contemplate first, an incident that thwarted me, taking as much time as I care to give it. Secondly, I need to do the same for an incident, done by me or another, that uplifted me. If it is pleasing and gratifying, I need to stay with it and let its energy work through me. For each of us, there probably are several incidents from our early years that conditioned later responses. It helps to know what these are and to re-live each of them.
Difficulties or friction in my life serves a purpose. I need to accept it rather than hate it. I can see it as a sign that is meant to take me to a certain glory on the other side of it. It is like the grain of sand that irritates the oyster. In order to protect itself from irritation, the oyster covers the uninvited visitor with layers of nacre — the mineral substance that fashions its own shell. Layer upon layer of nacre coat the grain of sand until the iridescent gem is formed. Nacre is known as mother-of-pearl, so called because it is the creative agent of the beautiful gem that results.
In my meditation, I want to stress love because love makes up the deepest part of my human nature. Unlike knowledge, love is a reality that is not limited. For its universality to be operative, I need to give myself to it, to surrender to it. As energy follows attention, so being follows love. I become what I love. I need to let it become the governing motive of all I do. In being aware in meditation, I'm often distracted and have to pull myself back to focusing. A friend told me when this happens, "Don't look at your meditation as having dozens of distractions, but rather as having a million mini-enlightenments, because when it happens, you were aware to bring yourself back to witnessing." I am indebted to him not only for this pearl of wisdom but for many others. My good friend and fellow traveler of the interior way is Alex Riegel, a Universalist Unitarian Minister, whose website (returntothemystic.org) I strongly recommend.
In attending to awareness, it is just as easy to attend to love. As there are many things that I can be aware of, there are just as many things to which I can bring love. I know I am dependent and inter-dependent on others. I am here because of others. In anything I do, I am not alone. I cannot do it solely by my own power. Every action I take connects me with others. Each step is on the solid surface that someone else has provided. Here is where I think it is easy to bring love to bear. Acknowledgement of dependence is a form of love. Being grateful is another form of love. With thoughtfulness and willingness, I can let myself become aware of loving. In the higher reaches of awareness, duality ceases and all is one. In the higher reaches of love, hate and fear disappear and everything is lovable.
To calm myself and get recollected, I like to say the word, "loving," at first out loud if I am alone, then silently, on my in-breath. On the out-breath, I say the word, "kindness," again out loud then silently. While I seek to be aware, can I be aware of loving? The in breath "loving" refers to me, what I am; the out breath, "kindness" refers to others and what I do.
The Evangelist John on Love
I need to see that advances and retreats make up the warp and the woof of the fabric of my life. If I give a biblical view of this phenomenon, it raises the endeavor to a high spiritual plane. I can see a parallel rendering in John's Gospel. His first twelve chapters are often referred to as the Book of Signs. Signs are the miracles Jesus worked to convince his followers that his mission was divine, was really his Father acting through him.
The second half of his Gospel, chapters thirteen through twenty-one, is known as the Book of Glory. There are no more miracles because the disciples should have been convinced by now that Jesus has the power with his Spirit to make them what they were aspiring to be. They must cooperate; they by now were to have interiorized the message so that they could act on their own. They were to be like Christ, having the inner reality of God pounding in their hearts. They were to have seen the miracles not as wondrous works, but they were to have seen through the miracles to their significance. The significance was that Jesus could give them life, and that life would lead them to glory and everlasting life.
The evidence of what Jesus was demonstrating was to have been in their hearts if they would soften what was rigid within themselves. Here is where I see a parallel with my own experience. What the disciples should have been doing in the first twelve chapters is what I constantly need to be doing to perfect my life. It is difficult to love, as we see from Judas' betrayal and Peter's denial of Jesus three times. I don't fall down and then arrive. I fall down and get up again. I fall down and get up again.
Am I blind not to see that at times I am overwhelmed by my negative impulses? Do I not realize that at other times I teeter on the brink to go either way, to love or be resentful? Do I realize that blaming is blinding? Blinding to myself and to what I see? Every time I react negatively to myself or to another, right there is the chance to love. I don't have to hate anyone or anything. I don't have to be disappointed in outcomes, whatever they are. I bring love in to overcome an obstacle, to weed out some of the chaff in my life's fabric. And in love I can see what still holds me back. I need both endeavors--loving and fixing--to change myself.
I often am afraid of the negative I see within. If I give in to love, won't I lose control, give up my autonomy? I do know, however, that perfect love will eventually cast out fear. I need to bring that conviction from my head to my heart. I need first to be aware of what is going on inside me, more so than what is going on outside. I live in two worlds simultaneously, the absolute and the relative. I can experience myself changing, moving more into the absolute where exist only total awareness and pure love. Perhaps one of the greatest obstacles is that we do not value sufficiently our own inner experiences. They are unique and personal and a reality unto themselves. Once we learn to value them, new revelations occur.
In practicing meditation on love, the breadth of love begins to reveal itself. I become more aware of when I am loving and when I am not. And that turns into sharp awareness. I realize many things about love. When I attack, even verbally, I hurt myself. One of the chief revelations is that I don't have to hate anything. I certainly do not have to love everything, but I can leave many things alone without getting involved with them.
It does not matter here why I do not act out of higher aspirations. Some say it is due to inner blindness coming from our fallen state. Others say there are psychological impediments due to earlier experiences. Still others maintain that it is the ego that will not give up control. Perhaps something of all of these is true.
Regardless, I am trusting that each of us wants to be the best s/he can be. This drive can be terribly misguided at times, such as in Germany under Nazi rule. In the core of each one's conscience, however, one cannot do something that s/he does not see as good for someone or something. When I first realized this, it hit me like a thunderbolt! I saw this human drive as the outgrowth of the basic goodness of human nature.
In our deepest center there is beauty, goodness, truth, and love. If anything and everything I do is aimed at doing good for someone or something, then that in itself is love. Built into my nature is the beginning of a path I am meant to follow. And it is right here that I see revelation/religion joined to human aspirations. It is that core of goodness in each of us that anyone can capitalize on under the banner of love. It, too, is part of the warp and woof of life, the smooth silk thread replacing a coarse one that needs worked into the fabric of my life.
"God is love” (1Jo 4:16) may be the most revealing and revolutionary sentence in the Bible. The full passage reads: "God is love, and the person who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him." St. Augustine in the fifth century had written superlatively about this passage: "If nothing else in praise of love was said in the rest of the epistle, nay in the rest of Scripture, and we had heard from the mouth of the Spirit of God that one statement, 'God is love,' we would not have to look for anything else."
I like to begin my meditation with some felt sense which sets the tone for the time I sit. In this case, I recall that God chooses me out of love. Please excuse me if I get a little pedantic. It is important to see some of the original language of John's Gospel to show the full breadth of what love and faith mean. These are two of the most widely used words in the New Testament.
In the Evangelist John's writings, love (agape) is the unique love made possible through Jesus--a spontaneous, unmerited, creative love, opening the way to fellowship with God and flowing from God to the Christian and from the Christian to his neighbor.
God's love is outgoing, effect-producing, as shown by the fact that John in his writings prefers the verb, agapan, 71 times, to the noun agape, 30 times. It is a love that is restless until it shows itself, as in the statement, "God loved the world so much that He gave the only Son" (John 3:16, 1 John 4:9). And in Jesus this love pressed on to find its culminating effectiveness in dying and rising for men: "He now showed his love for them to the very end" (John 13:1). It is love even to the point of death (15:13). Thus God's whole saving relationship to men is expressed by the statement, "God is love" (1 John 4:8, 16). The ideal Christian is presented in terms of love as the Beloved Disciple.
John on Faith
I am not asked to accept this love on blind faith. John, a loyal follower, knew Jesus intimately and loved him deeply. He turned his whole life over to him, which went far beyond thoughtless acceptance, or faith as that word has come to be understood. The Greek word PISTIS has been translated into English as FAITH. But for our purpose here it is extremely important to recognize that PISTIS is a noun that never occurs in John's Gospel! Not once! Surprise!
John, coming from experience, knew that "faith" in God and "faith" in Jesus mean so much more than blind faith. He always uses the verb form, "pisteuein" to indicate he is not thinking of faith as an internal disposition, but as an active commitment. To hear and answer the call means to trust in Jesus and have confidence in him. Faith includes loyalty and engagement. It is an acceptance of Jesus and of what he claims to be and a dedication of one's life to him. The commitment is not merely emotional but involves a willingness to respond to God's demands as they are presented in and by Jesus (1 John 3:23).
Faith then, according to John, is not "I believe in You, God." Rather, It would be something like this, "Thank you, Dear Jesus, for giving me your Spirit to be my own and your teachings to warm my heart. I commit myself to you. May my loyalty render your Father my Father, and your love for Him, my love for Him. In giving myself with you to Our Father, I trust to be led throughout my life. I have only to engage you as my model and your revelation as my guide." Faith, then, is a response of the whole person, body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit.
This is why there is no conflict in John between the primacy of faith and the importance of good works. To have faith in Jesus whom God sent is the work demanded by God (6:29), for to have faith implies that one will abide in the words and commands of Jesus (8:31; 1 John 5:10).
For more on the New Covenant's commandment to love, see "God is love" under Christianity in the main reading which is Finding Oneness in Loving Awareness, on this same website. Love is not only a commandment; love is a gift, perhaps the greatest gift of all.
Another beautiful and famous description of how love works may be found in Paul's letter to the Corinthians. He introduces his masterful discourse with the assertion, "Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them. If I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am as a sounding brass and tinkling symbol, etc. (1 Cor 12: 31-13:13).
What may have seemed like I was going off on a tangent was done for two reasons: to show how God chooses Jesus and me, and secondly, how it asks for a reply from me. Love calls for a response of love. It seems dramatic in the case of Jesus because I can read about it. I cannot read about my own case, but I know it is even more dramatic to live it intimately and thus realize it fully. Joel S. Goldsmith put it this way, "Enjoy watching the glory of the Father unfold as my personal experience."
To a great extent believing and knowing are interchangeable in John. Believing, knowing, realizing are all related. If I keep loving, a Jesus arises. As Jesus says, "the man who has faith in me will perform the same works that I perform. In fact, he will perform far greater than these, because I am going to the Father, and whatever you ask in my name I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:12-13). Spirit is beyond normal comprehension, yet always ready to answer to love. As with Jesus so with me, God works in me weaving the fabric of life.
A Zen Priest/Poet on Love
At this point I would like to go to a Zen priest and poet who beautifully explains the necessity of loving and offers concrete ways to practice love. Zoketsu Norman Fischer is the founder of Everyday Zen Foundation. He was asked to give the 2014 Baccalaureate address at Stanford University. What follows is taken from that address: "How to Survive Your Promising Life," written as the article, "Useless Advice," Shambhala Sun, November, 2014, pp. 62-66.
He tells his audience he realizes that "baccalaureate speeches are supposed to be bright, uplifting, and encouraging." After giving some realistic comments about the life and world the graduates are facing, about the hardships and frustrations that are inevitable, he says, "Okay, here is the uplifting part: Your life isn't and has never been about you....about what you accomplish, how successful you are or are not, how much money you make, what sort of position you ascend to,...or how much good you do for others or the world at large. Your life, like mine, and like everyone else's has always been about one thing: love."
With so many of life's questions unanswered, he says, "The only thing that makes sense and that is completely real is love. Love is the only answer. This is no mystery--everyone knows this....When you dedicate yourself to love, to trying your best to be kind and benefit everyone you meet, then you will be okay and your life, whatever it brings, will be a beautiful life."
"But how do you love?" he asks. "HOW do you make love real in your life?...It takes attention, commitment, continuity, and effort....To find and develop love you have to commit yourself firmly to it. You have to have a way, a path, a practice, for cultivating love throughout your lifetime, come what may. Love isn't just a feeling. It is an overarching attitude and spirit. It's a way of life. It's a daily activity."
Here is where Zoketsu gets personal in talking about himself. "In my life I have cultivated love through a path of spiritual practice, a life of meditation, study, and reflection. I think you also will need a path of spiritual practice...if you are going to survive this difficult human journey with your heart intact and your love generous and bright."
Practices
I warm up to what he says about a spiritual path. Many of the old paths are not lively and interesting for today. He sees that a spiritual path must be engaging and satisfying in order to be an investigation of the deepest level of the human heart and the purpose of human life. There are a million ways to approach it, but the main thing is some commitment and discipline. He says you need a practice, something you actually do.
Zoketsu Fischer then tells his audience what his practice is. "For me, that practice is sitting in silence. I certainly recommend it to everyone, regardless of your religious affiliation or lack of one."
He then lists other possibilities they might employ, because he knows that sitting silently is hard, if not impossible, for many people. A beneficial practice can be prayer. "Whether or not you believe in God you can pray. You can contemplate spiritual texts, art, poetry, or sacred music. You can walk quietly on the earth. You can gaze at the landscape or the sea or the sky."
I will list the practices he offers with a few comments on each. "You can practice gratitude." Upon waking up every morning, close your eyes, be quiet for a minute, and say the word "grateful" to yourself silently. Sit there for a moment or two and see what happens.
Another practice is giving--always making the effort to say a word or offer a smile or material or emotional gifts that confer blessings on another person.
You may choose to practice kind speech--on all occasions, even difficult ones. Here you commit yourself to speaking with kindness and include the needs, hopes, and dreams of others. You stop speaking only from your own side.
In choosing to practice beneficial action, you commit yourself to being of some use to others, in whatever way you can, even in some ways that may seem stupid. For instance, you could practice benefitting others by wiping sink counters in public rest rooms, or in your own kitchen. Wiping counters with the intention of helping others can be a daily spiritual discipline. Or you can cook a meal with love for others.
There is also the practice of identity action--recognizing that when you do anything, you are not, and cannot, do it alone, solely by your own power. You call to mind those people who made it possible for you to do whatever you are doing. Every action you ever take involves others.
A powerful practice for change of heart is compassion--going toward rather than turning away from the suffering of others, as well as your own suffering. If you find it impossible to make the pain disappear, you can still go toward it rather than running away. You can become softened by it.
Fischer says he could go on and on since spiritual practices are unlimited. Be imaginative and--especially--full of love. They come from love, they encourage love, and they produce love. When we do them over time, we find ourselves living in a world full of love.
Conclusion
At the end of his talk, Fischer quotes Timothy Kelly, who was abbot of Gethsemane Monastery, Thomas Merton's monastery in Kentucky: "How one lives one's life is the only true measure of the validity of one's search."
What appealed most to me in Fischer's address was the practice of identity action. I love meditation, quiet times, researching and writing. What I need is to be more connected with people, to see my dependence and interdependence. The practice seemed so simple and yet so profound. I connected with it immediately.
In mindfully turning on the spigot to get a glass of water, I feel the smoothness of the glass and think of the people working to give me a product that I can use over and over again. It took someone else, the plumber, to install the sink. There was the contractor who built my home. Engineers and a city constructed my water system. The flowing water showed my dependence on nature just to stay alive. Etc., Etc. When I reflected on all that was involved, and it happened in just moments, a warm feeling arose in me for all the people who serve me so well. I couldn't help but be grateful. I knew I had chosen a practice that was right for me.
After reading all that has been said about the fabric of life, I think it is obvious that love can be difficult. I believe I create some of the difficulty when I think of love as a form of romantic love. Romantic love is easy, and many times, because of the attraction between people, we just fall into it. There can be romance without love, just as there can be love without romance. True love goes deep and stays the course. When times get rough, I can practice tough love on myself. I need to commit my life and trust to loving.
Practicing love is necessary to transform the mind. Putting things into practice reveals the knowledge I need. Learning for the sake of understanding is one thing and forms me in a certain way. Learning through practice is another thing and forms me differently. All is for the sake of smoothing out the fabric of my life so that I can grow in love.
Suggestions for Daily Practice
1. Don't divide (making two out of one) as judging, accusing, blaming separates.
2. Deliberately act against a negative impulse or feeling.
3. Feel and relish some elevating experience.
Life's Fabric
First of all, I imagine the fabric of my life. Is my life like the gossamer texture of a fine silk robe that is soft and smooth to the touch? Or is my life more like a roughly hewn heavy burlap sack that still has grass and weeds interwoven in the fabric? I think my life is somewhere in the middle of the two, being smooth and easy as I just sail along sometimes, and at other times being rough and heavy when I feel bogged down. If I apply this imagery to my life, I ask myself, “What is it that allows my life to be this way or that?”
To answer that question, I need to take a closer look at the fabric that makes up my life. What makes up a fabric is the warp and woof of the threads—the warp runs along a horizontal plane, and the woof is the transverse stitching above and below the warp. These characteristics of intermeshing of warp and woof are represented in my life. There are things that hold me back and other things that move me forward. I need to deal with both, the stumbling blocks and the stepping stones. Love must integrate and permeate the whole of my life, working always to remove the weeds and chaff that roughen the way so that I can realize the love that I am and am meant to share.
One way to discover what put me on this path is to search my childhood memories for clues. I have been conditioned by my past and in some ways I need to overcome that conditioning.
Negative Conditioning
As I consider my own childhood, I've realized that an incident in the sixth grade in a public school in the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania, had a powerful sway in my approach to people. I had thrown a paper wad in the class that hit a girl on the side of her head. It perhaps frightened her, but I know the paper wad did not do serious damage. In any event, she complained privately to our teacher. The next morning Miss Tragicy, our home room teacher, gathered us around her, touching and embracing many of us. She promised that what was said there would go no further, but she had to know who threw the paper wad. Under what I thought was her loving care for all of us, I fessed up and told her I was the one. That afternoon I was summoned to the principal's office where I was told to lean over the desk and was painfully struck over and over with a wooden paddle.
I remember how hurt I was, and not just my backside. This was my home room teacher to whom I felt very close. I trusted her word and was deceived—I was crushed! I now see how it led me to be suspicious of others. It does not stop me cold, but my first instinct is not to trust, but rather to be wary. It is an incident like this that makes up the warp and woof of my conditioned life.
Positive Reinforcement
I'd like to share another incident that had the opposite effect. On a trip to Rome, I visited the Sistine Chapel for the express purpose of seeing Michelangelo's painting of the ceiling and walls. I had just come from Florence where I had been enchanted by his statue of David. When I walked into the Chapel, I couldn't help but be awe-struck by its overwhelming magnificence. Here was the masterpiece of a man who frequently had to lie on his back, with paint dripping onto his face, during the four years it took to accomplish such a colossal feat.
Michelangelo lifted me beyond the ceiling to know that such a grand work could be wrought by a fellow human being like me. It leads me in wonder to strive to be the best that I can be, to use whatever talents I have for my own growth and for others. This also works itself into the warp and woof of my life's fabric.
For my own development, I think it is extremely important to recognize how the fabric of my life was woven. So many of my patterns were formed in my childhood when feelings and emotions held sway. I need to see the negative aspects. They often are stronger than I had thought. I do this so that I may be clearly aware of what has actually happened. Calm awareness is very powerful. Since energy follows attention, I can change. By revisiting and reliving those incidents I soften the hold they have on me.
It is important in this kind of meditation to go back and contemplate first, an incident that thwarted me, taking as much time as I care to give it. Secondly, I need to do the same for an incident, done by me or another, that uplifted me. If it is pleasing and gratifying, I need to stay with it and let its energy work through me. For each of us, there probably are several incidents from our early years that conditioned later responses. It helps to know what these are and to re-live each of them.
Difficulties or friction in my life serves a purpose. I need to accept it rather than hate it. I can see it as a sign that is meant to take me to a certain glory on the other side of it. It is like the grain of sand that irritates the oyster. In order to protect itself from irritation, the oyster covers the uninvited visitor with layers of nacre — the mineral substance that fashions its own shell. Layer upon layer of nacre coat the grain of sand until the iridescent gem is formed. Nacre is known as mother-of-pearl, so called because it is the creative agent of the beautiful gem that results.
In my meditation, I want to stress love because love makes up the deepest part of my human nature. Unlike knowledge, love is a reality that is not limited. For its universality to be operative, I need to give myself to it, to surrender to it. As energy follows attention, so being follows love. I become what I love. I need to let it become the governing motive of all I do. In being aware in meditation, I'm often distracted and have to pull myself back to focusing. A friend told me when this happens, "Don't look at your meditation as having dozens of distractions, but rather as having a million mini-enlightenments, because when it happens, you were aware to bring yourself back to witnessing." I am indebted to him not only for this pearl of wisdom but for many others. My good friend and fellow traveler of the interior way is Alex Riegel, a Universalist Unitarian Minister, whose website (returntothemystic.org) I strongly recommend.
In attending to awareness, it is just as easy to attend to love. As there are many things that I can be aware of, there are just as many things to which I can bring love. I know I am dependent and inter-dependent on others. I am here because of others. In anything I do, I am not alone. I cannot do it solely by my own power. Every action I take connects me with others. Each step is on the solid surface that someone else has provided. Here is where I think it is easy to bring love to bear. Acknowledgement of dependence is a form of love. Being grateful is another form of love. With thoughtfulness and willingness, I can let myself become aware of loving. In the higher reaches of awareness, duality ceases and all is one. In the higher reaches of love, hate and fear disappear and everything is lovable.
To calm myself and get recollected, I like to say the word, "loving," at first out loud if I am alone, then silently, on my in-breath. On the out-breath, I say the word, "kindness," again out loud then silently. While I seek to be aware, can I be aware of loving? The in breath "loving" refers to me, what I am; the out breath, "kindness" refers to others and what I do.
The Evangelist John on Love
I need to see that advances and retreats make up the warp and the woof of the fabric of my life. If I give a biblical view of this phenomenon, it raises the endeavor to a high spiritual plane. I can see a parallel rendering in John's Gospel. His first twelve chapters are often referred to as the Book of Signs. Signs are the miracles Jesus worked to convince his followers that his mission was divine, was really his Father acting through him.
The second half of his Gospel, chapters thirteen through twenty-one, is known as the Book of Glory. There are no more miracles because the disciples should have been convinced by now that Jesus has the power with his Spirit to make them what they were aspiring to be. They must cooperate; they by now were to have interiorized the message so that they could act on their own. They were to be like Christ, having the inner reality of God pounding in their hearts. They were to have seen the miracles not as wondrous works, but they were to have seen through the miracles to their significance. The significance was that Jesus could give them life, and that life would lead them to glory and everlasting life.
The evidence of what Jesus was demonstrating was to have been in their hearts if they would soften what was rigid within themselves. Here is where I see a parallel with my own experience. What the disciples should have been doing in the first twelve chapters is what I constantly need to be doing to perfect my life. It is difficult to love, as we see from Judas' betrayal and Peter's denial of Jesus three times. I don't fall down and then arrive. I fall down and get up again. I fall down and get up again.
Am I blind not to see that at times I am overwhelmed by my negative impulses? Do I not realize that at other times I teeter on the brink to go either way, to love or be resentful? Do I realize that blaming is blinding? Blinding to myself and to what I see? Every time I react negatively to myself or to another, right there is the chance to love. I don't have to hate anyone or anything. I don't have to be disappointed in outcomes, whatever they are. I bring love in to overcome an obstacle, to weed out some of the chaff in my life's fabric. And in love I can see what still holds me back. I need both endeavors--loving and fixing--to change myself.
I often am afraid of the negative I see within. If I give in to love, won't I lose control, give up my autonomy? I do know, however, that perfect love will eventually cast out fear. I need to bring that conviction from my head to my heart. I need first to be aware of what is going on inside me, more so than what is going on outside. I live in two worlds simultaneously, the absolute and the relative. I can experience myself changing, moving more into the absolute where exist only total awareness and pure love. Perhaps one of the greatest obstacles is that we do not value sufficiently our own inner experiences. They are unique and personal and a reality unto themselves. Once we learn to value them, new revelations occur.
In practicing meditation on love, the breadth of love begins to reveal itself. I become more aware of when I am loving and when I am not. And that turns into sharp awareness. I realize many things about love. When I attack, even verbally, I hurt myself. One of the chief revelations is that I don't have to hate anything. I certainly do not have to love everything, but I can leave many things alone without getting involved with them.
It does not matter here why I do not act out of higher aspirations. Some say it is due to inner blindness coming from our fallen state. Others say there are psychological impediments due to earlier experiences. Still others maintain that it is the ego that will not give up control. Perhaps something of all of these is true.
Regardless, I am trusting that each of us wants to be the best s/he can be. This drive can be terribly misguided at times, such as in Germany under Nazi rule. In the core of each one's conscience, however, one cannot do something that s/he does not see as good for someone or something. When I first realized this, it hit me like a thunderbolt! I saw this human drive as the outgrowth of the basic goodness of human nature.
In our deepest center there is beauty, goodness, truth, and love. If anything and everything I do is aimed at doing good for someone or something, then that in itself is love. Built into my nature is the beginning of a path I am meant to follow. And it is right here that I see revelation/religion joined to human aspirations. It is that core of goodness in each of us that anyone can capitalize on under the banner of love. It, too, is part of the warp and woof of life, the smooth silk thread replacing a coarse one that needs worked into the fabric of my life.
"God is love” (1Jo 4:16) may be the most revealing and revolutionary sentence in the Bible. The full passage reads: "God is love, and the person who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him." St. Augustine in the fifth century had written superlatively about this passage: "If nothing else in praise of love was said in the rest of the epistle, nay in the rest of Scripture, and we had heard from the mouth of the Spirit of God that one statement, 'God is love,' we would not have to look for anything else."
I like to begin my meditation with some felt sense which sets the tone for the time I sit. In this case, I recall that God chooses me out of love. Please excuse me if I get a little pedantic. It is important to see some of the original language of John's Gospel to show the full breadth of what love and faith mean. These are two of the most widely used words in the New Testament.
In the Evangelist John's writings, love (agape) is the unique love made possible through Jesus--a spontaneous, unmerited, creative love, opening the way to fellowship with God and flowing from God to the Christian and from the Christian to his neighbor.
God's love is outgoing, effect-producing, as shown by the fact that John in his writings prefers the verb, agapan, 71 times, to the noun agape, 30 times. It is a love that is restless until it shows itself, as in the statement, "God loved the world so much that He gave the only Son" (John 3:16, 1 John 4:9). And in Jesus this love pressed on to find its culminating effectiveness in dying and rising for men: "He now showed his love for them to the very end" (John 13:1). It is love even to the point of death (15:13). Thus God's whole saving relationship to men is expressed by the statement, "God is love" (1 John 4:8, 16). The ideal Christian is presented in terms of love as the Beloved Disciple.
John on Faith
I am not asked to accept this love on blind faith. John, a loyal follower, knew Jesus intimately and loved him deeply. He turned his whole life over to him, which went far beyond thoughtless acceptance, or faith as that word has come to be understood. The Greek word PISTIS has been translated into English as FAITH. But for our purpose here it is extremely important to recognize that PISTIS is a noun that never occurs in John's Gospel! Not once! Surprise!
John, coming from experience, knew that "faith" in God and "faith" in Jesus mean so much more than blind faith. He always uses the verb form, "pisteuein" to indicate he is not thinking of faith as an internal disposition, but as an active commitment. To hear and answer the call means to trust in Jesus and have confidence in him. Faith includes loyalty and engagement. It is an acceptance of Jesus and of what he claims to be and a dedication of one's life to him. The commitment is not merely emotional but involves a willingness to respond to God's demands as they are presented in and by Jesus (1 John 3:23).
Faith then, according to John, is not "I believe in You, God." Rather, It would be something like this, "Thank you, Dear Jesus, for giving me your Spirit to be my own and your teachings to warm my heart. I commit myself to you. May my loyalty render your Father my Father, and your love for Him, my love for Him. In giving myself with you to Our Father, I trust to be led throughout my life. I have only to engage you as my model and your revelation as my guide." Faith, then, is a response of the whole person, body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit.
This is why there is no conflict in John between the primacy of faith and the importance of good works. To have faith in Jesus whom God sent is the work demanded by God (6:29), for to have faith implies that one will abide in the words and commands of Jesus (8:31; 1 John 5:10).
For more on the New Covenant's commandment to love, see "God is love" under Christianity in the main reading which is Finding Oneness in Loving Awareness, on this same website. Love is not only a commandment; love is a gift, perhaps the greatest gift of all.
Another beautiful and famous description of how love works may be found in Paul's letter to the Corinthians. He introduces his masterful discourse with the assertion, "Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them. If I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am as a sounding brass and tinkling symbol, etc. (1 Cor 12: 31-13:13).
What may have seemed like I was going off on a tangent was done for two reasons: to show how God chooses Jesus and me, and secondly, how it asks for a reply from me. Love calls for a response of love. It seems dramatic in the case of Jesus because I can read about it. I cannot read about my own case, but I know it is even more dramatic to live it intimately and thus realize it fully. Joel S. Goldsmith put it this way, "Enjoy watching the glory of the Father unfold as my personal experience."
To a great extent believing and knowing are interchangeable in John. Believing, knowing, realizing are all related. If I keep loving, a Jesus arises. As Jesus says, "the man who has faith in me will perform the same works that I perform. In fact, he will perform far greater than these, because I am going to the Father, and whatever you ask in my name I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:12-13). Spirit is beyond normal comprehension, yet always ready to answer to love. As with Jesus so with me, God works in me weaving the fabric of life.
A Zen Priest/Poet on Love
At this point I would like to go to a Zen priest and poet who beautifully explains the necessity of loving and offers concrete ways to practice love. Zoketsu Norman Fischer is the founder of Everyday Zen Foundation. He was asked to give the 2014 Baccalaureate address at Stanford University. What follows is taken from that address: "How to Survive Your Promising Life," written as the article, "Useless Advice," Shambhala Sun, November, 2014, pp. 62-66.
He tells his audience he realizes that "baccalaureate speeches are supposed to be bright, uplifting, and encouraging." After giving some realistic comments about the life and world the graduates are facing, about the hardships and frustrations that are inevitable, he says, "Okay, here is the uplifting part: Your life isn't and has never been about you....about what you accomplish, how successful you are or are not, how much money you make, what sort of position you ascend to,...or how much good you do for others or the world at large. Your life, like mine, and like everyone else's has always been about one thing: love."
With so many of life's questions unanswered, he says, "The only thing that makes sense and that is completely real is love. Love is the only answer. This is no mystery--everyone knows this....When you dedicate yourself to love, to trying your best to be kind and benefit everyone you meet, then you will be okay and your life, whatever it brings, will be a beautiful life."
"But how do you love?" he asks. "HOW do you make love real in your life?...It takes attention, commitment, continuity, and effort....To find and develop love you have to commit yourself firmly to it. You have to have a way, a path, a practice, for cultivating love throughout your lifetime, come what may. Love isn't just a feeling. It is an overarching attitude and spirit. It's a way of life. It's a daily activity."
Here is where Zoketsu gets personal in talking about himself. "In my life I have cultivated love through a path of spiritual practice, a life of meditation, study, and reflection. I think you also will need a path of spiritual practice...if you are going to survive this difficult human journey with your heart intact and your love generous and bright."
Practices
I warm up to what he says about a spiritual path. Many of the old paths are not lively and interesting for today. He sees that a spiritual path must be engaging and satisfying in order to be an investigation of the deepest level of the human heart and the purpose of human life. There are a million ways to approach it, but the main thing is some commitment and discipline. He says you need a practice, something you actually do.
Zoketsu Fischer then tells his audience what his practice is. "For me, that practice is sitting in silence. I certainly recommend it to everyone, regardless of your religious affiliation or lack of one."
He then lists other possibilities they might employ, because he knows that sitting silently is hard, if not impossible, for many people. A beneficial practice can be prayer. "Whether or not you believe in God you can pray. You can contemplate spiritual texts, art, poetry, or sacred music. You can walk quietly on the earth. You can gaze at the landscape or the sea or the sky."
I will list the practices he offers with a few comments on each. "You can practice gratitude." Upon waking up every morning, close your eyes, be quiet for a minute, and say the word "grateful" to yourself silently. Sit there for a moment or two and see what happens.
Another practice is giving--always making the effort to say a word or offer a smile or material or emotional gifts that confer blessings on another person.
You may choose to practice kind speech--on all occasions, even difficult ones. Here you commit yourself to speaking with kindness and include the needs, hopes, and dreams of others. You stop speaking only from your own side.
In choosing to practice beneficial action, you commit yourself to being of some use to others, in whatever way you can, even in some ways that may seem stupid. For instance, you could practice benefitting others by wiping sink counters in public rest rooms, or in your own kitchen. Wiping counters with the intention of helping others can be a daily spiritual discipline. Or you can cook a meal with love for others.
There is also the practice of identity action--recognizing that when you do anything, you are not, and cannot, do it alone, solely by your own power. You call to mind those people who made it possible for you to do whatever you are doing. Every action you ever take involves others.
A powerful practice for change of heart is compassion--going toward rather than turning away from the suffering of others, as well as your own suffering. If you find it impossible to make the pain disappear, you can still go toward it rather than running away. You can become softened by it.
Fischer says he could go on and on since spiritual practices are unlimited. Be imaginative and--especially--full of love. They come from love, they encourage love, and they produce love. When we do them over time, we find ourselves living in a world full of love.
Conclusion
At the end of his talk, Fischer quotes Timothy Kelly, who was abbot of Gethsemane Monastery, Thomas Merton's monastery in Kentucky: "How one lives one's life is the only true measure of the validity of one's search."
What appealed most to me in Fischer's address was the practice of identity action. I love meditation, quiet times, researching and writing. What I need is to be more connected with people, to see my dependence and interdependence. The practice seemed so simple and yet so profound. I connected with it immediately.
In mindfully turning on the spigot to get a glass of water, I feel the smoothness of the glass and think of the people working to give me a product that I can use over and over again. It took someone else, the plumber, to install the sink. There was the contractor who built my home. Engineers and a city constructed my water system. The flowing water showed my dependence on nature just to stay alive. Etc., Etc. When I reflected on all that was involved, and it happened in just moments, a warm feeling arose in me for all the people who serve me so well. I couldn't help but be grateful. I knew I had chosen a practice that was right for me.
After reading all that has been said about the fabric of life, I think it is obvious that love can be difficult. I believe I create some of the difficulty when I think of love as a form of romantic love. Romantic love is easy, and many times, because of the attraction between people, we just fall into it. There can be romance without love, just as there can be love without romance. True love goes deep and stays the course. When times get rough, I can practice tough love on myself. I need to commit my life and trust to loving.
Practicing love is necessary to transform the mind. Putting things into practice reveals the knowledge I need. Learning for the sake of understanding is one thing and forms me in a certain way. Learning through practice is another thing and forms me differently. All is for the sake of smoothing out the fabric of my life so that I can grow in love.
Suggestions for Daily Practice
1. Don't divide (making two out of one) as judging, accusing, blaming separates.
2. Deliberately act against a negative impulse or feeling.
3. Feel and relish some elevating experience.