Close and far enemies

Piet Mondrian, Composition in Color A, 1917

Yesterday I recounted Thubten Chodron's chapter on The Four Immeasurables and how it was immediately relevant to me.

There's something else that was interesting in the chapter.  Buddhism often seems psychologically insightful to me.  This chapter, which is Chodron's lay telling of Buddhist teaching on this subject, is no different.

Each of the Four Immeasurables has a "close enemy," which appears to be that quality but is a distorition of it, and a "far enemy," which is its opposite and needs to be counteracted.

The close enemy of love is clinging attachment or possessive love for another person. This emotion appears to be love in that it is attracted to another person, but clinging and self-centeredness corrupt it. We remedy this by reflecting that it is our mind that has exaggerated that person's good qualities or projected good qualities that aren't' there and then clung to this person, mistakenly thinking that they are the objective source of our happiness.  Ill will and hatred are the far enemies of lobe and are counteracted by cultivating patience and fortitude and by wishing others to have happiness and its causes.

In terms of equanimity, that I wrote about yesterday...

Indifference, apathy and uncaring are the close enemies of equanimity. We have to be especially careful not to slide into these by misunderstanding the meaning of equanimity and closing our heart. Equanimity is open-hearted care and concern felt equally towards all being, without being biased towards one person and against another.  Attachment, anger, and partiality are the far enemies of equanimity.