Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels in many laudatory ways. He was compassionate and forgiving and did not return harm to those who harmed him. He showed respect for women when women had few rights. He cared about the poor and the rejected. He was extraordinarily brave. Yet, there is one big flaw in the Gospels involving how Jesus’ higher and more humane values were taught. The writers of the Gospels failed to adequately explain how it might be possible for us to live up to those higher values, taking it for granted we could work this out ourselves. Here’s what I mean.

The Dalai Lama wrote a book called The Good Heart (1). In this book, he takes a look at aspects of the Christian religion which intersect with Buddhist teachings. The chapters are, in fact, a series of lectures he gave on a number of famous Gospel quotes. The first quote he tackles is the famous “Love your enemy!” text from Matthew 5:38-48. He points out that this sentiment is also expressed in a famous Mahayana Buddhist text from one of his favorite authors. 

Shantideva was an 8th-century Buddhist monk from India who wrote The Way of the Bodhisattva. The Dalai Lama explains that according to Shantideva, “If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience, and understanding. By developing greater tolerance and patience, it will be easier for you to develop your capacity for compassion and, through that, altruism.” (Dalai Lama, p.49)

After finishing that chapter, however, I realized, “Wow, if the Dalai Lama had put more effort into explaining how it is possible that we can love our enemies, how we can ‘cultivate the right attitude,’ and he gave us a viable choice between loving and hating our enemies based on what is possible emotionally, every person at his talk, all 5,000 (let’s say), would have left the space actually capable of loving their enemies, instead of just agreeing one ought to love their enemies and then, possibly, never being able to do it.

5,000 people really learning how to love their enemies probably did not happen because 5,000 people who can love their enemies and then start on the road to deep compassion and altruism would be a type of revolutionary army heading into the world to change its values. 5,000 real Christians, or Mahayana Buddhists, who also know how to teach how we can really love our enemies could cause a chain reaction and become a sea change for the world. 

This points to the significant problem with most Christian teaching toward the higher and counterintuitive values Jesus espoused. It is kind of like that old Steve Martin comedy routine where he says that he is going to change the lives of all of his audience members by telling them how to be a millionaire. After assuming the proper gravitas for such a promise, he then says, “OK, here’s how to be a millionaire. Ready? OK. First… you get a million dollars.” 

“First, you get a million dollars.” is tantamount to “First, you cultivate the right attitude.” One can say, “Love your enemy!”, “Turn the other cheek!” “Don’t return malice for malice!”, “Forgive people who have harmed you!” but no inner step ladder is ever provided to reach these goals. I don’t know how to get a million dollars, and I don’t automatically know how to forgive someone who has been terrible to me just because a holy person tells me I need to do it. 

Folks might, thus, say to themselves, “Yeah, I should love my enemies, that sounds very high-minded and noble; I guess I’ll have to work on that later because right now the only option I see is not loving my enemies. That’s all I can muster right now. How, exactly, am I supposed to love my enemies? I turn on a switch? How do I cultivate that attitude? Why should I cultivate that attitude?”

This is, actually, quite a cruel way to teach higher values. It forces us to go around wondering, “Why can’t I forgive? I’m supposed to, but I can’t figure this thing out. And why can’t I love my enemies? I am failing at that, too!” Pretty soon, these values are given lip service and little more. We are set up to feel as if we have failed. But we have not. Nobody gave us the step ladder we needed. Frankly, I would argue Jesus was portrayed as a lousy teacher who did not describe or offer the inner step ladder to the higher behavioral goals. 

Indeed, if you tell someone to love their enemy, but you don’t teach them how this can be accomplished emotionally, you are just providing them with normative “ought” statements, that are impossible to follow. If I say that you ought to vote on Tuesday, you can do that. If I say that you should put your money in a high interest savings account, you can do that. 

If I say you ought to forgive people who have harmed you, you can’t do anything with that statement unless I help you understand how you normally feel towards those people and how and why you can reject that emotional response and possibly replace it. 

A lot of Christian teaching dealing with humane development does this – it just gives normative statements when it is impossible for us to execute those statements – and is remiss in discussing the inner workings of our emotional lives that we would be required to understand for such changes to happen. You can’t wave a magic wand at your emotions and become a saint.

Loving your enemy is a tough one. Your enemy often wants to hurt you. That’s what enemies do. When you think of an enemy the adrenaline starts pumping because now you are in fight or flight mode. Your enemy instills fear; they are a threat. Why would you love this kind of person? Just because a holy person says, you should do it? In the Gospels the character of Jesus never took the time or effort to explain that. Holy folks have just said, “Do it!” with no explanation of how. This is lousy teaching.

The folks who depicted Jesus could have helped us a lot more if they had depicted Him as a better teacher. That’s all I am saying. No, actually, there’s more I want to say. I want to talk about moving from “ought” to “how to.”

Recently, I saw an abstract work of art by an Iranian Muslim artist named Mohammed Ehsai, which moved me greatly, titled He Is Merciful. So, I started thinking about forgiveness and the extent to which I might have ever forgiven anyone. I suddenly realized I knew very little about forgiveness. I had been urged numerous times to forgive people who had been cruel to me, but, again, I never really climbed that step ladder. I believed in forgiving, but I am ashamed to say that I do not think I ever really forgave anyone.  

I can understand God forgiving us. We are often swayed by emotions and motives we do not even understand or question. We are often products of our immediate family or community and economic environments. For God to forgive us is for God to, essentially, say, “OK, I, God, can see why this person did what they did. This person wasn’t strong enough or aware enough not to do this. Nobody chooses to do what they think is wrong, so I have to forgive. May this person begin to see how they can grow in a humane direction.”

I can even understand self-forgiveness. If a person is open to personal change and self-development, a person can look back on situations where they hurt someone and realize that this type of action is no longer possible. One then joins God in this type of forgiveness. For conscientious people dealing with, for example, anger issues, self-forgiveness can be hard, but it is possible. If you know you cannot do something again and you are ashamed of having done it, you have no choice but to forgive yourself. 

The really tough one is forgiving another who hurt you. Religious folks say we should do this and even act as if they, themselves, have shown forgiveness. But what does it mean to forgive someone who hurt you? There’s no normative road, no magic wand for this. Indeed, most people, in reality, probably do not forgive those who hurt them; perhaps they just forget about it or put it aside. And this negative emotional response and attitude of not forgiving has been modeled for us over and over again to the point where it feels right. It becomes a less than pro-social expectation for us.

Forgiveness of another would seem to be a two-step process. First it would be the realization that something cruel or malicious was done to me (no burying or denying that), but I would then have to be able to avoid feeling the “normal” responses to that occurrence which have been modeled for me over and over. I would have to rise above the apparent habit or need for self-pity, hatred and retribution.  

I would be able to say, “Yes, that person was cruel. That person wanted to hurt me. But I have some control over my emotional states, and I do not have to feel malice or feel what others generally feel. I can let these negative emotions go. I have to let these feelings go – they are wrong, they lead to further harm.” Perhaps remembering the rotten things we have done to others and realizing how flawed all of us are or can be might make not buying into negative emotions easier.

So I am guessing that in these situations, where we are implored to rise higher, but we are not  given step-ladders to do so, we need to explore the extent to which we have control over our emotional states and see whether we can reject the negative emotional responses we are expected to make and replace those responses with more positive, pro-social or humane emotions, based on the awareness that we are all flawed and hurt each other and that we are all worthy of second or third or more chances to become better people.

So what about loving our enemies? What do we normally feel, what do others who have modeled destructive behavior and attitudes expect us to feel and what can we possibly feel? Why should we choose not to feel what virtually everyone expects us to feel?

Again, perhaps it is simply a matter of recognizing and analyzing the negative emotion we feel in response to another who is a threat and then rejecting its apparent necessity. Maybe we don’t even have to replace it with anything, and we just have to realize that we do have the capacity to rise above malicious and retributive emotions, and we do not have to choose them. Perhaps to love your enemy is to no longer fear someone you used to fear because you can learn how to care about them instead and to possibly signal to that person that you do not want to threaten them either. 

I kind of wish some holy person had explained this to me earlier. It took way too long for me to figure it out for myself.

About the Author

Daniel Gauss is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University. He has been published on numerous platforms dealing with art and culture and has been working in the field of education for over 20 years. He currently teaches in Shenzhen, China.

 

 

1. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Good Heart, Rider Books, London, 2002
2. The painting referred to is in the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia