Our target today is love. Whether love to one individual or to all beings, it is love. Obsession is wrong. Attachment may not be that good, but love is good and one should enjoy that. One should have great fun with it, rather than reject it. You must begin love with the person you feel close to. Some people will force it and say, “Buddha says that you must have equal love for all.” That’s true, but don’t immediately try to have that love towards your enemy. I am telling you: don’t. You are going to harm yourself. Begin love with yourself or your loved ones. Again, charity begins at home. That is a good old Western saying. So love must begin at home.
Love is something that you maintain. Jealousy is something that you don’t want. For me, every desire is not necessarily bad. Those who are seeking the Buddha quality have the desire to become Buddha. I am not going to say that this is wrong, because it is desire. Some people may say that. But I don’t. Every desire is not necessarily bad.
Attachment is a problem. Obsession is a big problem. That’s where we draw the line. We move forward to love and away from attachment and obsession. You know why? Obsession will definitely destroy your love. It is against love. Even love in the ordinary sense, even then, obsession will destroy it. Obsession will drive you away from your loved ones. You know that. We all know that. Obsession is not what you want. You want love with appreciation. That’s what we look for.
Yes, we should have love, not only for a single individual, but a little more than that. We are capable of sharing our love with our family. We are capable of sharing our love with our loved ones. We have the capacity, the capability to extend that love beyond the family, and beyond the near and dear ones. Acknowledge that capability. But, first move on the love, and appreciate it with your loved ones and maintain that.
Then, you can think of expanding it. Don’t try to force, right from the beginning, a love to all. Yes, we try to develop love for all. We even pray all the time, “may all beings have the joy that has never known suffering,” but we have to move gradually. That may be our goal. But it has to come gradually. It is a simple, straight forward gradual expansion. It can expand so much that we can love everyone. Why? If you look at anyone, you are not going to find someone who has not been kind, who didn’t share their love and their kindness and compassion with you. Today someone may be my enemy. But years ago and lives ago, that enemy was my dearest and nearest friend too. Today our delusional mind is telling us, “this is my enemy.” That is wrong information. I tell you why.
Someone who was kind to you last year, and someone who has been kind to you this year are both equal, the same. But, our delusional mind will consider those who are currently kind, more vivid and more recent – which is not a delusion and straight forward – however, that is a little more important than those who have been equally kind to you for years. That is a delusional mind.
In reality, those who have been kind to you last year and those who have been kind to you this year are the same. But our delusional mind has different appreciation. That is how our mind perceives enemies and friends. We are close to friends and distant from enemies. We are pulled towards loved ones and pushed away from enemies. This pull and push game will play in our mind and that is due to the delusional mind.
Not only that: there are so many points like that. That is the reason why I said earlier: even the expansion of love should go slow and careful. Once the mind has lost its track of love, then we have a big problem. So, it is very important not to lose the track. Try to maintain appreciation.
Those who I think have done harm or ill to me, even if don’t develop love for them immediately, I don’t want to push or force myself. That is a wise way of moving. If you can leave it in the middle, with not so much concern, that will be fine. But make sure that you don’t go to extreme hatred. Leave it right in the middle. Don’t mention or talk about it. That’s wise.
Some people don’t like certain things and then say, “I don’t want to talk about it.” That’s the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong with that. You don’t want to talk about it today. That’s fine. You don’t want to deal with it today. Whatever you do, please be careful when you are handling your own mind. If you are not careful, you will get into difficulty. We don’t want difficulties at the beginning, while we are looking into the motivation.
~ Gelek Rimpoche, Jewel Heart Netherlands, May 5, 2013