It is my experience that the ability to be all-embracing, (what
the classical daoists called "rong"), is spontaneously generated when a
person realizes her own total and immutable innocence. In this
realization one senses that there is no fundamental sin, and that there
never has been any. Apparently everything has been made precisely to
work as it could best be done, by
whatever power created this world of experience that surrounds us: the
things of this world are made so that they work well for us at times,
and also functionally designed such that they fail miserably for us at
other times. Gain and loss are the animators of this world. Without
gain and loss nothing could move.
Despite what some
folks think, the realization of immutable innocence does not entail
antinomianism (capriciously doing anything one can and desires to do).
This is because love, the most self-beneficial thing I can engage in,
requires a trusting intimacy. I cannot get close to you if I am only
focused on meeting my own self-limiting desires. What is in my interest
is of a much wider scope than what I am able to imagine.
Immutable innocence means that whatever I do and have done, no matter
whether it has caused healing or injury to others, I sense that it was
the best I was capable of doing at the time, given my scant
understanding of what I thought was in my best interest at that time.
When I have gained enough wisdom, I will realize that what is most often
in your best self-interest is also in my best self-interest.
If we realize our immutable innocence, if we love ourselves as
unconditionally as we are able, our love will flood forth from our
hearts effortlessly, saturating each of the moments in which we
encounter another being. Loving ourselves unconditionally allows us to
love all others unconditionally. That does not mean I will not hurt you
if I think that you are needlessly hurting someone else. It does mean
that I will love you no matter what you do.
“Your preciousness lies in your essence; it cannot be lost by anything that happens.” Zhuangzi Chapter 21
When I understand that, I will be free. At that moment there will be no one who I will not love.
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