Without doubt, there can be no faith. Without fear, there can be no courage.According to Jack Kornfeld, the near enemy of loving kindness is attachment. At first, attachment may feel like love, but as it grows it becomes more clearly the opposite, characterized by clinging, controlling, and fear.
The near enemy of compassion is pity, and this also separates us. Pity feels sorry for the poor person over there as if he were somehow different from us.
The near enemy of sympathetic joy (the joy in the happiness of others) is comparison, which looks to see if we have more than, the same as, or less than another.
The near enemy of equanimity is indifference. True equanimity is balance in the midst of experience, whereas indifference is a withdrawal and not caring, based on fear.
1 comment:
I was forever advising people to embrace their doubts, look them squarely in the face. Lest their faith be mere blinders. You have found a deeper level here Shokai. So faith may be one of two kinds:
1. a reaction to doubt that posits and embraces an arbitrary certainty.
Doubt is excruciating for those who suffer insecurities.
2. a reaching, and constantly, impartially, critical vigilance over the field of doubts where items of experience and belief suggest themselves as articles of faith.
Or was it something else you meant?
I have had a long struggle with the delineation of detachment as opposed to indifference. It is hard to imagine how one could live in a way that benefitted all sentient beings and yet engaged some of the clear and clearly remediable harms that go on in the world.
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