Amod Lele: The Love of All Wisdom
Harvard Ph.D. graduate and occasional Mudita Journal commenter Amod Lele (see here and here, for example) has started a new blog called “Love of All Wisdom” that some of you might enjoy exploring. His political views couldn’t be more different than my own, but he’s proven himself interested in and open to cross-dialogue.
In his latest post, “Wishing George W. Bush Well,” Amod explores a theme dear to my heart — learning not to vilify those with whom you disagree strongly. At the urging of a spiritual teacher, Amod had begun exploring his ability to wish other people well, including his own “enemies.” He writes:
So I thought: who is my greatest enemy? As a lifelong leftie, in 2005, it didn’t take me long to identify George W. Bush. And so, as part of the practice, I tried sincerely to wish that man well.
The experience was more than unsettling. I cried in the process. But it helped me grow a lot. I had spent a long time feeling such poisonous hatred for that man, which did terrible things to me and my own well-being – in a way that Śāntideva warns us about. It’s a terribly unnerving, but highly rewarding, thing to wish your enemies well. Since your enemies are only human it makes philosophical sense to do so, really, if your main aim is consequentialist – that is, to produce the best results for yourself or for humanity. The trick is that it requires you to give up retribution as a goal, and even for a consequentialist, that’s not easy.
I posted the following in response:
Thank you for posting about your experiences here.
I suppose I’m in the tiny minority of people who think that both Barack Obama and George W. Bush are fundamentally decent people. I wrote a bit here about the Bush side of things.
This put me in a difficult situation once, when I attended a lengthy, delightful Theravadan retreat that was capped off with a lengthy “dharma talk” that included, of all things, a discussion of how evil George W. Bush is.
I wish more Buddhists and liberals would follow your example, because it seems like it would be good for their integrity.
I find myself longing to hear even more from you on this subject. Why did you cry? What did you learn about yourself and about George W. Bush as you did this exercise? Did it make you re-think any of your conclusions about Bush?
I think it would be fair to say that I oppose Obama’s policies as thoroughly as you opposed Bush’s. In my case, it’s hard to identify with either gentleman’s policies, since I am a libertarian and neither administration accurately reflects my desires for U.S. policy, either domestically or abroad.
I often feel that a great deal of damage is done by “hating” the other side, and liberals really went off the deep, cancerous end with Bush for the past eight years. There must be many people in need of the healing you have undertaken yourself.
Buddhists and Quakers seem like excellent candidates to lead by example, in this regard.
Amod has responded in the comments, and I have the sense that I’d like to push him further on the subject of understanding George W. Bush from his own perspective, rather than from within Amod’s worldview. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to explore this with him more soon.
Meantime, check out his blog. I’m glad to have the opportunity to point some readers his way. I’ve also invited him to write a guest post for Mudita Journal at some point; I hope he takes me up on it.
A Theravadan dharma talk about the evil of George W. Bush? Appalling – sunds more like a karma talk: as in generating.
Lovingkindness indeed!
Michael,
Actually, that’s the one part of my comment I’d go back and edit. The dharma talk itself wasn’t “about” George W. Bush; it was about something else. But it ended with some negative comments about Bush, the electoral college (this was in about 2002), etc.
And it really ruined the feeling of openness at the retreat, knowing I was probably one of the only conservative-friendly people in the room.
Joshua
It isn’t an issue about the person “W”. It has to do with the policies, domestic and foreign, he approved and/or pursued and/or implemented during his tenure as president. And the questions pertaining to those policies are: Were they rational? Were they benevolent?
Thill, I think it is no more about his policies than about the person. It is about our own happiness, our own ability to overcome ideological differences, and our ability to love with an open heart even when we disagree with someone.
Any time we cut ourselves off from love, we suffer — no matter how good our intentions may be. The fact that the object of our hate is a powerful man, with destructive policies, makes it no less true that we suffer.