Weekly quote from Sangharakshita
celebrating the year of his 100th birthday
Sangharakshita is the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order. He was born on 26th August 1925 and died on 30th October 2018.
… the love which is the positive form of the first precept is no mere flabby sentiment but the vigorous expression of an imaginative identification with other living beings. ‘Love’ is in fact far too weak a word for the positive counterpart of non-killing or non-violence, and even maitrī (Pāli mettā) is not altogether satisfactory. Just as killing represents the absolute negation of another person’s being, ‘love’ as we must perforce call it represents its absolute affirmation. As such it is not erotic love, or parental love, or even friendly love. If it is love at all, it is a cherishing, protecting, maturing love which has the same kind of effect on the spiritual being of others as the light and heat of the sun have on their physical being.
from Sangharakshita Complete Works - volume 2: 'The Three Jewels I' p. 361