How to Love

“Nothing is mysterious, no human relation. Except love.” Susan Santog

Doubt anybody would debate that one. You can still parse, decipher, identify, slot and understand all other emotions, but when it comes to the most elemental of emotions, there seems to be that one part which is just beyond.... that defies rationalization.

Sure, there's folks who'll define, believe, don't believe, explain... in terms of fondness, affection, freedom, trust, attraction, lust, vibes.....and I guess it would be all of that, plus more. It's not for nothing that 'what is love' is a most searched for phrase on Google :) (zeitgeist data)

So let's not go to the What of it....will bow to acceptance there.  Let's embrace the mystery. 

Let's instead look at the How of it, and that's where I really liked what Thich Nhat Hanh says when he talks of 'How to Love' in terms of mastering the art on InterBeing:

“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.” Thich Nhat Hanh

                                               

To receive his teachings one must make an active commitment not to succumb to the modern pathology of cynicism... our flawed self-protection mechanism that readily dismisses anything sincere and true as simplistic or naïve, even if, or precisely because, we know that all real truth and sincerity are simple by virtue of being true and sincere.

Nhat Hanh says, the question becomes how to grow our own hearts, which begins with a commitment to understand and bear witness to our own suffering:(suffering here not in the typical dramatic sense, but in the Buddhist sense of life's ordeals or livings)

When we feed and support our own happiness, 

we are nourishing our ability to love. 

That’s why to love means to learn 

the art of nourishing our happiness.

He points out the crucial difference between infatuation, which replaces any real understanding of the other with a fantasy of who he or she can be for us, and true love:

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.

Real, truthful love, he argues, is rooted in four elements — loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity — fostering which lends love “the element of holiness.” 

The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. You can be the sunshine for another person. You can’t 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.

If you have enough understanding and love, then every moment — whether it’s spent making breakfast, driving the car, watering the garden, or doing anything else in your day — can be a moment of joy.

This interrelatedness of self and other is manifested in the fourth element as well, equanimity, the Sanskrit word for which — upeksha — is also translated as “inclusiveness” and “nondiscrimination”:

In a deep relationship, there’s no longer a boundary between you and the other person. You are her and she is you. Your suffering is her suffering.  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. You can no longer say, “That’s your problem.”

Supplementing the four core elements are also the subsidiary elements of trust and respect, the currency of love’s deep mutuality:

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.

To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love. To know how to love someone, we have to understand them. To understand, we need to listen.

The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of one reality. The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same.

What I heard yet again: Mindfulness. Mindfulness to enable Deep Listening........ Listening to the self and Listening to the other