Contemplations on, The State of Love

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Contemplations on, The State of Love
I. Love (Metta)
Love, without desire to possess, knowing well that in the ultimate
sense there is no possession and no possessor: this is the highest
love.
Love, without speaking and thinking of "I," knowing well that this so-
called "I" is a mere delusion.
Love, without selecting and excluding, knowing well that to do so
means to create love's own contrasts: dislike, aversion and hatred.
Love, embracing all beings: small and great, far and near, be it on
earth, in the water or in the air.
Love, embracing impartially all sentient beings, and not only those
who are useful, pleasing or amusing to us.
Love, embracing all beings, be they noble-minded or low-minded, good
or evil. The noble and the good are embraced because love is flowing
to them spontaneously. The low-minded and evil-minded are included
because they are those who are most in need of love. In many of them
the seed of goodness may have died merely because warmth was lacking
for its growth, because it perished from cold in a loveless world.
Love, embracing all beings, knowing well that we all are fellow
wayfarers through this round of existence -- that we all are overcome
by the same law of suffering.
Love, but not the sensuous fire that burns, scorches and tortures,
that inflicts more wounds than it cures -- flaring up now, at the next
moment being extinguished, leaving behind more coldness and loneliness
than was felt before.
Rather, love that lies like a soft but firm hand on the ailing beings,
ever unchanged in its sympathy, without wavering, unconcerned with any
response it meets.
Love that is comforting coolness to those who burn with the fire of
suffering and passion; that is life-giving warmth to those abandoned
in the cold desert of loneliness, to those who are shivering in the
frost of a loveless world; to those whose hearts have become as if
empty and dry by the repeated calls for help, by deepest despair.
Love, that is a sublime nobility of heart and intellect which knows,
understands and is ready to help.
Love, that is strength and gives strength: this is the highest love.
Love, which by the Enlightened One was named "the liberation of the
heart," "the most sublime beauty": this is the highest love.