Loving Kindness: Near and Far Enemies

The obvious opposite to Loving Kindness is Hatred, or its little brother, Ill Will. I hardly think you need an explanation of that one. Of course the ability to dispense with Ill Will isn’t as easy as recognizing it when you see, or feel, it. That’s what the practice is for.

The classic Near Enemy to Loving Kindness is Sentimentality. Until my Buddhist training, I hadn’t heard that, but as soon as I did, I realized “Aha! That’s exactly right!” Somehow we do know that, while Loving Kindness joins us in right relationship with another, Sentimentality subtly separates us. It’s more self-referential, and in the wave of Sentimentality we bathe ourselves in, we’ve lost sight of the presumed object of our feelings—the other human being. They’ve become a screen for our own maudlin movie.

I have a dear childhood friend who’s VERY sentimental about everything, pretty constantly. She’s afloat in a sea of Sentimentality and revels in being carried about on its waves and tides. She’s been an extremely loyal friend through the years, but when I talk to her of my life and she swoons over some little thing I’ve mentioned, I don’t feel her love for me. It doesn’t feel like she’s responding to me, and I find no satisfaction or sense of joining, in talking to her about my circumstances. Sad but true.

Instead I feel like she’s doing two things: using me to pat herself on the back for being a loving friend, and indulging in surges of drama, using my story almost like a TV show. “Using” being the operative word. TV shows are meant to entertain the audience. That’s what I feel I provide for her. No wonder visits with her feel less than satisfying for me. I believe that, if she practiced true Loving Kindness, she would feel much more satisfied too, because she would feel truly connected to her friend. Unfortunately, since she’s not able or even particularly willing to change this habit, I love her despite the Sentimentality, not in response to Loving Kindness.

Student I’m still not quite getting this. Isn’t “sentiment” the same as “feeling”? And “feeling” is good, right? LT You’re right that being able to feel for, and with, others is important—essential, even. For example, when you feel true sympathetic joy for someone else’s happiness, or sorrow for their grief, you are feeling with that particular

person. The same is true for Loving Kindness: you feel it for a particular person (or being)—even if it’s for all individuals.

But sentimentality is generic. Some people feel sentimental about puppies—any puppy—or weddings, in general, no matter who is getting married—fictional characters, even!

And sentimentality is also self-involved, burrowing inward rather than reaching out.

Student So if I’m mostly aware of me, it’s not true Loving Kindness. LT Exactly. It’s like in the Beatles’ song “She’s Leaving Home,” when instead of being happy for their daughter’s independence, or even worrying about her safety, the mother’s reaction is “How could she do this to me?” Let me give you a real example. A few years ago, a colleague’s wife died, and a couple of days before her death, a teenage friend of the family left her a voicemail, even though he knew she had by then drifted into unconsciousness. My friend’s therapist later described the message as “heartfelt, but not at all sentimental.” Here’s part of what the voicemail said—notice that it’s about, and for, the particular person, facing outward, toward her spirit.

“I’m just calling because I want to say I love you, and I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for my mom, for me, for my brother and sisters. You had a very adventurous spirit, and I was glad to be a part of it. I’m glad I got to know it, and I’m glad I got to see it and the shell that it was in, which was yours. I’ll never forget you—your smiling face, your endearing nature, and the caring individual you are, and will always be, and we’ll always remember you by. Again, I know you can’t say it back, but I want to let you know that I can still hear you say it. I love you very much. Bye.”

Another Near Enemy is Conditional Love, a prevalent form of which—desire/clinging—is easily and often mistaken for true Love. The most popular arena for this little substitution is in romantic love. Especially during the first three years of a relationship, huge loads of endorphins, the pleasure chemical in our brains, are produced. (Many “recreational drugs” artificially trigger them—making them hard to resist and hard to abandon.) Endorphins are the original high, and we can stimulate them naturally with new romantic love. Of course we’d desire as much of that as we can get, and cling to every opportunity. But even without the brain science you knew that. As soon as I mention desire/clinging being mistaken for love, I’m sure you can think of examples in your own life.

In my early adult years, I was terribly guilty of this one. It wasn’t even just the rush of the endorphins, for me. On top of that, I was still looking for the lost warmth and closeness from my dad—I didn’t get as much as I wanted because he was working so much and traveled a lot for his work. Once that early stage of life passes, we can never fully make up for the missing critical pieces. That sure doesn’t stop us from trying, though. Again and again and again. Of course we’re never satisfied. And of course the other person recoils from our clinginess. I saw this happen more than once, in my own life, but couldn’t stop myself. At first I didn’t even realize that my very clinging was driving the person away. It’s perhaps ironic that we all want to be needed, but we find neediness unappealing.

Much later, I found myself on the other end of the stick. My boyfriend at the time—we’ll call him Ralph—was extremely a ectionate. But when we were with other people, if I looked at someone as they were talking to me, he’d go into a jealous sulk and afterward give me a long lecture about how I’d ignored and slighted him. When friends were visiting, he would sometimes literally pout in the corner. He hated my going on retreats and complained bitterly every time. If I traveled for work, he wanted to come with me, though there was no reason for him to come. If he had actually been feeling Love, he would have been happy to see me doing retreat, which benefited me so deeply. As it was, I felt oppressed. As you might expect, I pulled away. Ralph’s feelings toward me felt like Attachment, not Love. I felt like I was his stu ed animal. While he was sure that he was intensely, deeply loving me, I felt he was practicing Attachment with great fervor.