Superior “Love”
In the Symposium, eros is considered as the love between boys and men, while the true friendship is wishing for the well-being of others in the Nicomachean Ethics and the compassion is a strong feeling to sharing the pain of the whole world in The Heart of Understanding. Considering love to be a strong feeling of affection, eros, the true friendship and compassion can all be described as “love”. Love can be explored from 3 dimensions, the reason for love, the form of expression of love and the breadth of love. From the three dimensions, I will argue the compassion is the superior love among the three “love”.
The reason for love means why you love, for your own benefit or for others. And for others is greater than for oneself. The reasons for eros mostly are for personal consideration no matter for boys or men. For the love of boys, Pausanias mentioned in the Symposium: “In consequence, those inspired by this love turn to the male, attracted by what is naturally stronger and of superior …show more content…
However, the pain of the whole world is far more bigger. How can you share the pain of the whole world through inter-being? Take the young prostitutes as example again. In The Heart of Understanding, the prostitutes can be free from her suffering by seeing with the eye of inter-being and understanding the pain comes from the whole world (34-35). At the same time, “if we look into ourselves and see her, we bear her pain, and the pain of the whole world” (38). By looking ourselves with the mind of inter-being, we become one small part of the same subject (the whole world) and therefore sharing the pain that the subject brings. It can be said that one gives up his own existence (life), and considering himself being a part of the whole world. And this behavior just like sacrificing life in the spirit level, is also important compared with sacrificing life in the physical level as what lovers
In the Symposium, eros is considered as the love between boys and men, while the true friendship is wishing for the well-being of others in the Nicomachean Ethics and the compassion is a strong feeling to sharing the pain of the whole world in The Heart of Understanding. Considering love to be a strong feeling of affection, eros, the true friendship and compassion can all be described as “love”. Love can be explored from 3 dimensions, the reason for love, the form of expression of love and the breadth of love. From the three dimensions, I will argue the compassion is the superior love among the three “love”.
The reason for love means why you love, for your own benefit or for others. And for others is greater than for oneself. The reasons for eros mostly are for personal consideration no matter for boys or men. For the love of boys, Pausanias mentioned in the Symposium: “In consequence, those inspired by this love turn to the male, attracted by what is naturally stronger and of superior …show more content…
However, the pain of the whole world is far more bigger. How can you share the pain of the whole world through inter-being? Take the young prostitutes as example again. In The Heart of Understanding, the prostitutes can be free from her suffering by seeing with the eye of inter-being and understanding the pain comes from the whole world (34-35). At the same time, “if we look into ourselves and see her, we bear her pain, and the pain of the whole world” (38). By looking ourselves with the mind of inter-being, we become one small part of the same subject (the whole world) and therefore sharing the pain that the subject brings. It can be said that one gives up his own existence (life), and considering himself being a part of the whole world. And this behavior just like sacrificing life in the spirit level, is also important compared with sacrificing life in the physical level as what lovers