Thích Nhất Hạnh - How to love

CONTENTS

HEART LIKE A RIVER

If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We cant accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things dont make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform. So the big question is: how do we help our hearts to grow?

FEEDING OUR LOVE

Each of us can learn the art of nourishing happiness and love. Everything needs food to live, even love. If we dont know how to nourish our love, it withers. When we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love. Thats why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our happiness.

UNDERSTANDING IS THE NATURE OF LOVE

Understanding someones suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is loves other name. If you dont understand, you cant love.

RECOGNIZING TRUE LOVE

True love gives us beauty, freshness, solidity, freedom, and peace. True love includes a feeling of deep joy that we are alive. If we dont feel this way when we feel love, then its not true love.

REVERENCE IS THE NATURE OF OUR LOVE

Theres a tradition in Asia of treating your partner with the respect you would accord a guest. This is true even if you have been with your loved one for a long time. The other person always deserves your full respect. Reverence is the nature of our love.

LOVE IS EXPANSIVE

In the beginning of a relationship, your love may include only you and the other person. But if you practice true love, very soon that love will grow and include all of us. The moment love stops growing, it begins to die. Its like a tree; if a tree stops growing, it begins to die. We can learn how to feed our love and help it continue to grow.

LOVE IS ORGANIC

Love is a living, breathing thing. There is no need to force it to grow in a particular direction. If we start by being easy and gentle with ourselves, we will find it is just there inside of us, solid and healing.

DISTRACTIONS

Often, we get crushes on others not because we truly love and understand them, but to distract ourselves from our suffering. When we learn to love and understand ourselves and have true compassion for ourselves, then we can truly love and understand another person.

THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF TRUE LOVE

True love is made of four elements: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In Sanskrit, these are, maitri, karuna, mudita, and upeksha. If your love contains these elements, it will be healing and transforming, and it will have the element of holiness in it. True love has the power to heal and transform any situation and bring deep meaning to our lives.

LOVING KINDNESS

The first element of true love is loving kindness. The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. You can be the sunshine for another person. You cant offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person.

COMPASSION

The second element of true love is compassion. Compassion is the capacity to understand the suffering in oneself and in the other person. If you understand your own suffering, you can help him to understand his suffering. Understanding suffering brings compassion and relief. You can transform your own suffering and help transform the suffering of the other person with the practice of mindfulness and looking deeply.

JOY

The third element of true love is the capacity to offer joy. When you know how to generate joy, it nourishes you and nourishes the other person. Your presence is an offering, like fresh air, or spring flowers, or the bright blue sky.

EQUANIMITY

The fourth element of true love is equanimity. We can also call it inclusivesness or nondiscrimination. In a deep relationship, theres no longer a boundary between you and the other person. You are her and she is you. Your suffering is her suffering. Your understanding of your own suffering helps your loved one to suffer less. Suffering and happiness are no longer individual matters. What happens to your loved one happens to you. What happens to you happens to your loved one.

RESPECT AND TRUST

Along with the traditional four elements of true loveloving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimitythere are two more elements: respect and trust. These elements can be found in the four, but it helps to mention their names. When you love someone, you have to have trust and confidence. Love without trust is not yet love. Of course, first you have to have trust, respect, and confidence in yourself. Trust that you have a good and compassionate nature. You are part of the universe; you are made of stars. When you look at your loved one, you see that he is also made of stars and carries eternity inside. Looking in this way, we naturally feel reverence. True love cannot be without trust and respect for oneself and for the other person.

BE BEAUTIFUL, BE YOURSELF

If you can accept your body, then you have a chance to see your body as your home. You can rest in your body, settle in, relax, and feel joy and ease. If you dont accept your body and your mind, you cant be at home with yourself. You have to accept yourself as you are. This is a very important practice. As you practice building a home in yourself, you become more and more beautiful.