Where The Light Meets 5 - Love, Compassion, and the Beloved

In this episode, we talk about how love and being loved fit into our spiritual journeys. We all have a need for love but can we open to a bigger love and/or compassion to make our spiritual lives more fulfilling?

Is the Buddhist use of the word compassion the same or different than the use of the word love in Christian teachings and practices? Is love too "woo-woo" of a word for Buddhists? Is compassion too "interdependent" and universal to offer a felt sense of being loved?

We talk about this and a lot more, including whether or not there is a need for a personal relationship with God, the Divine, or a Buddha or Bodhisattva. We also talk about whether you would or should kill the Buddha (or Jesus or God), if you meet him on the road or, instead, dance or have a beer with him.

And in our practice section, Holly shares a practice of Lectio Divina with poetry by Mary Oliver:

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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