What is the highest good? (I say "Patience" rather than "Love")

Originally posted by Hopechest
Yea its a bit hard to grasp but what he is saying that if you put aside your desire then you will no longer desire anything, including love.

I am no-one to disagree with the Buddha, nevertheless I still say that love rises to the surface like cream on milk when the desires of self are put aside.

Love is not something that can be chased and caught. Neither can love be cultivated. The best we can do is make ourselves receptive to love, and the way to do this is to practice putting the self aside.

reply to post by TheomExperience





I think you have slightly misunderstood my meaning of 'love hurts'

When my children were young it often 'hurt me' to punish them for wrong doings but I felt it

was necessary for the greater good towards them growing into nice rounded individuals ...

and when they were grown and responsible if you 'love them' let them go

reply to post by mysticnoon


You still haven't defined what you are talking about when you say "love" no definition was given, therefore misunderstandings and ambiguity happens....

Love, justice, patience, tolerance... all good ideas which i cant say are wrong but i feel there is a greater "good".

I feel the best part of us is not what we see, or want to see, in ourselves. Rather we are at our best when, it is the perception of others, that we are "good". There are probably many ways to cause others to take this perspective but i believe the greatest, or most "good" is through acts of self sacrifice...when we are able to give of ourselves for the betterment of another.

This is how "heroes" become recognized, most often by sacrificing personal safety to help or even save another, rarely, the most "good", can be seen or felt when one person sacrifices thier own life in order to preserve that of another.

Upon reflection...i now feel that this type of self sacrifice is a type of embodyment of all previous traits discussed...love, tolerance, justice, ect...

Originally posted by eletheia
reply to post by TheomExperience

 

I think you have slightly misunderstood my meaning of 'love hurts'

When my children were young it often 'hurt me' to punish them for wrong doings but I felt it

was necessary for the greater good towards them growing into nice rounded individuals ...

and when they were grown and responsible if you 'love them' let them go

I think i understand you but i have never had kids so i cannot fathom the emotional attachment involved from a parent. Until i have kids and educate them my way i will never know for sure what its like on the other side of this equation. I got smacked a lot and i think it was necessary up to a point for me to allow my associations with societies version of right and wrong.

reply to post by arpgme


Very well presented and thought out thread.

The description of compassion can lead to helping. In my view empathy is a more genuine and robust form of emotion over compassion, because performing actions out of compassion doesnt always necessary lead to good outcomes on people.

People who feel compassion are feeling that way because they are viewing a situation where they see another person suffering, and then feel obliged to help.
For example, a very religous person may walk down a poor looking street and see the people need help, and that the solution is God. The religous person knocks on each door in street and from his point of view the person answering isa person who is more disadvantaged in life, and is someone he feels pity for. He tries to preach the word of the Lord to them, saving that if they embrace Jesus he will deliver them from their suffering. The poor persons look back and laugh and shut door on his face. The religous man gets angry, and goes to police station saying he thinks satanists live on street.

The point im trying to make is compassion can lead to pity, and pity is a mask for the true emotion which is ego. The ego of i feel more superior to this person.

Empathy is different to compassion, it doesnt mask the ego like compassion. Empathy is an emotional connected appreciation and understanding of what someone else may be going through. The acts of kindness borne from empathy are always mostely subtle and gentle. They could be as simple as a smile at someone whose down, or bring them a coffee, theres not even any need for words to be exchanged.

reply to post by arpgme





In an earlier post I said *TRUTH* because without it we live an existence that is not

what we believe it to be


Let me tell you briefly one instance how lies destroy...A neighbour, a lovely trusting

woman spent 25 plus years believing her husband was a hard working man with a health

problem which need treatment which was unavailable by the NHS so she worked as well

to help pay for this 'private' treatment. He would not agree to having children in case his

condition was passed on. So she out of love accepted not being a mother, worked for

extra to pay for his treatments....and then he had a heart attack while out and the police went

through his papers to find out who he was next of kin etc. That is when she found out that

her whole existence had been a lie a sham He had in fact a 21 year old

daughter with another woman who knew nothing of the existence of my neighbour who had

been subsidising their existence and surprise, surprise there was no health problem

that required the private treatment that she had worked hard to pay for!!!


Now past middle age, and childless she had to come to terms with, that her whole life had been

a sham through another persons LIES


I know of many other similar cases!! So I say again *TRUTH*

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by mysticnoon

 

You still haven't defined what you are talking about when you say "love" no definition was given, therefore misunderstandings and ambiguity happens....

By love, I mean unconditional love, love without limits or boundaries.

To quote Rumi:

"Love rests on no foundation.
It is an endless ocean,
with no beginning or end."

Also:

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

reply to post by arpgme


Alot of emotions we have are unknowing masks for the ego. To truely be able to walk the path successfully to ascending, a person must be able to honestly, accurately and in real time assess where a emotion they are feeling is a masking the ego.

If a person fails the above then they will never be able to aquire much patience, and certainly fall far of mastering the aspect of awarness which emcompasses patience, because to a large extent the more ones sqaushes ones ego the more they grow patience. Such is the duality of our life existance.

As a Buddhist to Christianity convert, love is the key.

Christ had zero Patience towards the unfaithful. Christ also had much love to those who accepted the way.

The books of his way were full of 'hippy love' stuff. He had little patience, but emphasized love. The love for one another.

The path to enlightenment was based more on love than patience. The kingdom of heaven was one of love and not patience. IMO love is the key to this life.

When you are old and gray, do you look upon your grandchildren with patience or love? How about your children? You accept them for who they are because you love them, not because you have patience.

You can live your life with nothing but love vs nothing but patience....why would you have so much patience if it weren't for love? Love would be the end result. You can love someone so much, but you'll never attribute the reason you love them is due to your patience. If it were an equation, love would be the end result every time IMO.

reply to post by AthlonSavage


Ego drives everything there can be no other way as ego is identity. People who mask ego either have an imbalance in intelligence or are in denial about who they are. Its pretty sad really that people want to eliminate the ego to find answers when all is required is to understand how the ego is the physical manifesting power. People will disagree for sure but if its physical its ego, its material.
Just like everything can be addictive so can the ego.

reply to post by ChuckNasty


I'm not excluding love. I am just seeing patience as the root of it all. Love and Patience are DEEPLY connected.

How can you say you love someone if you can't even stand to be around them with out feeling that irritation of impatience?

If a baby is learning to walk, and it falls, do you say "hurry up! get up!" or do you have patience understanding that the baby is learning and will learn to walk eventually?

Love, Compassion, Care, Understanding other's is the way but that way is one that is learned and traveled. It takes patience.

reply to post by TheomExperience





standing back as an observer I can already see your mother has rubbed

off on you with your comment


Quote >>>"Until I have kids and educate them my way??


In the end we can only do what it is that we personally believe in, and we have taken

it all from our own experiences both good and bad, discarding what we disagree with

and carrying forward with that with which we agree!...

reply to post by eletheia


Of course she has
I wouldn't be trying to educate my kids at 33 years of age though, maybe i should have put a "time frame" of 10 years onto this education. Again this is speculation because i do not have kids. There was an error in my statement too as i cannot have kids by myself so i should have included my partner and her way. I do believe in fairness

reply to post by TheomExperience






"Ouch" ... a personal hate of mine calling children 'kids

reply to post by arpgme


They are deeply connected indeed.

Do you have patience due to love or do you love due to patience? If you omit one, which one would endure?

I'd pick love, then again everyone is entitled to their opinions.

Originally posted by eletheia
reply to post by TheomExperience

 

"Ouch" ... a personal hate of mine calling children 'kids

I kid i kid....i meant child

reply to post by ChuckNasty

Originally posted by ChuckNasty
Do you have patience due to love or do you love due to patience?

Love due to patience. Deeply understanding someone, understanding why people make the choices they make, their mindset, their beliefs, their fears, all of this take patience. It takes patience to sit past your judgments and to see WHY they do the things they do and to build up compassion.

Originally posted by ChuckNasty
If you omit one, which one would endure?

Destroying the branch or ripping off the leaves will still be messing up the tree from its original condition. I believe the two can go together and separating either will make the other deformed.

How can there be love when we don't have the patience to go past our belief systems to deeply understand another and see through their eyes?

How can there be patience if one doesn't care to take the time to get to know other's and their thoughts and feelings and instead will just do what they want and use who they will?

Patience leads to love (knowing the other - compassion / understanding / caring)
Love is the fuel keeping patience.

Even if that love is self love, and one is sick of suffering so instead of living their life in "impatience" they learn to be patient with others for their own self interest. Eventually, even that is leading down the path of love, because patience with others will eventually lead to understanding others and their point of view rather than only thinking about ourselves.

reply to post by arpgme


You wouuld of heard the expression i love the person but i cant be around thme too much cause they drive me crazy. Love does have connection to patience but its only as far as going a road of suffering with the person, or object of love in the hope or desire of reaching a better outcome for that person.

Love basically is a mask for a person making a sacrifice on themselve, and accepting there is potentially nothing materially they wil gain out of it, and visa versa. If they expect anything back it will be simple recognition by love being returned. Patience can certainly help in walking the path of love, but its usually sacrifice that is the driver emotion, and if patience is there then patience becomes the mask worn by sacrifice.

You wll now appreicate i think what the phrase a master of awarness means. It means know the real face behind the masks at all time.

reply to post by AthlonSavage


You skipped acceptance. I'm not talking about patience to "change" a person because true love comes from acceptance.

If you cannot love a person as they are, then you only love them as you would want them to be and not as who they actually are.

Patience is the gateway to understanding and compassion. Acceptance is saying "It's ok that this person is this way or feel this way - I understand where they are coming from". "It's ok that our beliefs are different I understand why they believe differently than me".