l ear n i n g to l o v e
Do they have distinctive qualities you’ve not fully noticed before? Are there aspects of them, or memories of times spent with them, that you have not thought about for a long time? We can bring all this to mind and allow appreciation to emerge.
a neutral person In the third stage we think of a neutral person. Here the practice is presenting us with a particular challenge, that of overcoming indifference. We are being asked to be concerned for someone in whom we have no personal investment. In the second stage we like the person, enjoy their company, and want their friendship. In the fourth stage we are going to be thinking of a difficult person, someone whose company we would rather be without. In each case, a different ‘vested interest’ is at stake. But the neutral person is in-between. We have no particular feelings, or interests, either way. The neutral person might be someone we see quite often, but we have no real connection with. It might be a man at work whose name we know, but who we’ve never really spoken to, or a woman who runs the local corner shop. So in this stage of the practice we are trying to develop a well-wishing towards such a person. Even though we don’t know them personally, and may never know them, we want our attitude to be one of desiring their happiness. Sometimes we can find this stage difficult precisely because we don’t have a connection with that person. How can we think about someone if we don’t know anything about them? We can try using our imagination. Although we might not know very much about this person’s life, we can imagine what it might be like. We can do this is a way which seems realistic, a view of what life might possibly entail for them. What would it be like to work in that shop all day long? You hope she enjoys her work, and that the business is doing well. You imagine where she grew up, what her life might have been like. Though she might be neutral to us, to some other people she is far from that. Perhaps she has a family, and we can hope that they, too, are happy and well. When we are in a hurry, people like her can seem to be twodimensional figures. They are always there behind the counter when 37
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