Love Is Not A Feeling, It's An Ability

Below is my reflection to the excerpt of the conversation between bell hooks and Sharon Salzberg. 

We are born with a capacity to love. It is like a seed in the soil. And the seed needs to be watered to grow. When a child is born, that child has an innate capacity to love. The child needs to be nurtured so that the child's innate capacity to love blossoms. I was born in a family in which there were four brothers and three sisters. We all looked different and we all have different dispositions, aptitudes and attitudes. We never felt discriminated and were never treated differently. We were accepted as we were.

Where does love exist? it exists and thrives in our hearts. And like a seed it needs loving kindness, compassion and support from the significant others in our family and from the community we live in. Sadly, the world is broken down that us-and-them binary is a part of the work of love. I am cognizant of the binary. I recognize it without being bound by this divisiveness. I have refused to go along with this mentality and I have cultivated loving kindness in me. This way of thinking and living has enkindled the light of seeing oneness in manyness. Such a way of living fills my heart with courage, compassion and love.

At times discrimination is beaming in my direction because of ignorance and conditioned mindset. I have learned not to wear the clothes that do not belong to them without reacting to other's discriminatory behaviors. May we cultivate seeds of love, courage and compassion for those who throw stones of hatred and discrimination at me. This is what Jesus the Christ and the compassionate Buddha have taught us.

​Namaste!