Hating and loving – a meditation on attachment and non-attachment
84A great fear
“I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they turn to loving they will find we are turned to hating” - Msimangu in Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Hating is easy, loving is hard
Hating is easy, loving is hard.
Perhaps that is why we seem oftener to fall into hate than into love.
Hating is easy, it takes little effort and can be done very quickly.
Loving is hard, it means taking effort and time.
Hating is easy, it does not engage my imagination.
Loving is hard, and I have to make an effort to imagine what life is like for the other person, whether close to me or far away.
Hating is easy, and to act it out requires little discipline.
Loving is hard, and to make it work takes much discipline.
Hating is easy, and I don't have to think too much about it.
Loving is hard, because I have to think about it.
“We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love. Love is a mode of knowledge, and when the love is sufficiently disinterested and sufficiently intense, the love becomes unitive knowledge and so takes on the quality of infallibility.”
- Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy
Hating is easy, it keeps others at a distance from me.
Loving is hard, I have to take others into my space, my life, my mind and my feelings.
Hating is easy, loving is hard.
Hating is easy, because the responsibility is shifted to the other, the object of my hate.
Loving is hard, because I am responsible, there can be no excuses.
Hating is easy, it takes little involvement from me.
Loving is hard, it demands my total involvement.
Hating is easy, it takes little courage.
Loving is hard, it takes more courage than I have.
Hating is easy, it takes few risks.
Loving is hard, it is very risky.
Hating is easy, and I have many people who hate with me.
Loving is hard, and I often feel very alone.
Hating is the wide gate that Jesus spoke of: “The gate is wide that leads to perdition, there is plenty of room on the road.”
Loving is the narrow gate that Jesus spoke of: “the gate that leads to life is small and the road is narrow, and those who find it are few.”
Hating is finding the speck of sawdust in another's eye.
Loving is finding the plank in my own eye and taking it out before it clouds my vision fatally.
Hate is judging, and finding the other person wanting.
Loving is not judging but accepting, not with eyes closed to evil, but with eyes open to the possibility of good.
When truth knocks on the door
"We must not be attached to a view or a doctrine,even a Buddhist one... The Buddha said that if in a certain moment or place you adopt something as the absolute truth and you attach to that...then you will no longer have any chance to reach the truth.
Even when the truth comes and knocks on your door, and asks you to open the door, you won't recognize it. So you must not be too attached to dogma - to what you believe, and to what you perceive."
Thich Nhat Hanh
The desire to be right
“There is no more destructive force in human affairs — not greed, not hatred — than the desire to have been right. Non-attachment to possessions is of trivial value in comparison with non-attachment to opinions” - Mark Kleiman http://atheism.about.com/od/weeklyquotes/a/kleiman01.htm
Choices
Hating is easy, it breaks down, destroys, without planning.
Loving is hard, it builds both people and things with effort and forethought.
Hating is easy, it demands no accountability from me.
Loving is hard, it demands that I be accountable for what I do ad think and say.
Hating is easy and feels like freedom, but really enslaves, it feels like being in control but is really handing control over to someone else.
Loving is hard, it demands total freedom without compromise.
Hating is easy and comes from attachment to self, to the fruits of my work, to my goals, holding onto what I value and cherish.
Love is hard and comes from non-attachment, letting go of everything, including the need to be right; it means a deep level of trusting.
Hating is easy, it requires little or no choice, just to do without thought.
Loving is hard, it means that I have to think about my response in any situation, and to consciously choose the loving response, the building and growing response, the response which will cause others and myself least harm.
Hating is easy and the choices of thought, word and action are made for me.
Loving is hard and I have to make the effort, make the choices and accept the responsibility for them. No excuses, no blame, no expectations, no attachment, even to love and hate.
And in the end, if I go on hating, I will find myself alone on a dangerous road.
But if I can let go of both loving and hating, I will likely find myself surrounded by many loving companions along the way.
The road less travelled by
Robert Frost wrote in “The Road not Taken”:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
When that dawn will come
Alan Paton wrote at the end of his great novel Cry the Beloved Country:
“The sun tips with light the mountains of Angeli and East Griqualand. The great valley of the Umzimkulu is still in darkness, but the light will come there. Ndotsheni is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.”
Copyright Notice
The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are by Tony McGregor who hereby asserts his copyright on the material. Should you wish to use any of the text or images feel free to do so with proper attribution and, if possible, a link back to this page. Thank you.
© Tony McGregor 2011
A lovingkindness (Metta) meditation
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Perfectly said! :)
Ah, "There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The opening lines always made me think of the Valley of a Thousand Hills, although they weren't strictly Zululand.
I always think of loving as accepting. That's so much easier to define.
It's a beautiful piece, Tony. Lovely. :)
i look at hating as acid that corrodes the heart and love as the gentle breeze that sways the flowers from left to right and helps them blossom and spread their fragrance far and wide.
love you friend
(six paragraphs) Thanks for the article and video. As a Christian, I agree that forgiveness is imperative to the offended as well as the offender. Holding grudges is offensive to God and eliminates one's opportunity to be forgiven for sins, according to the Word. However, God outlined steps to address offenses by one's brother:
1. Go to the brother in private and complain about the offense. If he fails to do justice, then
2. Take the offender before the Church. If he fails to do justice, then
3. Take the offender to court.
Righteous people, such as prophets, were judges over Israel. Therefore, the Bible does not address what to do if judges are secretly aligned with oppressors.
The Bible says that we must forgive 70 times 7 in one day for the identical offense. Whew! That is unlimited forgiveness. However, the process implies that persons asking for forgiveness are sorry about the transgression and repentant. When we ask God for forgiveness, He is able to discern the sincerity of the person making the petition. As humans, we do not have that ability. What we must do is observe actions that follow apologies, such as the apologies by the United States Congress for slavery and Jim Crow. Those apologies were given in midst of ongoing slavery via the prison industrial complex where 1 in 9 young black men under the age of 34 is incarcerated. Many prisoners in America work up to seven days a week on jobs that were outsourced to prisons by state and federal governments and Fortune 500 companies that avoid unions, minimum wage and worker safety laws.
Rather than repenting for previous slavery, the prison industrial complex is intended to grow. Laws are being considered that, if they pass, will criminalize many more minority people in America. For instance, see my HubPages article entitled "NAACP vs. Black Cigarette Smokers." The former association for the advancement of colored people petitioned Congress to outlaw menthol in cigarettes, which is the kind used by 80% of black smokers. The law would apply almost exclusively to black people who use nicotine, one of the most addictive drugs in the world. If it passes, the expensive War on Drugs would expand and hundreds of thousands more nonviolent offenders who are black would become "criminals" overnight and be subject to imprisonment like 2.3 million other Americans and immigrants. Tough new immigration laws are also contested. They propose imprisoning illegal immigrants in America rather than sending so many able-bodied potential prison laborers back to their own countries. Considering the high incarceration rate, especially among blacks, and laws being considered to increase the number of black prison slaves, many people cannot believe in the sincerity of the Congressional apology for slavery. Therefore, I do not believe it is wrong or evidence of holding a grudge to reject the apology for slavery and Jim Crow. Google for an article I wrote during March 2011, the month when Troy Davis' appeal was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, entitled "Empty Graves: Jim Crow and Jesus."
Thank you for another well-written article. Forgiveness is good for the soul like laughter. It will be wonderful when/if forgiveness is deserved one day by cessation of discrimination and recompense for previous wrongs, which is also Godly.
Blessings,
Mary Neal
You are bringing out some good stuff of late Young Tony.
I am now worried about you because of the example of the almond tree. It flowers furiously the year before it dies. You have no plans in that direction I hope? ;-)))
You are a very talented person, I love reading your hubs as they make me stop and think for a while about the important things. Live long and prosper my friend.
Tony, this is a fantastic hub. I cannot understand how people can even bother with hating...it takes too much energy. The video is wonderful. This should be required reading.
voted up/awesome, beautiful and bookmarked
A prose poem written with wisdom and a deep understanding of the human condition, the yin yang of the creator/creations commands. Wonderful piece tonymac04. As regards Mary's comment: When the great counter- balance swings back on greed and callousness, it will be a fine day indeed.
Even the title to this excellent hub is intriguing, and too often true. People hate far too easily, and are afraid to love. Well done, Tony.
Thanks Tony. I heard a sermon once that has stuck with me for a long time; that people often think that the opposite of love is hate. Really, the opposite of love is indifference. It takes some energy to actively hate someone. Indifference doesn't require energy. So, I took the liberty of substituting hatred for indifference here. Semantics:) Thanks for the morning reflection, Tony.
tonymac, I love this meditation on hate and love. I think it is important to consciously place our energy on the side of love. It is our choice. In fact, this hub has caused me to rethink a hub I am currently editing, so thank you. Looking through the eyes of love changes us.
The video is also a wonderful morning meditation. I find YouTube a source of great inspiration.
Finally, I appreciate the quote from Cry the Beloved Country. When will dawn rise on a peaceful world? It is possible. I can envision it.
Lakota have a saying, Mitakuye Oyasin. It means, we are all related, dear friend.
Light into life, Barbara
I think I get the gist Tony. This made me think of a saying which I Googled to find its source and apparently it was Theodore Roosevelt:
"Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty... " I suppose love is a bit like that too.
Up and awesome.
Tony, great hub. I love the video! I am going to bookmark it so I can hear the video more often. I am also going to share this hub with friends. I think is tells a lot
Tina
voted up/ awesome
very thought provoking, good hub
The video says it all. Love is a precious feeling. I love to meditate. I started to meditate after seeing Tina Turner's life story, 'What's love got to do with it?' Great hub Tony. Thank you.
Peace
Well said, Tony. Loving someone requires efforts from us. Hating is easy. However, very often, there are times where, loving is about letting go and that helps the other person progress further. Of course, you also know that. :)
Marvelous spiritual and mental exercise Tony, that was not easy but I bet it built some philosophical muscles. I know it did in me. Thanks good friend. =:)
Only you, Tony, could spread your beautiful wings and create a master-piece such as this. The video is extr-ordinary. Like a Rachmaninoff Symphony, honest and strong - your meditation swells with purpose and light. I thank you, my dear and loving friend.
Hiya TM, the line 'in the end, if i go on hating i will find myself alone on a dangerous road.' happened to me literally and metaphorically. This hub is beautiful Tony. P.S. i hope you are still riding that bike. Blessings pal, keep giving us positive and love.
Tony~~ So wise and poignant~~"rise above it..."~~ thank you for these inspiring words...
Voted UP, BEAUTIFUL & AWESOME!
I find loving and hating both difficult. I cannot say I hate anyone. I dislike some choices, but I do not hate. I fear it. I fear it directed at me. Hateful people incite rage and hate in others. I saw a very sad story on Oprah about a father who hated obesity in his overweight daughter. He treated her so hatefully that she hated herself. As a followup, Oprah had the family on yesterday. The daughter had gastric bypass and was very thin. She got extremely ill with complications several years following where she had to have IV nutrients as she vomited everything she ate. Yet, her father now claims to love her and she claims she is happy and grateful now. She still cannot eat. She is nearing emaciation and even speaks with little energy. Her father is quite proud of her appearance and appeared uneffected by her resultant illness. I wonder if he will feel any responsibility if she ultimately dies "happy"? Very thought provoking, interesting and relevant piece, Tony. Thank you for bringing this beautiful ideology to the forefront of my brain.
A wonderful creation for me to meditate on over the weekend.
Thank you so much Tony
This was inspiring and wonderful. I loved every bit of what you wrote. I only hate it when I get to the end of your hubs. Rated up and beautiful.
Love this write Tony,
Hate for someone to miss out
Love binds us to God
Hate takes us away,
Love our Lord
Hate the devil
We are taught to Love
We are not taught to hate
I love to be on time
I hate to be late
I love your hub Tony
God loves all
Alek - thanks for the comment and glad you liked it.
Love and peace
Tony
Hattie - thanks so much!
Love and peace
Tony
Sophia - I knew you would appreciate the Paton! Thanks for stopping by and leaving such a great comment.
Love and peace
Tony
Neelesh - thanks so much for that - I love the acid metaphor and the gentle breeze.
Thanks for stopping by, my friend!
Love and peace
Tony
Mary - thanks for the wonderful comment and for the email. I have also visited your websites and found them very interesting.
Thanks for stopping by.
Love and peace
Tony
Dimitris - thanks so much for the kind words. Have no fear - I have no plans to emulate the almond tree! After all, if I did I would no longer be able to read and enjoy your witty contributions here!
Thanks for stopping by.
Love and peace
Tony
Steph - thanks so much for the very kind words. I appreciate your visit very much indeed.
Love and peace
Tony
Fay - I agree. Thanks for stopping by.
Love and peace
Tony
Alastar - thanks for stopping by and for the wonderful comment which I really appreciate.
Love and peace
Tony
Genna - thank you for the kind comment. I appreciate your stopping by and reading this one.
Love and peace
Tony
Kim - you are most welcome and I' really pleased that you found it useful.
Love and peace
Tony
Barbara - "looking through the eyes of love" - I like that very much. Thanks for stopping by with such a great comment.
You introduced me to that wondcerful saying before - thank you: Mitakuye Oyasin. Thanks again and hugs to you!
The connection with you here means a lot to me.
Went to a super coffee shop this morning with a friend and he had a slice of Norwegian custard cake with his tea and I thought of you and wondered if you make it? It looked scrumptious so that I was sorry I had ordered carrot cake!
Love and peace
Tony
Amillar - thanks friend, and I'm sure you more than get the gist! A great quote too.
Love and peace
Tony
Tina - thank you so much. I really appreciate your visit and that you shared this with your friends. Means a lot to me.
Love and peace
Tony
Janie - thanks for stopping by.
Love and peace
Tony
Ruby - you are always such a welcome visitor. Glad you enjoyed this one.
Love and peace
Tony
Ingenira - thanks for an insightful addition to this discussion. I appreciate it.
Love and peace
Tony
Winsome - thank you indeed for those kind words. Yes some philosophical muscle was definitely built! Glad you enjoyed it.
Love and peace
Tony
Audrey - you are too kind, dear friend! I am so pleased that you enjoyed this one. I love Rachmaninoff, my favourite is the third piano concerto, especially as played by Argerich!
Thanks for stopping by, dear friend.
Love and peace
Tony
NMT - thanks for stopping by, my friend. Your comment is much appreciated. Glad that this piece resonated with you - sorry that it might have been a rather sad resonance though.
Still riding - though today is wet and cold so might not get out!
Love and peace
Tony
tony - Oh, yes - the third concerto is my favorite! I will have to download Argerich's version. I haven't had the pleasure of hearing this artist. Thank you, my dear friend. I will be thinking of you as I give myself the gift of hearing this pianist. :)vocalcoach
Marcoujor - thank you so much, dear friend! I appreciate your comment very much.
Love and peace
Tony
Audrey - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Will no doubt be listening to it sometime today!
Amy - that is one sad and scary story! It has always amazed me how control is so often disguised as love. With predictable disastrous results.
Thanks for the interesting story and comment.
Love and peace
Tony
Kathryn - I'm glad you enjoyed and you are most welcome, dear lady!
Love and peace
Tony
TKI - thanks so much dear friend. I really appreciate your comment - love it, in fact!
Love and peace
Tony
Raymond - I really appreciate your stopping by and commenting, thank you. And I really enjoyed your comment.
Love and peace
Tony
Beautiful and deep Hub. We can choose, everyday. We always are in front a crossing, a road to go uphill, a road to go downhill. The more satisfactory path is the hardest: love!
Thanks for sharing this great page, I very enjoyed reading it.
God bless you Tony. So much confusion in the world. These words will always ring true. God bless you!
Fucsia - thank you for stopping by and leavcing such a great comment. I deeply appreciate it.
We are constantly choosing - and that makes all the difference!
Love and peace
Tony
Micky, bro'! Thanks so much for the appreciation.
Love and peace
Tony
Beautiful. So true..
Thank you.
, love and peace to you and yours.
Dim - thanks so much for the appreciative comment.
Love and peace
Tony
Sadly, I think you are right that for some people hating is easy; and for many people loving is hard. I thank God that I have never been afflicted thus. I claim no credit for it, but I have never hated anyone and I have always found a way to love even those who appear unloveable to others.
Thank you for this excellent Hub.
An awesome hub, tony. I like the video.
Tony thanks for that I really enjoyed it.
Great article!
A great hub. Sometimes we do have to consciously choose to love and it can seem hard, but in the end hating is so much harder. Voted up.
alekhouse Level 4 Commenter 13 months ago
I love this perspective. Thanks Tony.