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We know that we are limited beings,
we know that we are going to die, and that those who we love
might also, all of a sudden, die.
And so rises the issue of knowing
the kind of relation we want to have with those we love
and might die from one day to another.
There are 3 ways of seeing the loss of a loved being:
if we are Christian, for example,
we can think we will meet again
the ones we love, after death.
That’s the promise Christ makes us, and I remind of the episode of Lazarus death,
that says that love is stronger than death and
we will meet again after the death of the ones we love.
You can also follow the Buddhist tradition,
or Stoic, in the end really similar,
that says the following:
we should never attach
to beings, nor to things,
because when we attach,
we are subjected to the greatest of sufferings.
Those who passionately love someone
and attach to them
is in risk, all of the time,
of losing the bonds that connect them to the loved being
and become terribly miserable.
For example, the wise Buddhist is the one that practices compassion,
but who never attaches.
That’s what the Buddhists call renouncing.
We shouldn’t attach because
when we do,
it’s madness, because we’re doomed, obviously, to separation.
If you’re not Christian or Buddhist,
the issue that rises is how to live
with the ones we love, and who will die,
or us, who will also die.
I believe that there is
something really deep in that, which is what I call “wisdom of love”.
What makes us love if we are finite?
To give a small example of what wisdom of love can be:
I think it’s convenient to reconcile with our parents
before they die. All of us have issues with our parents.
If we don’t reconcile with them before they die,
it will be too late.
This is the kind of principle I’d like to think of
for the term "wisdom of love".
It seems to me something derived from
what I call, alongside with André Comte-Sponville,
wisdom of the modern, a lay spirituality.
An appropriation of the great spiritual and existential issues,
but one that takes place outside moral
and according to great religions, be it Buddhism or Christianity,
as in the example I just gave.