Zen and the Gospel of Thomas by Joanne P. Miller

Author:Joanne P. Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

Saying 25 suggests that love of self and love of neighbor are mutually inclusive. We cannot have one without the other. This means that in order to live a full life we must love each other as we love ourselves and that to take care of ourselves is to take care of others. This has serious and widespread ramifications for individuals and the wider community.

Various kinds of love are spoken of in Buddhist texts, including warm regard, closeness, worldly love, loving commitment, loving-kindness, affection, and devoted love. Love is considered to have particular characteristics, mainly that of devotion to others’ welfare. It is particularly effective for counteracting anger. Love is the state of having a tender mind and is synonymous with tender care. Similarly, compassion, its close neighbor, has the characteristic of devotion to removing others’ suffering and is particularly effective for counteracting harmfulness.

Love is exemplified by the wish that all sentient beings without exception be happy, while compassion is the corresponding wish that they be free from suffering. Unsurprisingly, the Buddha praised even the smallest demonstration of loving-kindness, saying to his monks in the Culacchara Sutta that anyone who maintains a loving mind even for just the duration of a snap of fingers can be considered a true recluse.

The Buddha, like Jesus, came into the world out of sympathy for humanity. His prime motivation was the welfare of others. Enlightened people, he pointed out in the Majjhima Nikaya, have always been in the world to aid and assist us. “A nondeluded man,” he said, “is born in the world for the good and welfare of many, born out of compassion for the world and for the welfare of men.”

In the Lotus Sutra he reassured his followers that all the tathagatas (buddhas) in times past existed in countless, innumerable spheres in all directions for the weal of many, the happiness of many, out of pity to the world, for the benefit, weal, and happiness of the great body of creatures. We should not only emulate these people as much as possible, he instructed, but become them. In establishing monastic communities in the world, the Buddha revealed his wish that his message must continue well into the future.

The continuance of a religious practice necessitates certain ways of acting and seeing that build up rather than tear down unity. Mutually beneficial love is one such thing, the Sutta Nipata reminds us, “since those who love all beings have no enmity for anyone.” Indeed, the Dhammapada tells us that hatred does not end by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love; this is an old rule. In saying 25 Jesus urges his disciples to do precisely this — to love one another not just for their own sakes but for the good of all. “Love your brother and your sister as your very own being. Protect them as you would the pupil of your own eye,” he says.

In a like manner, in the Kakacupama Sutta the Buddha taught his disciples the following vow about the necessity of a loving mind:

May our minds not become corrupt.

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