lovingkindess

We__e made it private, contained it in family, when its audacity is in its potential to cross tribal lines. We__e fetishized it as romance, when its true measure is a quality of sustained, practical care. We__e lived it as a feeling, when it is a way of being. It is the elemental experience we all desire and seek, most of our days, to give and receive. The sliver of love__ potential that the Greeks separated out as eros is where we load so much of our desire, center so much of our imagination about delight and despair, define so much of our sense of completion. There is the love the Greeks called filia__he love of friendship. There is the love they called agape__ove as embodied compassion, expressions of kindness that might be given to a neighbor or a stranger. The Metta of the root Buddhist Pali tongue, __ovingkindness,_ carries the nuance of benevolent, active interest in others known and unknown, and its cultivation begins with compassion towards oneself.