Ai

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Ai.
1. Love in Mo Tzu's system, usually in the form chien ai, universal love. Universal love is in a different category from jen, being more related to utilitarian considerations: altruism has benefits running in both directions.

2. In Japanese Buddhism, ai (lust as well as love) is fundamental desire which may go in either of two opposite directions. It may become self-interested and self-satisfying, or, it may be self-denying and disinterested in the pursuit of the good of another, and is thus supremely the love of a buddha or bodhisattva, a transfigured love.

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