Love and Wisdom

[Taigu]

The sound of the bell goes on for ever without carrying the heavy body of the bell
without this heavy body no sound could travel and merge with space

gassho


Taigu

[Jinyo]

I've been pondering on this ....
I feel what we term 'love' is the touchstone we rely on/return to and without which we can not cultivate true wisdom.
Love is wholly embodied - it is there is the first gaze between a newborn baby and it's mother/father.

Taigu - that is a wonderful image - eventually love breaks free of 'embodiment' - death can not obliterate it. Every step we take on this earth we take because of the love that has gone before - and this is our responsibility in our own here and now - to cultivate wisdom from the love we inherit.

(.... amidst the anger/hate/delusion - so very true Myozan)

Gassho

Willow

[Heisoku]

You can't mend this rift, you can't drive two into one - but if you take a step back, you can arrive before the separation.

And if you keep stepping back before separation you are wholeness too! Then that is the place of love-wisdom-prajna. Here.

[Stephanie]

Good thread, and I especially appreciate the points made by Saijun and Chet. I will add:

I have learned in my own life, that love is the only thing that saves us, and it is only at those times of great trial when it becomes clear what love really is.

I think where love and compassion can split from wisdom is when we don't have the courage or strength to confront the reality of loss and imperfection, of our lack of control; we can let our hearts pull us into doing foolish things because we think we are saving someone or ourselves when we are not, when we may actually be making things worse because we cannot accept there is nothing we can do. The love that saves and heals us sometimes requires of us that we let go when we would rather hold on, or even that we step back and let someone fall who needs to fall to learn and grow. I believe the only way to learn to tell the difference between the love that saves us and makes the path clear, and the confusion of our emotions and what we want to believe and don't want to accept, especially about those we love, is life experience, especially that associated with the phenomenon of heartbreak.

In other words - you want to learn what love is? Love which is not separate from wisdom? Look deeply into yourself - and what is called forth from within yourself - when someone you love makes a choice to do something that hurts you (though in many cases this likely was not their intention in making the choice), that you cannot fix or change. Look deeply when you are called upon to do the right thing by someone else when no one will ever know what you did, give you a round of applause, or appreciate any sacrifices you may have made. It's even more to the point when this happens when your reassuring ideals and metaphysics, that your act will somehow be acknowledged by "the Universe," have failed and you cannot reassure yourself with the usual stories. I think real love makes itself known at those stark times when it feels like we have been abandoned by everything we wanted to believe about ourselves, about life, or about another person, when we may feel or very much be alone, when we must either choose to indulge ourselves or do what is right, with no promise of reward - in times of darkness, that one flickering light becomes quite visible. Unfortunately for us as humans, it is often only in times that severe that we can access the love inside of us that feels and knows what is right. It is at those more mellow times, when our strategies to reassure ourselves are enough, that we can persist in error and self-serving folly without even knowing we are doing it.