25 Jun The Mind of Love is Very Wide – June 26 2019
When your mind is filled with love, send it in one direction, then a second, a third, and a fourth, then above, and then below. Identify with everything, without hatred, resentment, anger, or enmity. This mind of love is very wide. It grows immeasurably and eventually is able to embrace the whole world.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, Madhyama Agama, Sutra 86
The sutra above is quoted by Thich Nhat Hahn in his book, Teachings on Love. It is amazing in its simplicity. That we are to love everything and everyone, always. Regardless of our opinion of them, regardless of what they might have done or said to us, what they might have done to others, what they might have said about us to others. As if love were the most important thing in this world. As if to love is perhaps our only task.
The Veda says that there is one thing; that this Oneness wished for something to do, for some Other with whom It could communicate. It desired an experience of relativity. And in that moment of desiring, it gave Itself the great gift of forgetting Its oneness. In forgetting Its oneness, it saw Itself as the relative world, and all this came into existence. What happened next and continues to happen is the Oneness, as you and me, is remembering Itself as Oneness. Self looks across at Self and recognizes–literally re-cognizes, re-members–that Self in me is Self in you. There are no differences. It is one thing. This is the experience Oneness wanted for Itself. This remembering. We humans call this experience love.
As humans we forget this often. The wholeness with which the Buddha has spoken about love is a powerful reminder for us. We don’t follow the Buddha’s instructions in order to become the Buddha. Not even in order to become a saint. We follow these instructions and the example of these enlightened beings in order to become who and what we are. We are Spirit. We are Totality. We are here to love. Period. As we love, we remember. As we remember, we are more able to love.
Today I will take a moment to love–filling my mind with love, then sending love first in one direction, then another, then another, then another, then above, then below. I will give of myself in every direction, knowing that what I give comes from the source of all love, and that what I give, I receive.