Following on from the last blog on unconditional regard

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. (Albert Einstein)

Following up from my last blog and recent class with http://meditateinedinburgh.org/mahabodhi-centre/resident-teacher

Last nights class again focused on unconditional regard/love but in a bit more detail this time.

One thing that came up is how we often love/cherish our partner at the start of a relationship. When things are new we want to do everything we can to make that person happy and in return the start of a new relationship is often the best part, we get the most out of it because we are really cherishing that person. Sadly as time goes on we start to demand more and give less and thus there is a cycle of both persons not being happy because “my needs are not being met” and yet we are not considering that we are expecting our needs be met and not pausing to reflect what we are giving to this person we are supposed to love.

If I truthfully look at myself and my own past relationships I can see this pattern undoubtedly. With Chris for example I got distressed and angry because he didn’t meet my needs. I wanted a tidy house, I wanted someone who would spend time with me at home, and I wanted a lot from him that I felt he didn’t give. Essentially I wanted to be happy. I assumed that if he did these things I would be happy. If I turn this around he could certainly have felt the same. He wanted someone who accepted him without seeking to change him, someone who wanted to go out socialize more and meet friends to do the things he wanted. I also did not meet his needs. The consequence; we stopped cherishing each other.

I want to avoid this pattern with Rick and so I endeavor to be mindful and aware of what I am doing to cherish him. In my daily meditation I will remind myself that when I let something go, even something as simple as feeling like I can’t be bothered to make him lunch (which is a small thing that I often do because I love him) I am allowing myself to become complacent and the result will be that I feel less content because it is the cherishing that I get the most happiness from. The things he does for me just add to our love but as soon as I feel that I have a right to those things and put my own needs above his will be when I stop feeling as satisfied and happy in this relationship. It is cherishing and loving him unconditionally that gives me the most fulfillment.

I often think on what unconditional love means. Is it possible and can there be some kind of limit. People can do dreadful things and if we stop loving someone because they have done something dreadful does that mean that we never loved them unconditionally in the first place? I think with Rick I would love him regardless of what he did, I may not choose to stay around him if he where doing those things and making no effort to stop but that does not mean I would not love him. I would perhaps walk away from the romantic relationship but I would dedicate my time and energy into helping him.

I want to gradually urge this outlook further to friends, family and strangers. Sometimes it feels unattainable to have a caring attitude towards everyone but when I think about how it makes me feel when I get stressed or angry at people I realise it does me no good. Hating someone and wishing them harm only serves to disturb my own mind. I am by no means at the point in my life where I have regard for everyone unconditionally. I can read awful things in the paper that have happened to people hundreds of miles from me and if I am candid with myself I am rarely moved to do anything to help these strangers. I tend to empathize mostly with people or circumstances that I have previously myself experienced, I do not stop to consider that there are many things in this world that cause suffering most of which I have been lucky enough to avoid. I am privileged at this point in my life regardless of what pain I may have experienced in my past. The suffering of any person or living being in this world could just as easily be happening to me.

When I spoke in my last blog about people who challenge me I did not mean to cause those people offence or harm. There are many people who challenged me and the situations I wrote about in my last blog where just situations that have happened most recently or that were at the front of my mind at the time of writing. I value the fact that those things happened at a time in my life when I am starting to do some self development and see the world from a more rational perception. No matter what my opinion is of any one person that opinion changes continuously depending on the situation or knowledge that I have about them at the time. Nobody is inherently good or bad and my perception and opinion is based on a very narrow view of them, there are to many variables to make it of any useful significance. When I consider what goes on in my mind and my own motivations and ways of relating to the world I know that with any person that I meet and interact with I am getting only a tiny pin prick view of who that person is. Like me they will have some desirable and undesirable qualities but usually those qualities are not intentionally created to hurt others.

To use myself as an example, I know that I sometimes lose my temper and can be extremely harsh to people. Later I’m inclined to regret those outbursts but I am aware that a person seeing me in this mind frame would think me overly harsh, and perhaps simply malicious. They are unlikely to be-friend or like me if there main interaction with me is when I am in that state of mind. However usually I react this way as a defense, when I feel vulnerable or when I think someone is about to hurt me (such as get in there first before they do) my impetus for acting this way is not because I inherently want to hurt others it is a delusion I have formed to shield myself. Despite knowing this is a delusion and outbursts of this sort do nothing to protect me from future hurt I have gotten into the habit of reacting this way and so I have to work hard at breaking this habit.

Another example is attention seeking behaviors. This is often seen as intrinsically negative. Often people with this trait lose out on friendships and regard. I want to admit here and now that I have in the past been attention seeking and intermittently slip back into this pattern. My motivation for doing this isn’t to annoy the pants of my friends, and family it’s generally just the case of me feeling desperately low about something and not knowing how to ask for help in a more constructive way. For a long time I felt upset about something I did not feel I could talk about openly with any person. I needed some relief and that meant that other things became a bigger issue. As I get older and work on my own issues I am learning more and more how to cope with negative emotions. When I see others acting out in ways that are assumed as creating unnecessary drama, or attention seeking I try and remember the place I was in 4 or 5 years ago and remind myself that even now I may still act this way from time to time. Suddenly that person is not an inconvenience or nuisance but a real person with the same perceptions and feelings as I have and thus has as much right as I do to love and attention. It is easy for me to have compassion for people with the similar qualities as I have because I can understand possible motivations for such. However I want to extend this to all undesirable behaviors because with any person I do not know what drives them to act the way they do and to assume that they are doing something out of spite or malice says more about my negative world view than it does there’s. It also serves me or the person in question no good if I respond to them in a negative way. It won’t change there behavior towards me (or others) and viewing them as bad does nothing to help keep my own mind in remain in a positive state.

Never by hatred is hatred appeased, but it is appeased by kindness. This is an eternal truth. (Buddha)

I used to have a very negative view of people, actually that extended to the world in general. I was afraid everyone was a person who wanted to hurt me. I’d gotten into the pattern of focusing on only the negative and seeing no goodness in people anymore. Surprisingly what changed this attitude was losing my baby. Possibly the most awful experience in my entire life and yet it showed me that there is a fundamental kindness in people. There are situations when a complete stranger will go far out of there way to care for another human being.

In the hospital I was entirely vulnerable and at the mercy of those people, doctors and nurses looking after me. The care I was shown at this point in my life changed my entire perspective of the human race. I remember being terrified of giving birth and in an extreme amount of pain due to the normal contractions of labor and the fact I had a massive infection in my womb. The midwife's looking after me where on 12 hour shifts, rushed of there feet and frankly must have been exhausted. Yet several sat with me over the 2 days that I was in this state. If I was alone for any length of time ether because Chris had gone for a moment or he was asleep someone would come and sit with me. At 4am one nurse sat with me for over 3 hours holding my hand, talking to me about the baby and what to expect and make sure that I had some pain relief to get me through the worst of the contractions. I was very afraid of looking at my baby after I delivered. I knew it would be dead and I didn’t know what to expect. The midwifes where incredibly respectful and understanding because I was so distraught they took him away immediately after he was born, cleaned him for me and then when I was ready brought him back wrapped in a shawl and in a tiny Moses basket.

They took the time and effort to care for his tiny body and when I was handed him I was not afraid to look at him or spend time with him. Had they not been so patient with me and went to so much effort I may have been to afraid to have ever looked at him and that would have been something I know now I would regret. They took photos of him for me so that I would not forget how he looked and arranged contact with a charity that could help me arrange a funeral/cremation. None of those things where essential parts of there job, they didn’t have to be so patient with me or give me so much of there time and attention and yet they did. One midwife was in constant contact with my own Mum who was too ill to be with me so that she wouldn’t be worried about what was happening or how I was being looked after.

I cannot deny and I am sure Chris would agree that the entire experience was the saddest thing we have ever had to deal with but the way that it has changed my perception and attitude to the world and to life in general has added a great deal of value to my life.

One of the challenging situations I had to deal with after this happened was a Christian acquaintance suggesting that I needed to consider the possibility that God took my baby because I was not a Christian. It is not the first comment by members of other faiths that have gotten to me on an emotional level. It can be challenging relating with people from other faiths and religions. I have gotten past that particular comment however from time to time I do come across Christians who swing to the fundamentalist side of there faith. How do I deal with someone telling me I am going to burn in the fiery pits of hell because I don’t believe what they do? How do I respond in a positive manner when they insist that they are right and I am wrong and how can I possibly appreciate those values that I see as profoundly harmful to others?

It’s not up to me to change there opinions. What they get out of there religion and beliefs is not for me to judge it is my belief that only that person themselves can make judgments about what they do. There are people who are Christians who are very good people and when I open my mind and think about the fundamental reason why any person would be Christian or a member of any faith it is because they desire to be a good person, they desire love (from god). I cannot feel negative about anyone looking to be loved. Having the bible tell them what is right and wrong gives sanctuary in there actions. If I do A then Y will happen, if I do B then X will happen. There is a list of right and wrong, good and bad and there must be some real refuge in feeling like there is a God looking out for us. These people tend of have very real experiences of there faith, many feel they have been touched by god, (or Jesus) and more significantly they are convinced that there way is right, often feeling that it is the only way.

“John 14:6 [Jesus speaking] "I am the way, the truth, and the life: No man cometh unto the father, but by me".

“John 3:16-18 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. {17}”

“{18} He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

So the bible is very clear that If you do not believe that Jesus was the son of god, or if you do not believe in God and follow some other faith no matter how good you are as a person, no matter how kind, considerate and caring you will not be accepted into the kingdom of heaven and instead you will remain eternally in hell and the people who believe in the bible believe it to be complete truth, the word of God.

So…

When you are a Christian and you care about people that are not Christian that must be very unsettling because it’s only natural that people would not want those they love and care for to end up in hell. This is the key to the debate. No matter how much I dislike this view these people truly believe that I will go to hell because I do not believe what they do. Thus they really want me to believe what they do because they yearn to save me, in-fact they feel it is there duty to do so. This is not because they are trying to disrespect my faith. My faith doesn’t even come into it, I could be the most peace loving enlightened person on the planet, or I could be a demon worshiping Satanist; in the fundamentalist Christian opinion I will still go to hell because I do not believe in the bible or God. With that in mind it is impossible for me to feel angry at these people because there actions are motivated by compassion not disrespect or hate. No matter how much I believe there compassion is misplaced it does not take away the fact that there actions are done out of kindness. Furthermore there is nothing I can do or say to persuade them that I am perfectly safe and it’s not my place to try and change there faith. What I can do is try to be patient, be thankful that I do not share that view and try my best to respect and see the value in them as individual people who are trying to do the right thing.

I believe that Jesus was an enlightened man. Is he the most enlightened man that ever walked the earth? No, this is not my belief but I still see value in his teachings even if I do not agree with every word he is alleged to have said. I do not trust or believe that what is in the bible is the word of god, or indeed that if one is fundamentally sticking to all the principles and rules in the bible they will be the best people that they can be.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. (Siddhartha Gautama - The Buddha), 563-483 B.C.”

This is my belief, however others that have looked at the bible, have been moved by it and came to the decision that they trust it to be the word of God. I respect that and I hope that it brings them peace and contentment in this life and for whatever future lifetimes that may follow.