It is important to train the heart to default to love. Working on undoing racism, I am increasingly aware both in my own heart and in my beloved culture, that aversion in our hearts may not lessen if we are unwilling to acknowledge it. Much suffering comes from our unwillingness to look at how conditioning has shaped our attitudes, beliefs and actions.

Krishnamurti said it so well: “It is easy to hate, and hate brings people together after a fashion; it creates all kinds of fantasies, it brings about various types of co-operation, as in war. But love is much more difficult…. You cannot learn how to love, but you can observe hate and put it gently aside. Don’t battle against hate … but see hate for what it is and let it drop away… What is important is not to let hate take root in your mind…. Your mind is like rich soil, and if given sufficient time any problem that comes along takes root like a weed … but if you do not give the problem time to take root, it has no place to grow and it will wither away. If you encourage hate, give it time to take root, to grow, to mature, it becomes an enormous problem. But if each time hate arises you let it go by, then you will find that your mind becomes very sensitive without being sentimental; therefore it will know love.”

We can train the heart to respond in love. It takes practice.

with metta,
Gina Sharpe
Guiding Teacher