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Loving your enemies is a radical act of courage

“When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

September 2025

Compassion gets trampled and kicked to the curb in an algorithmic world, but I believe it is the medicine we need to carry us through the wild and divisive time we live in.

Many of us want the world to change; we want to change the world. We make choices to fight against forces that we deem to be dark, evil, or harmful. And if we encounter someone who believes something that we view as harmful, it’s common to cast them out and create a separation, labeling them as “other” in our minds and hearts.

Yet most of us have a friend, an uncle, or a co-worker with views on the world that vastly contradict our own. We might live among them and even love them or enjoy their wacky company in some strange way. They’re part of our lives and come over for Christmas.

Closing other people off only widens the gap between us. Anger has a way of rushing through that can feel quite natural, and even energizing at times, while compassion takes more intention and courage.

Celebrated spiritual leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t advocate for violence. They knew that love—if embodied, practiced, and extended to all people—is what has the power to create peace in this world.

On November 17, 1957, at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his Love Your Enemies speech. He was 28 years old.

“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.”

Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them.

And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.”

Loving your enemies is a radical act.

It’s looking your enemies in the eyes and seeing their pain, appreciating their unique journey to this moment. It is acknowledging that despite coming from different families, different towns, different countries, different political affiliations, and different cultural norms, your enemy is still a human being that feels pain and suffers all the same.

As I listened to Martin Luther King’s speech, it brought me back to the value of love as a practice. In Buddhism, Metta (lovingkindness) is the first of the four Brahmavihāras (literally, the four sublime abodes), which are foundational heart practices on the meditation path. In Metta, we practice cultivating a boundless love and kindness toward ourselves and all beings.

The other three Brahmavihāras are:

Metta practice doesn’t involve drawing lines between us. **All beings are included—**from ourselves and our families to the most polarizing figures in our modern world.

Metta can help us open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in our full awareness, with all of its pleasure, pain, beauty, and suffering.

*For those interested, here is a 10-minute guided Metta practice from Sharon Salzberg, a renowned teacher of mindfulness and Metta.

There is always room for empathy and compassion.

When we take the time to tap into the latent power of the heart, we see that it has the capacity to hold it all. Nothing is outside the bounds of an open heart’s love, and I believe that this endless reservoir of love dwells within us all.

Loving your enemies is an unconditional act that takes great courage. If we don’t choose to practice it collectively and find the courage within ourselves to hold love as a core value, the world of retribution continues. As long as there are winners and losers in cultural battles, religious wars, or otherwise, the cycle of violence will continue.

Evil ideas don’t die when you thrust a knife into them. Violence only feeds and amplifies whatever it aims to stop.

We are all brothers and sisters sharing a spherical rock that’s careening through space. We are all facing some flavor of pain in our lives. We all carry wounds from our childhood. We’re all trying to make sense of an increasingly chaotic and unpredictable world.

Love doesn’t ask what your political affiliation is before it is offered. Love doesn’t require agreement.

Let’s not forget where we come from. Let’s not forget that blood seeps into the soil and leeches into our food. Victory doesn’t nourish us the way we think it does. The mammalian brain is wired for hard-fought survival in a modern world that is on its knees, praying for collaboration and understanding.

Love your enemies. I can’t think of a more courageous act.