How would
Buddha love? ...Lama Surya Das
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/121/story_12129_1.html
"If one's thoughts towards spirituality
were of the same intensity as those towards love,
one would become a Buddha
in this very body, in this very life."
--from the Love Poems of the Sixth Dalai Lama
Valentine's Day is one of my favorite American holidays. The
fact that this heart-centered if over-commercialized day falls
around the same time as Tibetan New Year reminds me to make new
year's resolutions relating to those I love and renew my commitment
to cultivating goodness of heart. These resolutions usually involve
opening my heart and mind; listening better; learning to forgive
and to love even those I don't like; and coming to accept and bless
the world, rather than fighting with it or trying to escape from
it. As Zen Master Dogen says: "To study the Buddha Way is to be
intimate with all things."
Some say we are here in this world to learn and to evolve in
consciousness. Certainly primary among life's lessons is how to
love and to love well, and to BE love, as well to give and receive
it. I believe love is central to happiness, growth and
fulfillment.
How would Buddha love? By seeing every single being, human and
otherwise, as fundamentally like himself, and thus able to treat
them and love them in the way he would be treated. We call this
infinitely benevolent, selfless love, Bodhicitta or the Awakened
Heart, the very spirit of enlightenment.
One can find this taught beautifully in the "Loving-kindness
Sutra"; in Shantideva's classic "The Way of the Bodhisattva"; in
Atisha's "Mind Training and Attitude Transformation"; and in
Togmed's "Thirty Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas"... As well as in
the Old Testament.
Each relationship and every single encounter can be a vehicle
for meaningful spiritual connection, through the transformative
magic of Bodhicitta. Buddha taught that this Bodhicitta or
spiritual love has four active arms, known as the Four Boundless
Heartitudes, and four expressive faces known as the Four Forms of
Compassion in action. This is how we love, Buddha-style: impartial
to all, free from excessive attachment or false hope and
expectation; accepting, tolerant, and forgiving. Buddhist
nonattachment doesn't imply complacence or indifference, or not
having committed relationships or being passionately engaged with
society, but rather has to do with our effort to defy change and
resist the fact of impermanence and our mortality. By holding on to
that which in any case is forever slipping through our fingers, we
just get rope burn.
Buddhist love is based on recognizing our fundamental
interconnectedness and knowing that all beings are like ourselves
in wanting and needing happiness, safety, fulfillment, and not
wanting suffering and misery. The Dalai Lama says, "If you want to
be wisely selfish, care for others." All the happiness and virtue
in this world comes from selflessness and generosity, all the
sorrow from egotism, selfishness, and greed.
The immaculate image of Buddhist love is the four-armed
Avalokitsevara, known as Chenrayzig in Tibet and Kuan Yin in China.
Each of his/her four arms represent one of the Four Boundless
Attitudes, and each one of her four radiant faces or aspects -
peaceful, magnetizing, powerful, and fierce-express one of the four
styles or modes of active compassion.
We might, for example, think of Buddhist spirituality as
peace-loving, calm, virtuous and nonviolent; but in the case of a
child or a pet running into the street, the active sides of
compassion's calm heart spontaneously blaze forth, even as the
loving center remains unchanged. Thus, the selfless Bodhisattva
could possibly use force for the greater good, to protect, or to
prevent harm and so forth, and need not be passive in the face of
danger or when there is need for skillful, appropriate action.
The first arm of Buddhist love is maitri or lovingkindness, a
boundless feeling of friendliness and wishing well for others.
Maitri, or metta in the Pali language, implies friendliness:
befriending and accepting yourself, your body and mind, and the
world.
The second is karuna, or compassion, empathy, being moved by
feeling what others feel. The third arm is upeksha, equanimity,
recognizing the equality of all that lives. This recognition leads
to the wisdom of detachment but not indifference or complacence,
which are its near enemies.
The fourth arm is mudita, spiritual joy and satisfaction. This
includes rejoicing in the virtue and success of others, -- the
antidote to envy and jealousy.
The essence of Buddhist relationship is to cultivate the
cling-free relationship, enriched with caring and equanimity. It is
helpful in intimate relationships to communicate honestly, stay
present, tell the truth of your experience using I-statements
rather than accusations and judgments, and honor the other enough
to show up with an open heart and mind and really listen.
Passion becomes compassion when we bring it into the path, when
we recognize every moment in life as a possibility of awakening.
Human love and sexual consummation can be like the tip of the
iceberg of divine love, an ecstatic intimation of eternity, a
portal to infinite depths of the groundlessness and
boundarylessness that transports us beyond our limited, egoic
selves. People often ask me how to find their Soul Mate, or even if
I believe in such a concept. I think that rather than focusing on
past lives or on finding the perfect mate in this world, we would
generally do better to work on improving and developing ourselves.
Make yourself the "perfect" mate, without being too perfectionistic
about it, and you will be a good mate with almost anyone. When your
heart is pure, your life and the entire world is pure.
We all feel the desire to possess and be possessed, to love and
be loved, to connect and be embraced and to belong. However, I
think that the most important thing in being together is the
tenderness of a good heart. If our relationships aren't nurturing
the growth and development of goodness of heart, openness,
generosity, authenticity and intimate connection, they are not
serving us or furthering a better world.
To truly love people I have learned that I need to let them be,
and to love and accept and appreciate them as they are (free of my
projections and illusions) and not as how I would like them to be.
This is equally true for loving and accepting oneself.
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana writes, in his "Eight Mindful Steps
to Happiness: "Whatever attitudes we habitually use toward
ourselves, we will use on others, and whatever attitudes we
habitually use toward others, we will use on ourselves. The
situation is comparable to our serving food to ourselves and to
other people from the same bowl. Everyone ends up eating the same
thing--we must examine carefully what we are dishing out."
I notice that children let go of anger and would rather be happy
than right, unlike so many of us adults. Like them, my dog reminds
me that love is a verb, not a noun. Staying present in this very
moment, through mindful awareness and paying attention to what is--
rather than dwelling on the past or the future, or on who I think I
am and who I imagine others are-- helps free me from excess
baggage, anxiety and neurosis - and opens me to love.