Profoundly Loving & Intimate Relationships Without A Sexual Component

Re:
"Love begins -- I think -- with perceiving our own essence, which allows us to see the essence of all others."

Is empathy then the key?
 
Is empathy then the key?

I'm in agreement with the philosopher Evan Thompson, who sees love as a develomental human potential arising out of empathy and leading from empathy to compassion, then flowering as "love". For Thompson, empathy is at the very root of human consciousness, and will inevitably lead to compassion and then to love if this natural and normal developmental process is not severely obstructed.

Empathy is the basis of compassion. Compassion is the basis for love.

Empathy is at the very core and heart of our basic humanity. It is what we ARE. It's our nature. Compassion and love are among the potential fruits of empathy.

So, yes, empathy is key. And the root and source... of love. Empathy is the essecne of love.

And Evan Thompson even goes so far to say that human conscousness is made POSSIBLE by empathy. Our very consciousness is rooted in empathy.

___________


"Compassion is the heart of interbeing and is the superlative expression of the human capacity for empathy." - Evan Thompson


ET: There's a way of thinking about consciousness in Western philosophy that comes from Descartes and informs a lot of work in cognitive science. It's this idea that consciousness is something private and closed in on itself. This manifests in philosophical problems such as how do I know that you're really conscious, and so on.

We habitually see things in terms of intrinsic separate identity, such as I am me and you are you. We each have our intrinsic sense of I-ness. I think that way of thinking about things has the ground cut out from underneath it by the realization that human consciousness is empathetically structured at its very foundation. Empathy is the ability that I have and you have to understand someone else's experience, and you can see that different levels of empathy are possible.

Interbeing is a Buddhist term and is the sense that everything is inter-dependently linked, and so things aren't definable except in relation to each other. The basic idea is that everything is relationally inter-connected. Reflecting and meditating critically, philosophically, and in an experiential, psychological way on the interconnectedness of all things can be used to bring out the realization that the suffering of beings is interrelated, that my suffering is not just my suffering but the suffering of others, and the suffering of others is mine, also.

http://www.metanexus.net/essay/science-compassion—-talk-evan-thompson


__________
 
Last edited:
The other half of my answer is that when we really and deeply love another, we're more able and willing to commit ourselves to nururing their well-being than if we merely "like" them. When we deeply love another, we're even (somewhat, occasionally) willing to have them call us and wake us in the middle of the night:eek:, sometimes, if they are in need and we may be able to help somehow -- even if all we can offer them is our loving ear and well-wishing (Which is likely what they will most need from us in any case).
On one episode of Seinfeld, Jerry's measuring stick for friendship was whether or not someone was airport-worthy. If he was willing to drive someone to the airport, or pick them up at the airport, they really rated high on his list. Conversely, if someone to who wasn't that close of a friend asked to be picked up from or driven to the airport, Jerry considered it rude!

Then, of course, there was Elaine's barometer of sponge-worthiness for potential lovers! :eek:
 
Conversely, if someone to who wasn't that close of a friend asked to be picked up from or driven to the airport, Jerry considered it rude!
:eek:

Which reminds me.... I came within a hair's bredth of picking you up at my local airport! I was slammed with too many things to do, but I was willing to do it ... and sent you my phone number... but never heard from you again beyond that. I hope all went well! ... and that you enjoyed our Land of Enchantment. :)

....

I was sorry we never met up when you were in town, by the way. I was looking forward to the f2f meet.
 
Last edited:
Re (from River):
"Empathy is the basis of compassion. Compassion is the basis for love."

Ah ... I see how that is structured.

Re:
"Our very consciousness is rooted in empathy."

So ... we are each other (to some extent)?

Re:
"Interbeing is a Buddhist term and is the sense that everything is inter-dependently linked, and so things aren't definable except in relation to each other."

That makes me think of the gravitational forces in the Universe. Everything with any mass pulls on everything else -- very slightly in most cases, but nonetheless, to chart an object's exact course through space, we must chart every other object's course. It doesn't take many objects to make that an impossible task!
 
So ... we are each other (to some extent)?

Something like that.

If we examine very carefully, we'll notice that nothing CAN exist by and of itself, with utter independence from other things. And if we stay with the thought -- and feel its significance as well -- we'll eventually realize that while we ARE unique and largely distinct individual persons, we're not at all separate from others -- or from all of nature.

Intellectuallly comprehending interdependence is a helpful step, but not enough by itself to facilitate the deeper, more transformative insight -- which cannot be explained, and has to be directly experienced. We can only very rougly and loosely allude to the further possibility ... by saying things like (analogy, metaphor) "The leaf on the tree can wake up to the fact that it is both an individual leaf and the tree itself." ... "The wave on the ocean is the ocean"... Etc.

Each of us is Being, or Existence ..., if you will. We are a unique, spacio-temporily located expression of Being, and we are the whole of it -- all at once. Our culture so emphasizes the unique, particular and local aspect of our Being that most of us have not deeply realized that the less particular and local aspect is just as true and real about ourselves.

If we will believe people like Charles Eisenstein (as I do) -- http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/chapter7-0.php --, we might think that our culture may be in major historical transition in this regard. It is a hopeful vision of our collective potential, for sure. But I like it -- and I try to nurture it as I can.
 
Last edited:
Here -- http://charleseisenstein.net/project/open-to-magic-2/ -- Charles E. says, "We need community even to feel grief effectively".

Eight words! If you even halfway comprehend the significance of these words, it is almost astonishing how rich that eight word sentence is. Just to speak of it in terns of effectiveness is profound! Think-feel about that! Effective grieving! Powerful stuff! (We have barely begun to acknowledge the terrible grief of the sensitive ones who know humans are destroying the biosphere, for example. How could we acknowledge their grief without acknowleging our own? But our own grief about such things is locked in a metal box which is boarded up in a wooden box which is encased in yet another metal box, welded shut, and burried deep, deep in our backyards -- out of sight, out of mind.)

If we are alert, sensitive, awake enough to know what Charles is getting at here, we will already be grieving (or will have long grieved) the very absense of community Charles is speaking to -- and how ithat absense has us feeling-thinking that we're separate from one another. It is this feeling and belief that we're separate from one another which continues to erode the experience of "community," and which stands in the way of our nutruring community. (I would once have said "creating community," but I no longer think that way. Community can be nurtured, celebrated, encouraged... but not quite created. Not really. Community is what we already ARE. It's in our blood and bones. Our task is simply to wake up to this simple and obvious awareness of what and who we are.: Interbeing.
 
Last edited:
That makes me think of the gravitational forces in the Universe. Everything with any mass pulls on everything else -- very slightly in most cases, but nonetheless, to chart an object's exact course through space, we must chart every other object's course. It doesn't take many objects to make that an impossible task!

Personally, I think most scientists and philosophers -- and, more broadly, science and philosophy, generally -- are lacking absolutely crucial concepts and terms for comprehending our real cosmos, our actual world. Some of the most crucially important insights about real, true nature are -- at best -- incipient and inarticulate. We tend either not to have the insights or not to know how to express them effectively.

Interbeing is a great example. Ecologists and systems scientists (and chaos and complexity theorists / scientists) have been astutely, articulately aware of interbeing for a long while now -- many decades. It is a scientific fact. But it is a fact we tend to know only in a kind of Flatland way -- for we have no idea how to express some of its aspects. Those aspects allude our language, our conventional concepts, our cosmic world view.

Only a few poets, nuts and mystics are exploring the possiblity of expression. Science lags far behind.

Nevertheless -- This:

"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image." –Alan Watts

.. on Indra's Net

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra's_net
 
A single human is also a vast community ... many individual cells working together. So each human is in turn a single cell in a vast organism called life on Earth. Much like ants and bees have colonies, right?
 
A single human is also a vast community ... many individual cells working together. So each human is in turn a single cell in a vast organism called life on Earth. Much like ants and bees have colonies, right?

I once attended a talk/conference by the late Brugh Joy and he said that it's possible our planet is just part of the ejaculate of some larger being, and we would never know. I'll never forget that comment!
 
Broadly there are friends I may go to events with or play cards with; but those kinds of friendships tend to be ephemeral.

In my world I would not consider those people friends, they would be "acquaintances".

For the other kind, I want a high level of emotional intimacy, generally I know when that happens by what I'm willing to tell them about myself.

Friends, I invite into my home, my life and my mind. I would disrupt my plans to help them in a time of need. I don't phrase my feeling and intimacy for them as "love" although I accept that is a way some people use the word.
 
In my world I would not consider those people friends, they would be "acquaintances".

Personally, I find our English language somewhat deficient here, as English appears not to have a word to distinguish those people who are more than mere "acquaintances" yet not quite yet a "friend". This often has the consequence of our cheapening the word "friend" so as not to offend folks who are in this midway position, being neither one or the other, quite.
 
Back
Top