Contents
The legendary teacher of Zen Buddhism Thich Nhat Khan said that to love means first of all to understand another person.
About a big heart
If you dissolve a handful of salt in a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour this salt into the river, it will still be possible to take water from it for cooking, washing and drinking. The river is vast and has the capacity to receive, embrace and transform.
If the heart is small, then the ability to understand and empathize is limited, and we suffer. We cannot accept the imperfection of others and demand that they change. But when our hearts get bigger, the same things no longer make us suffer. We have a lot of understanding and empathy, and we can open our arms to others. We accept them as they are, and then they have a chance to change.
About non-existent borders
In a truly deep relationship, the boundary between you and the other person disappears. He is you and you are him. Your suffering is his suffering. When you become aware of your own suffering, you help your loved one suffer less. Suffering and happiness no longer appear to you as singular concepts. What happens to your loved one happens to you.
You Can’t Offer Happiness to Someone Until You Experience It Yourself
What happens to you happens to your loved one. In true love, there is no more separation or discrimination. His happiness is your happiness. Your suffering is his suffering. You can’t say «That’s your problem» anymore.
About the essence of love
The essence of deep love is to be able to offer happiness. You can become a beacon of light for another person. It is impossible to offer happiness to someone until you experience it yourself. So build a cozy home within yourself by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Practice mindfulness to create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment.
Then you will have something to offer the other person. As we nourish and maintain our own happiness, we are grooming our ability to love. This is why to love means to master the art of nourishing your happiness. If you have enough understanding and love, then every minute — whether you spend it preparing breakfast, driving a car, watering the garden, or doing any other thing during the day — can be a minute of joy.
Understanding the suffering of others is the best gift you can give to another. Understanding is another name for love. If you don’t understand, you cannot love.
About how to love
Often we fall in love not because we truly love and understand the object of our passion, but to distract ourselves from our own suffering — life’s troubles, unpleasant emotions. When we learn to love and understand ourselves and truly have compassion for ourselves, then we can truly love and understand another person.
To love without realizing how we love is to hurt the loved one. To know how to love, we must understand the other. To understand, you need to listen.
The more you understand, the more you love. The more you love, the more you understand
If you love, you must be able to bring relief to the loved one in his suffering. This is art. If you do not understand the roots of his suffering, you cannot help, just as a doctor cannot cure your illness if he does not know its cause. You need to understand the cause of your loved one’s suffering in order to bring relief.
The more you understand, the more you love. The more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of the same reality. The ability to understand and the ability to love are one and the same thing.
About the relationship between lovers
Often, when we say “I love you”, we emphasize the “I” that loves, and do not think about the very love that we offer — how deep it is. All because we are in captivity of our ego. We consider ourselves to be something separate, but there is no such thing as a separate «I».
A flower is composed entirely of non-floral elements such as chlorophyll, sunlight, and water. If you remove all non-floral elements from a flower, nothing remains of it. The flower could not by itself. A flower can only be with us, in an «event» or interconnected being. So is a person.
We cannot exist on our own. We can only live in interconnected being. I consist only of the elements of the non-self, such as earth, sun, parents and ancestors. In a relationship, if you are able to see the nature of the interconnected being between you and your loved one, you feel that his suffering is your own suffering and your happiness is his happiness. With this vision of love, you speak and act differently. This in itself can relieve a lot of suffering.
Source: Brainpickings.