“The Quotidian of Love”

May 28

Buddha said, Love is the great protector.

How is Love the great protector? What do we really know about Love? How much time have we thought about the subject? Do we have any original ideas about Love we can project into the world?

Love is the great protector, and Love destroys evil.

How does Love destroy evil? Is there a sense in which we can weaponize Love against evil?

Yes.

How?

We are loved in every moment when we love others. Who are others? They are the people we see every day, no matter where we go. They are our family members and friends. When the media constantly spins its cynical view and throws it in our faces every moment that we choose to listen and watch, it is easy to become confused about the personal power each of us has, the only power that will defeat the illusion of hatred in the world and the purveyors of this malignant ideology.

We love and are loved in every moment. Each kind action, each peaceful gesture, every pleasing sound that sooths the mind, each beautiful object we share with another, each time we assist one in need, every wish to stop the suffering of others that arises in our minds, each gentle embrace, every sincere consolation, each patient moment spent with our children and the reassuring advice we give, every time we avoid anger, each selfless extension beyond our comfort zone, every whisper of prayer for those we love, each pleasant comment that lifts one’s spirits, every moment of forgiveness, each timeless walk in the forest, every stretch of growth from trees toward the light, each proclamation of love, every expression of faith, each breeze that tempts us further along the trail, every rustling of the leaves, each stern advisement that improves us—in every moment of every day the living people of the world love one another in these myriad ways.

Thus, the unseen power we wield is in each moment of love for another, however expressed. We are loving all the time, and we are mostly unaware of it because we may not understand what love really is, and we are obfuscated by our enemy. Love is an expression of universal truth that pervades our waking experience. What evil can stand against such power?

None.

We share the Earth with billions of people just like us, and families are loving and caring for each other everywhere, all the time. How many countless acts of love and selflessness, however small sometimes, are occurring among so many beings every moment of every day?

Legion.

These are the real actions holding our world in a state of grace. The cumulative experience of love creates the only reality we can know. The father of all lies, that cowardly deceiver, would try to present another reality, an illusion of hatred.

So how do we win? We keep on loving in the way that we do anyway, refining the experience of love until it becomes a sharpened weapon with which we may sever the evil from our minds, and thus, from the world. Evil knows it cannot stand against the truth of love because…

Love is the great protector, and…

Love is all there is.