Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix!uunet.uu.net
From: jhaydon@uunet.uu.net (Jennifer Haydon)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Love vrs Hate in Buddhist meditation
Message-ID: <5258@scolex.sco.COM>
Date: 19 Mar 90 22:57:13 GMT
References: <14591@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Sender: mukund@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Reply-To: jhaydon@uunet.uu.net (Jennifer Haydon)
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Approved: mukund@phoenix.Princeton.EDU



In article <14591@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> rsp@PacBell.COM (Steve Price) writes:
>I'm reading CONCENTRATION AND MEDITATION by Christmas Humphreys and have 
>read something I wish to understand more clearly.   Any light shed on this
>would be appreciated.
>
>Christmas (I love that name for a Buddhist writer!) says on page 140:
>"...those who hold that love is the guiding principle of life must remember
>that love, like any other principle, would be meaningless without its opposite."
>
>Is love NOT the guiding principle of the universe?
>What is he implying about HATE?  that it is "necessary"? inevitable? useful?

I guess here you would have to go with your own experience.  Do you feel inside
that hate is necessary, or that love would be meaningless without hate?  I feel
that love is the ONE feeling (for want of a better word) that is beyond 
opposites.  I can see from my own experience (which is the only way, I feel,
that I can verify a deep inner understanding) that love needs nothing to 
happen or exist.  It wells up from within.  It stands alone.  It bubbles up
spontaneously.  

>How does this assertion balance with the assertion that "Compassion" for all
>must be the goal of walking the Path?  I thought that Buddhism says that love
>for all must be the purpose behind every pilgrim journey.

I feel that love is the purpose for our journey.  I also feel that the 
purpose or goal of any spiritual search must be to arrive at a happier,
and most definitely, compassionate state. Anyway, my two cents!

 
>
>-- 
>Steve Price 		UNIX: pacbell!pbhyf!rsp		PHONE: (415)823-1951
>
-- 
He's trying to give you a hard time, but you're not listening.
					-Shawna to Tracyr