Love you, Mean it
We all have that person who always seems to get under our skin. The insufferable neighbor who keeps you up at night. The ex, off living their best life while you sit in your apartment, alone, in quarantine, eating takeout. Perhaps this person is close to you... a parent or a partner, or maybe they’re a public figure you’ll never have to interact with, whose policies threaten safety and morality across the nation or the world. It doesn't matter who. It's exhausting to be around them, or even to think of them. It's painful.
For me, it’s my aunt. We’re not close, and probably never will be, thanks to geography and a few other complicating factors. What’s my beef? Her beliefs and values seem to be the exact opposite of mine… and I find myself toggling between muting her on Instagram, or digging up her recent posts to read them out loud to my partner, venting about the absurdity of their having such a narrow view of the world.
Whoever this person is, for you, just take a moment to picture them. Every last detail: their face, their clothing, the visceral reaction you have to their presence. And now picture yourself, saying to them, “I love you,” and really meaning it. How did that feel? If you’re anything like me, it might have made you feel a little sick, or maybe was so far fetched, that it gave you a good laugh.
But, in this time of extreme ideological divide, anger, and suffering, I wonder... what if it were possible? What if you could genuinely love everyone? What would your life look like, if instead of feeling angry, anxious or triggered, you felt joy? How would your enemies act if they had all the love they craved? What would this country look like - what would our history look like - if in red states and in blue states, people could feel a sense of love and compassion for one another?
This is a real thing, according to Buddhists. And it’s called bodhichitta (1), and while I’m sure, in theory, it’s easy to get on board with the idea that ‘love is all you need’ (The Beatles can’t be wrong), it can be extremely difficult to practice.
For me, this is how it happened: I accidentally signed up for a loving kindness(2) or "metta" meditation. I’d heard of these before - a meditation where you channel an inner feeling of love by thinking about someone you care for deeply, then extend that love through a light visualization to strangers, people in need, and even your enemies.
Let me tell you, I had less than zero interest in the concept. I already loved a lot of people. I loved my family, my partner, my friends, my cat. My heart felt tapped out as it was. I definitely wasn’t interested in wasting my precious breathing time on this type of meditation. But, I’d arrived at the studio and I’d already paid, so I sat.
To be honest, it felt like a totally inauthentic charade. It was easy for me to conjure up the initial feelings of love for my fiance and my mom… and extending that love to acquaintances was doable… I didn't love them, but I liked them enough.. but extending that feeling to randos on the streets and my rude coworker who had been making my life miserable for the past 3 weeks? That felt pretty far-fetched.
What happened after, however, I was not expecting. Walking home from the meditation, I started to take note of the faces of the strangers I passed on the street. Where I’d usually be in my New Yorker rush, head down, completely disconnected from the hundreds of people I passed every minute, I felt oddly curious about each of them…. I had a realization that each random passerby was living a complex life of their own. I remembered touching these strangers with feelings of love during my meditation, and now, here I was, facing them. What was going on inside their heads? Where were they going? Who were their families? What were they worried about?
The weird thing is, through this small mental exercise of pretending to love others... I started to feel something that resembled joy. Aware that this single meditation had shifted something small in my perception, I started attending the loving kindness meditations regularly.
Shifting the focus off of myself and onto others brought me a happiness and calm that I’d never experienced before. Through these meditations, I started to realize that every single living being on this planet is interconnected. We’re dependent on each other, whether we like it or not. We all love. We all want. We all suffer. We are all going to die one day. We create these artificial divisions between each other in everyday life: we see other people as out to get us, we see ourselves as separate, and we seek to protect ourselves and our side only... but we don’t consider that these ‘others’ are just like us-- hurting in their own way.
And in 2021, we’re seeing this more than ever before as a national conversation. It’s daily experience of "us versus them". We label it as parties: Democrats vs Republicans, or Capitalists and Anti-Capitalists. We pick and choose who to give our love to, as if this infinite blessing was a finite resource. As if sharing something so powerful could deplete our own supply. But think about it: racism, sexism and homophobia, at their core, start with labeling someone as other… and perpetuating the cycle of other-ing each other just keeps those bigotries alive.
But it’s not just about helping others. It’s about helping yourself. Any time we are pitting one side against another without compassion, we’re not just hurting these others--we are hurting ourselves, too. Anger hurts. How do you feel after getting angry? I’d wager: not great. That act of emoting from a place of hate takes a physical and emotional toll on the body and mind. And it’s not only the immediate effects you feel: there’s karma to consider. By planting seeds of anger, anxiety and discomfort, you will tint the filter of your perceptions, coloring future interactions with the sour flavors of hate, judgement and isolation.
The only way to protect ourselves against anger and hate is to recognize that we are, at our core, all the same. To respond with love, to put out into the world what we are hoping to experience in the future, planting karmic seeds for lifetimes to come.
So the next time you’re seething on that zoom call, or daydreaming about the perfect passive aggressive Instagram caption to post so that your ex might feel some pang of regret... I invite you to do what’s hardest to do. Catch yourself, and then mentally send them love. Because what would the world look like if everyone responded with love?
And, personally, while it might take a few thousand more sits for me to genuinely say that I love my auntie Instagram-foe, I do think, one day, it’s possible… and that if we start small, we can heal this great divide.
This is how to do it:
Gently bring your attention to your heart center.
Recall a time when you felt a primordial response to love another or felt unconditionally loved by another.
Manifest that sensation in the form of the purest blue-white crystalline light.
Expand that light until it transforms every organ inside your body until you are an infinite body of blue glow that is pure love.
Extend this love in the form of the blue crystalline light, to beings in your life who you already love. As the tip of the light touches them they have a realization that frees them from their sufferings, enveloped in unconditional love.
From your heart center extend the even more powerful light again, to the innumerable number of anonymous beings in your world - the beings who are close to you but whom you do not know by name. And your light reaches them, they are instantly filled with love and peace.
Finding compassion, extend your loving light to beings who you find challenging - someone who has hurt you. How would they be if they had had this love? Could they have hurt you?
Finally extend this light to every other living creature on this planet, seen or unseen, in this realm or beyond. Expand the edges of your kindness beyond your current concept of space and time until there is infinity in all directions.
Gently return your awareness to the body on the cushion, your mind filled with unconditional love.
Recite: may all beings have joy, may all beings have peace, may all beings be free from suffering.
footnotes:
(1) The wish to attain enlightenment motivated by great compassion for all sentient beings, which is first practiced by cultivating equanimity: seeing all beings as deserving of love.
(2) Want to try this meditation?
Cat Cambra
Cat is a Mahayana Buddhist meditation teacher, and who became certified through the Three Jewel’s 200 hour meditation teacher training program. Cat believes in the power of aligning one’s intentions with the moon’s natural rhythms, and offers monthly new moon rituals.
When she’s not meditating, Cat is making reality television or cooking ayurvedic vegan dishes. True to her name, she’s a feline enthusiast who believes in the equality of all sentient beings.