The biblical exhortation to love your enemy doesn't mean liking him or agreeing with him. It means that you have a sense of humanity as a family and that you can live without making and sustaining enemies.
An old ZEN story tells of a monk about to die. "Do monks die standing?" he asked his students. "Yes," they said. "And how about upside down?" "Never heard of that," they said. So he stood on his head and died. The funeral was difficult, with him on his head. His sister was present and was annoyed that once again he was making a nuisance of himself. So she touched him with her finger and he fell over, ready for burial.
It's the business of religion to turn things upside down. Indeed, the proper language of religion is paradox. Many people think of spirituality as a higher level of the world they know, but the traditions teach that as a person matures, he has to learn about the opposite side of everything he has come to understand. Jesus suggests that the poor are the really rich ones. And according to current Biblical scholars, the story of the Good Samaritan is not just about seeing your neighbor in someone from another culture or race. It shows that the most unlikely and despised people, not we spiritual types, may be the very ones practicing spiritual ideals like compassion. In religion, the whole world is upside down.
Strength in Yielding
The Tao Te Ching of Taoism is one of the most paradoxical sacred texts I know. "Yield and overcome; bend and be straight," it says. This lesson is not only philosophical and moral; it is deeply emotional. Perhaps you know the experience of having been hurt by a friend. You may pout and distance yourself - a form of passive aggression. You may want to keep the friendship, but the strength of your feelings keeps you frozen and hard. But eventually you may reach a point where you can let down your defenses, relax, and give up the struggle. Your friendship is saved, and your Life goes on more smoothly.
It takes emotional maturity and strength to yield. Still, the world around you, not generally mature in its relationships, tells you that you can't give in. You shouldn't be a wimp. You must take responsibility for your own Life and person and not be taken advantage of.
The idea that there is strength in yielding is not popular in practice. The world will not approve but instead will give you good reasons for holding your ground. I've even heard of psychotherapists getting caught in the illusion that fighting for your ego will solve your problems.
A few years ago, when assertiveness training was popular, and people were exploring ways to be independent and self-reliant, I was reading the Tao Te Ching almost daily. I would invite my audiences to workshops on how to be dependent, and they would laugh. They could only laugh because it seemed absurd to value dependence, yielding. Psychology tends to be on the side of a strong ego, the spiritual traditions on the side of the spirit and soul, which follow different rules.
All of this is background to loving our enemies. This teaching has been mouthed for centuries and rarely practiced. Why? Because it is so difficult. It is a challenge to the whole person to revisit old memories, to reconsider old patterns of behavior, and to deal with strong but subtle passions and emotions. It requires nothing less than a major, profound shift in the core self from which we live. The Gospels call it 'metanoia', a central transmutation in the way we imagine life to be. A person who has attained this moral and psychological level is a kind of mutant, someone freed from the unconsidered assumptions of his society. He is standing on his head.
An old ZEN story tells of a monk about to die. "Do monks die standing?" he asked his students. "Yes," they said. "And how about upside down?" "Never heard of that," they said. So he stood on his head and died. The funeral was difficult, with him on his head. His sister was present and was annoyed that once again he was making a nuisance of himself. So she touched him with her finger and he fell over, ready for burial.
It's the business of religion to turn things upside down. Indeed, the proper language of religion is paradox. Many people think of spirituality as a higher level of the world they know, but the traditions teach that as a person matures, he has to learn about the opposite side of everything he has come to understand. Jesus suggests that the poor are the really rich ones. And according to current Biblical scholars, the story of the Good Samaritan is not just about seeing your neighbor in someone from another culture or race. It shows that the most unlikely and despised people, not we spiritual types, may be the very ones practicing spiritual ideals like compassion. In religion, the whole world is upside down.
Strength in Yielding
The Tao Te Ching of Taoism is one of the most paradoxical sacred texts I know. "Yield and overcome; bend and be straight," it says. This lesson is not only philosophical and moral; it is deeply emotional. Perhaps you know the experience of having been hurt by a friend. You may pout and distance yourself - a form of passive aggression. You may want to keep the friendship, but the strength of your feelings keeps you frozen and hard. But eventually you may reach a point where you can let down your defenses, relax, and give up the struggle. Your friendship is saved, and your Life goes on more smoothly.
It takes emotional maturity and strength to yield. Still, the world around you, not generally mature in its relationships, tells you that you can't give in. You shouldn't be a wimp. You must take responsibility for your own Life and person and not be taken advantage of.
The idea that there is strength in yielding is not popular in practice. The world will not approve but instead will give you good reasons for holding your ground. I've even heard of psychotherapists getting caught in the illusion that fighting for your ego will solve your problems.
A few years ago, when assertiveness training was popular, and people were exploring ways to be independent and self-reliant, I was reading the Tao Te Ching almost daily. I would invite my audiences to workshops on how to be dependent, and they would laugh. They could only laugh because it seemed absurd to value dependence, yielding. Psychology tends to be on the side of a strong ego, the spiritual traditions on the side of the spirit and soul, which follow different rules.
All of this is background to loving our enemies. This teaching has been mouthed for centuries and rarely practiced. Why? Because it is so difficult. It is a challenge to the whole person to revisit old memories, to reconsider old patterns of behavior, and to deal with strong but subtle passions and emotions. It requires nothing less than a major, profound shift in the core self from which we live. The Gospels call it 'metanoia', a central transmutation in the way we imagine life to be. A person who has attained this moral and psychological level is a kind of mutant, someone freed from the unconsidered assumptions of his society. He is standing on his head.