To celebrate Valentine’s day, and to call for more love and kindness in the world I gave this Dharma talk on February 12, 2015 at the Village Zendo in New York City. In the talk I mention some of the origins of Valentine’s Day, the tragedy of the Charley Hebdo attack in Paris, the drawing of Thunder Bunny that I made to publicize the relief effort in Fukushima Japan, poems by Ikkyu and comments on a section of Ceasing of Notions our winter 2015 study text at the Zendo. Here is the talk in it’s entirety 16 minutes long:
Love For All
posted in: Dharma Talks
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Brandon
Thank you Mr. Greenblat for that very insight piece you gave.
The concept of loving everyone and everything seems so foreign to us lowly human beings.
Being from a Christian background, sometimes I am baffled yet amazed in the examples of the concept presented that we are all loved by God, even when we do some terrible things even against our creator.
I am a person who says “No one is beyond redemption. And I will wait for you until the day you come to me to accept my love as I accept you. And I will morn all the louder if you cannot, for that love is now lost”.
I am reminded of TMBG for they presented an early concept in the song Don’t let’s start, to me which helped me in a difficult time in my life. “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful. Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful”
Though it may not be on the same level as you have presented, I think that maybe that perception is not as uncommon as we may be lead to believe.
That seems to be the thing with our mortality, Love is weakness for it is what makes us strong.
Anyway that’s just how I take from this.
Again thank you for such a wonderful talk.
Kinda wish more people in general loved your work as much as I do but that’s okay. I still love them anyway.
Brandon.
Musho
Dear Brandon,
Thank you so much for the thoughtful reply to my Dharma talk post. My understanding of your comment is that there are more people than we are led to believe, for whom compassion and caring is at the core of their approach to life. I think this is true. Our public media tends to sensationalize crimes, aggression and fear, yet most people live their lives peacefully. Religious (or non-religious) people who live their lives with respect and love are not usually sensationalized.
As for the They Might Be Giants song lyrics, it’s basic Buddhism, but if you could really accept those words, then “getting what your want” would become irrelevant, and you would have everything you need; fully realizing that “everyone dies” would lead to less frustration and sadness. It really is all beautiful.
Musho