If we truly love those closest to us and all beings throughout the world, wouldn’t that mean that we would do whatever we can to avoid causing them to suffer? Unfortunately, few among us are perfect, so we make mistakes from time to time that hurt those closest to us. We need to take seriously the imperative to avoid these mistakes because some of them are so grave that they can deal a fatal blow to our relationships. We make those mistakes because of ignorance, habit or personal weakness so the way to avoid them is to reduce those qualities in the mind.
When we endeavor to practice insight meditation, we are endeavoring to reduce the defilements of the mind, greed, anger and delusion that are the ultimate source of all the suffering caused by human beings in the world. When those defilements have been reduced, we will have more consideration for other people’s feelings, be less prone to bad habits and less susceptible to temptation. Insight meditation makes us less likely to harm others and is therefore the ultimate expression of love to the world.