Loving Kindness

Whether we like it or not, we are caught in nature's web... day flows into night flows into day, relentlessly, without fail... and then we die. And, if we are born again and come back to Mother Earth, nature takes us by the hand once more and subjects us to her will. Yet, no one day is the same as the others, each has its own character, in the same way as no one person is a replica of me. We are each one of us little waves dancing along in the ocean of consciousness. However, we each have our own individual identity, our own character. What a kaleidescope of humanity that makes for, what a patchwork quilt of character and personality and shape and size and hope and despair wandering the surface of the Earth. Yes, we surely are individuals, ever changing, which is why Western medicine is so often ineffective. It doesn't understand that and too many doctors are unaware of who we are as human beings. But that is another story.

The point is that, bound at a deep level by a common consciousness, we are all different, with each one of us conditioned by a whole range of unique experiences which have helped to make us who we are. So, how can we know, completely and utterly, from the standpoint of our own experience, what is making our neighbour tick? We simply cannot. Therefore, how can we judge others? The answer is we cannot, at least not accurately or fairly, and so it is better not to try. Observe but don't judge as we'll too often get it wrong and then all sorts of trouble will bubble up. And no judgement is better than wrong judgement. In any case, we cannot know what someone else's karma is and surely we have enough to cope with in dealing with our own. Instead, it is far better to put all our efforts and energy into developing loving-kindness (metta) for others by awakening our hearts, rather than sliding down the slippery slope of conjouring up subjective judgements.

If you take a coin with positive on one side and negative on the other, you will find that loving-kindness is also written on the positive side and judgement normally on the negative side, together with gossip, because we very often make judgements of other people for no very constructive reason except to gossip. Newspapers are often doing that, to boost their sales by appealing to the worst in us. Judgement and gossip are worth millions of pounds and dollars, whereas compassion doesn't sell newspapers. So what? We don't live to sell newspapers. We live to diminish suffering and to cultivate a peaceful and fulfilling life. Therefore the cultivation of unconditional loving-kindness becomes of much more value to us as individuals than bothering about newspapers. We are not in the business of diminishing our humanity but of enhancing it and seeing it grow by awakening our hearts bit by bit until they become as big as the sun. And each time we practise loving-kindness the more we will accumulate good karma which will stand us in good stead in the future.

The thing is our humanity has its duality coin, too, with its dark side and its light side. If we succumb to our dark side then we fall into the abyss of sub-humanity, as we see happening so tragically in Gaza and Zimbabwe these days. If, on the other hand, we live in the light then we are opening our hearts to our pure humanity which we express through our loving-kindness to others and to ourselves as well. Most of us succumb to our dark side every now and again in small ways but even when we do we can always learn the lessons that accrue from the experience. However, we must always expect to carry the karma of all our actions, good and bad, and the karma from our dark side can sometimes give us considerable pain. And there is certainly often a dark side to judging others. So, if it is our wish to realize our pure humanity, then it is better to focus on observing but not judging and on giving out loving-kindness whenever we can and wherever it is needed. That way everybody benefits and the light shines.

I wish you an abundant and joy-filled New Year. With metta.