A quick note before we begin,
Welcome to The PATH (Monday Meditation), which typically has three insights into daily life (that are loosely connected). Today’s meditation explores only two, what I’m calling the paradox of love (around action and acceptance). Although it is slightly longer than most meditations, it still insufficiently covers the topic (in my view). Expect a follow-up on love in the coming week(s).
If you find paradoxes interesting — I encourage you to check out a new joint venture with my good friend Brandon Tumblin. It’s called, Paradoxically Speaking. We’ve recorded around a dozen episodes thus far on human nature, paradoxes, and the art of living. Listen to the first episode, What is Paradoxically Speaking? and subscribe to get Essays & Podcasts episodes.
What is Love?
What is love? Is there anything more important than love? Honestly, take a moment to consider how you define or think about — love. It’s challenging to capture its meaning in words (at least for me, it is).
Action
The Jesuit order founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, wisely suggested, “Love ought to manifest itself in deeds.” The thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas described love as “willing the good of another.” Similarly, the Stoics (and others) urge us to think about virtue (and philosophy) as action.
But is defining love as deeds (or actions) complete?
In The Art of Loving (an upcoming book for Reading & the Good Life), the psychologist and humanist philosopher Erich Fromm asked, “Is love an art?” If love is an art, then it requires knowledge and effort.
Fromm writes,
Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one “falls into” if one is lucky? … Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love. Hence the problem to them is how to be loved, how to be lovable.
“The first step to take is to become aware that love is an art,” stressed Fromm, “just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love, …. What are the necessary steps in learning any art? The process of learning an art can be divided conveniently into two parts: one, the mastery of the theory; the other, the mastery of the practice.”
What if love is the practice (or art) of our lives? What if you (and me) will never quite master the art of loving? To the question, “Is there anything more important than love?” The Stoic philosopher Epictetus might say yes — wisdom.
Epictetus taught his students,
Whoever then understands what is good, can also know how to love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are neither good nor bad from both, can he possess the power of loving? To love, then, is only in the power of the wise.
Similarly, Fromm says that mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern; there must be nothing more important in the world. This holds true for music, medicine, carpentry—and for love.
But Fromm observes that despite the deep-seated craving for love,
almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power—almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving.
What if love and wisdom are many things?
Acceptance
Fromm explained that one must learn many other—and often seemingly disconnected—things before starting with the art itself. For example, an apprentice in carpentry begins by learning how to plane wood; an apprentice in the Zen art of archery starts by doing breathing exercises.
We discussed love as “willing the good of another,” as St. Thomas Aquinas put it. But isn’t love also unconditional? Where do self-acceptance and the acceptance of others fit into the practice of love?
In the classic, No Man is an Island, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton shared some profound insights into the nature of love. He wrote,
If we are to love sincerely and with simplicity, we must overcome the fear of not being loved. And this cannot be done by forcing ourselves to believe in some illusion, saying that we are loved when we are not. We must somehow strip ourselves of our greatest illusions by recognizing the many ways we are unlovable, descend into the depths of our being until we come to the fundamental reality in us, and learn to see that we are lovable after all, in spite of everything!
Do you want to be loved solely based on your good deeds? What about those days and moments when we’re unkind to ourselves or others? One of my favorite quotes is Seneca’s response to a question about his progress toward wisdom. Seneca responded, “I have begun to become a better friend to myself.”
In her excellent book You Belong, the writer and meditation teacher Sebene Selassie (a previous podcast guest) suggests,
Here’s a famous quote from Japanese Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi: “All of you are perfect just as you are. And you could use a little improvement.” The second sentence sounds like a sly insult, but it’s actually an invitation into a deep self-love. It’s an opportunity to adore oneself so completely that imperfections are part of the perfection of your being. No part left out.
Until we contend with the paradox that we are perfect just as we are and that we have areas of improvement, Selassie explains that “our practice is simply a battle with ourselves, a self-evaluation project dressed up as self-acceptance.”
Final Thoughts
The paradox of love points to the tightrope walk of action (good deeds towards ourselves and others) and acceptance (of ourselves and others), or what one might call unconditional love. Another paradox is that focusing on loving ourselves can increase our capacity to love others. The Buddha observed, “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” And Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The art of living (and loving) requires us to both lead our life (action) and live in accordance with how the world works (acceptance). More to follow[…]
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or disagree!