NLove? Lovingkindness or Love? Well, okay, Love has various different meanings. Love in the normal sense in the world is often attachment and possession. Lovingkindness is more unconditional Love without that attachment or feeling of possession. So the type of possessive, attached Love compared to Compassion is more selfish compared to the unselfish.
Lovingkindness compared to Compassion. Compassion is more a feeling with the suffering of others. Lovingkindness has different facets, there is the wish for their well-being, the wish for their happiness whether they are connected to us or not, but there is also the quality of acceptance, loving without demands. Lovingkindness is more of a generous wish, Compassion is more of a feeling with the suffering. So when some people have difficulty going to the stage of Lovingkindness, they like the connection of Compassion, the feeling with, I always try to get them to understand that we don't want to leave a person in their suffering just because we feel that connection, that we want to wish for their happiness and peace as well; it's a generous wish, even though sometimes there is not that feeling of closeness because we step away a little bit at that time.
Lovingkindness, a wish for their peace whether they are connected to you or not, whether they satisfy you or not, whether they please you or not. Can we really give that unselfish wish to somebody else? Especially, if we don't like some of their qualities, can we really wish for their peace whether they change or not, whether they satisfy us or not? It is something to work towards, I believe.
Compassion is very important. It helps us to open to Dukkha, learning how to not pull back from Dukkha, not pulling back from the unpleasant. I believe it's Compassion that allows us to get to unconditional Love because unless we have Compassion we will never be able to open to the unpleasant, open to the Dukkha. We will be trying to protect our views of the world, our views of what life should be, how others and the world should be.
So we won't be able to perceive the reality of other people, to see their Dukkha, and feel with it on the human level, their humanness. Compassion is very important.