Thich Nhat Hanh: True Love

@1tm122n22m Atma Unum

True love encompasses loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness. It’s about understanding and being there for each other, fostering genuine connections. 💖🌈 #TrueLove #Compassion #Mindfulness #Joy #Inclusiveness https://wp.me/p3JLEZ-7uh

True love transcends boundaries, weaving a tapestry of understanding, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness that enriches our lives and the lives of those around us. We invite you to delve into the depths of this profound concept, exploring how practicing these four elements can transform your relationships and foster genuine connections. Embrace the opportunity to cultivate true love within yourself and extend it to others, creating a ripple effect that can bring happiness, healing, and unity to our world. Join us on this journey towards a more compassionate, fulfilling life!

In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of love in terms of true love, in terms of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, or non-discrimination, inclusiveness. In order to really understand compassion, you should understand also the three other elements of true love.

I. Maitri, loving-kindness

The first element of true love is loving-kindness, maitri.

It has the power to offer happiness. If love cannot offer happiness, it’s not true love. Your true love offers you happiness, and offers him or her happiness.

It’s not the willingness to offer happiness, because if you don’t understand the other person, the more you try to make him happy, the more you make him suffer. So understanding him, understanding her suffering and need, before you can practice loving-kindness, maitri.

In Asia, there is a fruit called durian. Many people crave for it, but for me, I cannot eat it. Then you say: “–Dear Thay, you work so hard, you should eat some durian.” Then you make me suffer by loving me.

So we should understand the other person in order to really make him happy. That is why understanding is the other word for love, for compassion. That is why we should ask our partner: “—Darling, do you think I understand you enough? If I don’t understand you enough, please help me.”

So maitri, loving-kindness, is not just the willingness to make a person happy, but the capacity to make him or her happy. That requires understanding.

Understanding requires time in order to look deeply.

II. Karuna, compassion

Then the second element is compassion, which is karuna. In Greek, compassion is called maha karuna.

Compassion has the power to remove the pain, the suffering. If your love cannot make the other person suffer less, it’s not true love. You have to understand his suffering, her despair, in order to help him or her suffer less.

That is why you need to have the time to look and to listen. Understanding will create love and happiness. The practice is that you have to apply that for yourself.

You have to be able to offer you happiness and compassion. Do we have enough compassion towards our body, our feelings? Do we know how to handle our body to make it suffer less? Do we know how to handle our feelings so that we can help calm down our feelings and emotions? That is self-love. The capacity to love another person relies entirely on your capacity to love yourself and take care of yourself.

That is true with compassion.

III. Mudita, joy

And the third is joy, mudita. If by loving you make the other person cry every day, that is not true love.

So you create joy for yourself and for the other person. There are many practical ways to create joy without having to go to the market and buy something to offer him or her. Suppose you breathe mindfully, and you bring your mind home to your body, you become fresh and pleasant, and you go to her and you say: “–Darling, you know something? I am here for you.”

How can you love if you are not there? To love means to be there. To be there for the person you love. If you are so busy in your work, you are so busy making money, then you have no time for yourself and for your beloved one.

That is why mindful breathing, mindful walking, to bring your mind home to your body, and to be relaxed, fresh, and loving, and to pronounce a mantra: “-Darling, I am here for you.” That is to bring joy for yourself and for the other person. When you are truly there and offer your presence to him or to her, you have a chance to acknowledge the presence of the other person as something very precious to you.

That is why you can pronounce the second mantra: “-Darling, I know you are there, and I am so happy.” To be loved means to be recognized as existing. If you drive your car and you think of everything else except the person sitting next to you, she cannot be happy at all.

So while driving, you use your mindfulness to embrace her and you say: “-Darling, you know something? Darling, I know you are there next to me. I am so happy.” So that very simple practice, like that, practices of mindfulness that can bring joy.

If he is in the office, you can practice the mantra on your telephone or send him an email with the content: “-Darling, I know you are there, and I am very happy.” That is why creating joy is true love.

IV. Inclusiveness

The fourth element is inclusiveness.

We cannot understand compassion deeply without understanding the fourth aspect of true love. In true love, there is no discrimination anymore between the lover and the beloved one. You cannot say: “-Darling, that is your problem.”

In true love, your problem is my problem. Your happiness is my happiness. My suffering is your suffering.

There is no longer any frontier. Inclusiveness. In true love, happiness and suffering are no longer individual matters.

If you continue to love like that, you begin to embrace all of us into your love. Because these four elements of true love are called the four unlimited minds. There can never be enough.

You begin with one person, and then if you follow the path of true love, your heart will open, open, open, and you will embrace all of us inside. And that is true love. It is the kind of love that can enlarge your heart without stopping.

One day, the Buddha was holding a glass, a bowl of water in his left hand. He was holding a handful of salt in the right hand, and he poured the salt into the water and he stirred. And he asked the monks: “-My dear friends, Do you think that you can drink that water? It is so salty.”

But if you throw that amount of water into a big river, it will not make the river salty at all. And thousands of people continue to drink the water in the river. So with someone who has a great heart, a big heart, a lot of compassion, they don’t suffer anymore.

The things that make other people suffer do not make them suffer. It’s like one handful of salt can make salty the bowl of water, but cannot make the whole big river suffer at all. So the four brahmavihara, the four elements of true love are unlimited.

Because by loving in that kind of way, one day you will embrace all of us in your heart. You love not only humans, but animals, plants, and minerals. Because minerals are alive also. Minerals can suffer. And that is the love recommended by the Buddha, the love without frontier, without discrimination. And the fourth element of true love is inclusiveness.

No discrimination whatsoever. Black or white, north or south, rich or poor, are all objects of your love. And when you have that kind of love, you don’t suffer anymore.

And you are in a situation to help many people. And that is why all of us who want to serve our society, we should cultivate true love. With true love, we are nourished, we are strong enough.

And if we know how to build a community of love, a love community, a compassionate community, then we will be powerful enough to make change in our society.

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