Love is the Key Motivation

[pinecone]

“Teacher Gautama, there are people who say you advise people not to love. They say you have said that the more a person loves, the more he will suffer and despair. I can see some truth in that statement, but I am unable to find peace with it. Without love, life would seem empty of meaning. Please help me resolve this.
The Buddha looked at the king warmly. "Your majesty, your question is a very good one, and many people can benefit from it. There are many kinds of love. We should examine closely the nature of each kind of love.
Life has a great need of the presence of love, but not the sort of love that is based on lust, passion, attachment, discrimination, and prejudice. Majesty, there is another kind of love, sorely needed, which consists of loving kindness and compassion,”
The crucial intention to study  the Dharma is to develop and merge the practice of loving kindness and compassion. In doing so, we are not only the gaining party but also others at the same time. By combining these qualities leads to the possibility of the enlightening and an experience of ongoing happiness within this lifetime; thus, there is a crucial need to develop these qualities. Loving-kindness and compassion are also the cause of accumulating the merit to be born in the higher realms. Therefore, loving-kindness and compassion are karmically very significant, and we should make them the core of whatever Dharma practices we do.

[gbds3jewels]

Kindness, compassion and love is a universal language. It is a language we all understand even in the animal kingdom and spirit realm. Who cares whether you are a Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, if you are kind, compassionate and loving, you got it right. You got the key to a meaningful life and enriching/benefiting the lives of people around you. That's sufficient without any religious, political or social label.

[James Bond]

I think the main message i took out of this is that we must always be good human beings, no matter what religion we believe in. Being kind, compassionate and honest are the keys to a happy life.

I was always told, ever since i was young, we must always be nice to others, and we must always help others. And from that i started to think that religion shouldn't determine who you are. The kindness and compassion shouldn't come from what you believe in, it should come from you. You should WANT to be nice to others, you should WANT to be helpful, you should WANT to be honest to others. Religion should not be the reason you are a good human being. You should be the reason. Just my thoughts.

[VeronicaSmith]

This is a good post (even though it should be in General Buddhism). What I can take back from this is how it tells me to have a good life that is healthy but also to be compassionate to others and to understand that it is not about me, me and me. We are all people and we should all see this to have a good and healthy life. Religion is something that can help us in our lives and make our lives very healthy and bring peace to our minds. But is doesn't make you who you are. At the end of the day, we are all the same race and we should all care for one another. We all need to see this. World conflicts and issues, it is all from one race and how we fight each other. That is sad. But we should all see this as people not Buddhists, Muslims, Christians or whatever religion you are.

[kelly]

As a practitioner the more we should aware of our action towards do we practice what the holy Buddha has taught us or we only practice partially as we choose only when we like we practice, because a lot of us are not mindful about our action so as a practitioner we really need to train mindfulness in our daily life, that is practice kindness and compassion to all living being.

[Jason Statham]

Wow, Icy. I really like what you wrote, It is short yet profound. It does not matter what religion we choose to believe, as long as they do not teach us to harm then we are on the right track. You can be a religious person, but if you don't have compassion, love and care for others, you will not go as far as reaching the state of enlightenment. Look up to the stories of famous religion leaders like Jesus, Buddha Shakyamuni, Lama Tsongkhapa and etc. Their stories is always about helping others, rarely about them gaining benefits for themselves. Love really is the key motivation.