Thich Nhat Hanh - True Love, A Practice for Awakening the Heart

TRUE LOVE

A Practice for Awakening the Heart

THICH NHAT HANH

Translated by

Sherab Chdzin Kohn

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2011

SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Horticultural Hall

Shambhala Publications

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

1997 by Unified Buddhist Church, Inc.

Originally published in French under the title Vivre en Pleine Conscience

Published by arrangement with the Unified Buddhist Church, Inc., 2496 Melru Lane, Escondido, CA 92026 USA.

Translation 2004 by Shambhala Publications

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN- P UBLICATION D ATA

Nht Hnh, Thch.

[Vivre en Pleine Conscience. English]

True love : a practice for awakening the heart / Thich Nhat Hanh;

translated by Sherab Chdzin Kohn.1st Shambhala ed.

p. cm.

In English; translated from French.

Originally published: Vivre en Pleine Conscience. Editions Terre du Ciel, 1997.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2107-1

ISBN 1-59030-188-9

1. LoveReligious aspectsBuddhism. 2. CompassionReligious aspectsBuddhism. 3. BuddhismDoctrines. I. Chdzin, Sherab.

II. Title.

BQ5359.N53 2004

294.35677dc22

2004006987

Contents

A CCORDING TO B UDDHISM, THERE ARE four elements of true love.

The first is maitri , which can be translated as loving-kindness or benevolence. Loving-kindness is not only the desire to make someone happy, to bring joy to a beloved person; it is the ability to bring joy and happiness to the person you love, because even if your intention is to love this person, your love might make him or her suffer.

Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice deep looking directed toward the person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love. That is the message of the Buddha. If a husband, for example, does not understand his wifes deepest troubles, her deepest aspirations, if he does not understand her suffering, he will not be able to love her in the right way. Without understanding, love is an impossible thing.

What must we do in order to understand a person? We must have time; we must practice looking deeply into this person. We must be there, attentive; we must observe, we must look deeply. And the fruit of this looking deeply is called understanding. Love is a true thing if it is made up of a substance called understanding.

The second element of true love is compassion, karuna . This is not only the desire to ease the pain of another person, but the ability to do so. You must practice deep looking in order to gain a good understanding of the nature of the suffering of this person, in order to be able to help him or her to change. Knowledge and understanding are always at the root of the practice. The practice of understanding is the practice of meditation. To meditate is to look deeply into the heart of things.

The third element of true love is joy, mudita . If there is no joy in love, it is not true love. If you are suffering all the time, if you cry all the time, and if you make the person you love cry, this is not really loveit is even the opposite. If there is no joy in your love, you can be sure that it is not true love.

The fourth element is upeksha , equanimity or freedom. In true love, you attain freedom. When you love, you bring freedom to the person you love. If the opposite is true, it is not true love. You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free, not only outside but also inside. Dear one, do you have enough space in your heart and all around you? This is an intelligent question for testing out whether your love is something real.

T O LOVE, IN THE CONTEXT OF B UDDHISM, IS above all to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being there is very much an art, the art of meditation, because meditating is bringing your true presence to the here and now. The question that arises is: Do you have time to love?

I know a boy of twelve whose father asked him one day: Son, what would you like for your birthday present? The boy did not know how to answer his father, who was a very rich man, able to buy anything for his son. But the boy did not want anything except his fathers presence. Because the role the father played kept him very busy, he did not have time to devote to his wife and children. Being rich is an obstacle to loving. When you are rich, you want to continue to be rich, and so you end up devoting all your time, all your energy in your daily life, to staying rich. If this father were to understand what true love is, he would do whatever is necessary to find time for his son and his wife.

The most precious gift you can give to the one you love is your true presence. What must we do to really be there? Those who have practiced Buddhist meditation know that meditating is above all being present: to yourself, to those you love, to life.

So I would propose a very simple practice to you, the practice of mindful breathing: BreathingI know that I am breathing in; breathingI know that I am breathing out. If you do that with a little concentration, then you will be able to really be there, because in our daily life our mind and our body are rarely together. Our body might be there, but our mind is somewhere else. Maybe you are lost in regrets about the past, maybe in worries about the future, or else you are preoccupied with your plans, with anger or with jealousy. And so your mind is not really there with your body.

Between the mind and the body, there is something that can serve as a bridge. The moment you begin to practice mindful breathing, your body and your mind begin to come together with one another. It takes only ten to twenty seconds to accomplish this miracle called oneness of body and mind. With mindful breathing, you can bring body and mind together in the present moment, and every one of us can do it, even a child.

The Buddha left us an absolutely essential text, the Anapanasati Sutta , or Discourse on the Practice of Mindful Breathing . If you really want to practice Buddhist meditation, you must study this text.

If the father I was talking about had known that, he would have begun to breathe in and breathe out mindfully, and then one or two minutes later, he would have approached his son, he would have looked at him with a smile, and he would have said this: My dear, I am here for you. This is the greatest gift you can give to someone you love.

In Buddhism we talk about mantras. A mantra is a magic formula that, once it is uttered, can entirely change a situation, our mind, our body, or a person. But this magic formula must be spoken in a state of concentration, that is to say, a state in which body and mind are absolutely in a state of unity. What you say then, in this state of being, becomes a mantra.

So I am going to present to you a very effective mantra, not in Sanskrit or Tibetan, but in English: Dear one, I am here for you. Perhaps this evening you will try for a few minutes to practice mindful breathing in order to bring your body and mind together. You will approach the person you love and with this mindfulness, with this concentration, you will look into his or her eyes, and you will begin to utter this formula: Dear one, I am really here for you. You must say that with your body and with your mind at the same time, and then you will see the transformation.