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Seminar in Taipei Explores the Dimensions of Love
Written by UPF - Taiwan
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Taipei, Taiwan - The final seminar of the year on Rev. Sun Myung Moon's thought, on October 30, explored the theme “Full Dimensional Characteristic of Unification Thought.” The 146 participants included members of the Professors World Peace Academy, Ambassadors for Peace, and people of various religious backgrounds. The seminar concluded with a presentation of Ambassador for Peace certificates.
Held in Taipei every two months beginning in May, these four seminars featured a wide range of insights into the Chinese edition of As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen, the autobiography of UPF Founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon, after its publication in January 2011 in Taiwan.
Dr. Chin-yuh Chang, founding president of UPF-Taiwan, spoke on the topic “A Full Dimensional Global Peace-Loving Citizen.” He presented an in-depth perspective on the thought and mission of Rev. Moon. He described how Rev. Moon received divine guidance in an era full of uncertainty, which led to his compassion for humankind and shaped his character. His family education provided him with an environment that developed his capacity to relate with other people and with nature. He explained that Rev. Moon emphasizes the importance of the family as the foundation of all relationships, leading to an understanding of one human family and the world as one united body. Therefore, love is the fountain of all goodness, and genuine peace can only come with true love.
Dr. Chang listed some of Rev. Moon's pioneering peace initiatives. He described his unique approach as aggressively promoting peace rather than just passively advocating the end of war. The peace movements launched by Rev. Moon integrate interreligious and international approaches and have among their goals the renewal of the United Nations.
He concluded that for people of all nationalities, the spiritual and cultural dimensions of life are of greater value than mere material pursuits. The family is the foundation of a nation; peace prevails in a nation when its people live altruistically and when harmony reigns in its families. The ideal society is grounded in altruism, as promoted by Rev. Moon. Also, we learn from Rev. Moon's life course that unity between the human and the divine is complemented by unity with nature and oneness between mind and body.
The second speaker, Dr. Hsu Hui Chen of the International Educational Foundation, spoke on the topic of “Philosophy of Love,” which she summarized in two important concepts: “love consists of spiritual aspects” and “love needs a higher subject partner.”
Love is not just emotional but is a comprehensive spiritual interaction which involves one's intellect, emotion, and will. Furthermore, since intellect and will can be strengthened and guided, hence love can also be upgraded through education; emotion, however, arises from one's internal nature and cannot be forced. Since emotion is the most important dimension of love, the process of upgrading love cannot bypass emotion. Love is the fundamental motivation for intellect, emotion, and will; is the core of truth, beauty, and goodness; and affects the emotions of joy, anger, sadness, and happiness. Love is the basic element in life and the essence of human spirituality.
To develop, love needs a perfect subject partner to provide an example and precept; this is known as “Heaven” in Confucianism and “God” in Christianity. Our relationship with Heaven or God should be like the relationship between children and parents. Children look up to their parents and imitate their parents until they grow to maturity. This is reflected in the injunction to aim at absolute perfection until one becomes a saint in the philosophy of Confucianism and to become perfect as God is perfect in the teaching of Christianity.
Heaven has the internal characteristic of selflessness and external characteristic of law and order; therefore, human love also consists of selfless emotion and is regulated by norms. Confucian ethics is based on the harmonization of yin and yang; unfortunately, it did not include the realms of heart or emotion of heaven within its principles. Christianity emphasized the heart or emotion of God but did not clarify the law of harmonious interaction. In other words, the description of the selfless love of God is a strong point of Christianity, and the description of the laws of harmonious interaction is a great virtue of Confucianism. According to Unification Thought, these two aspects are complementary.
After the presentations, participants responded with a variety of insights from their religious and philosophical points of view. The program closed with the appointment of new Ambassadors for Peace
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