Striving for Totality
Love is when one thinks more of giving than receiving. It is the deep wish to become happy with someone and includes the ongoing mindset of wanting to benefit them. One is fundamentally positive and open to what is new, and thus every moment becomes rich and joyful. In the face of love, everything seems possible, beyond all limitations.
Usually love is experienced as very personal and one-of-a-kind. Though most people who are falling in love while looking at a wonderful face believe it to be a unique experience, if one takes a closer look at the feeling of being in love and the kinds of behaviors it brings forth, it becomes clear that basically similar steps and aspects are at work. When opening up to someone, one experiences a deep bond with the partner and will enjoy the resulting good mood, which radiates onto others and one’s environment as well. Once struck by love, one realizes what was always true—that happiness is greatest when shared. All things are parts of a totality. Everything is interconnected and happens in conjunction with others, and living this is blissful. Thus circles of happy people extend from loving couples. Whether they are friends or parents who bask in the relationship or neighbors who think the couple are a nice fit, all experience the benefit and may open up more readily in their own lives.
If a rich and connecting love grows, and especially if the couples’ sharing includes abstract levels beyond sentimentality, strong experiences will increasingly be seen as beyond-personal. This view breaks the tendency to waste precious time, that could be used for inner growth, with expectations and daydreams, or to become dependent on passing experiences. If one is willing to see life as a path of development, it becomes natural to share one’s good days, and what one learned from any bad ones, with others. If one can additionally avoid especially disturbing emotions, a vast and conscious space will unfold between and around one’s experiences.
Immeasurable Love
What happens during an enriching, giving love? Its basis is mutual attraction and it lives off of a joyful exchange. Both wish to give the best they can. In such cases, one is connected across time and space and whatever one brings to the table will compliment what the partner is giving, and both will learn. Because the encounter is so direct, the couple becomes richer from both of them contributing their enthusiasm, their insights, and their bodies to the relationship. This happiness-generating love, which liberates and fulfills, applies to all areas of one’s life and expresses itself in four distinct ways: effortless exchange (giving and receiving love), compassion, sympathetic joy, and unshakeable equanimity.
Buddha wished for all people to manifest these four kinds of love because they are the fuel for reaching enlightenment. Even at the beginning of one’s path, the more love one develops for all beings, the easier life becomes. One grows less vulnerable to attack and reacts more constructively to “unfairness.” Strangers and enemies are recognized for their potential, one’s circle of friends grows, and changes are accepted with more ease. Others come closer because they lean on one’s inner stability and enjoy the kind attention it produces. Touched and inspired by love, one can now be much more beneficial to all beings.
All Great Way and Diamond Way Buddhist meditations are motivated by one of these four kinds of love, also called the Four Immeasurables. Their original wordings may be slightly different but a modern understanding would be as follows:
Love
May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness
Fundamentally, people like to give. Doing something good for others and oneself is something so entirely positive and natural, that any exposure to it generates happiness. Mothers help their children, men protect their families, and partners support each other—as do neighbors and colleagues. This mutual openness and affection creates a “We” out of an “I” and “You” and lets divisive elements become increasingly marginal, which makes love richer and causes others to open. The driving motivation for this first kind of love is the mindset that one’s dear ones should experience everything good. In this instance, a couple finds each other so mutually attractive that this becomes the main experience, leading both to use body, speech, and mind to give and share joy. Of course the time spent together between sheets brings the most complete happiness because both partners share on all levels and give to one another directly. But supportive speech can also provide much value: showing people their qualities; giving continuous support, like reassurances of love; or by establishing new levels of exchange. This expands the trust within the partnership, the secure space where both partners use their power to develop new qualities that benefit themselves and others around them. The recognizable trait in this kind of love is the joy of being able to make many beings happy.
Even when long-established relationships are overrun with family, habits, and work, this must not result in a loss of closeness. Despite the daily grind, there are always moments when one can make one’s dear ones feel how consciously they are cherished: a few encouraging words before a partner sets off to face a challenging workday or personal caresses during a long drive help preserve deep bonds. If a couple chooses to maintain a joyful and close relationship with their bodies day and night, and primarily pay attention to what attracts them about their partner, then both they and their surroundings will be an oven that warms all who come near. This kind of love makes it natural to share life in a meaningful way without tightness or expectations, and to continuously experience both one another and one’s surroundings on the highest level.
An exercise for strengthening one’s love:
If radiating love onto one’s partner comes easily, the next step is to extend the same openness and attention to one’s relatives and circle of friends. Initially, one may imagine this stage before being able to put it into practice. Once this is possible, one can increasingly include others in this approach, even those with whom one has difficulties, even if it is necessary to wish them masses of happiness from very far away. The goal is to impartially wish the best to all, and this motivation will bring responses in kind.
If the form of love towards a partner in the above exercise feels unfamiliar, one can, as is done in Buddhist practices, imagine one’s mother who, with all her kindness, selflessly raised her child.
Love: May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
Compassion: May they be free from suffering and the cause of suffering.
Sympathetic Joy: May they always experience true happiness, which is totally free from suffering.
Equanimity: May they remain in the great equanimity, which is beyond attachment and aversion. (And feel the same strong love for all.)
Compassion
May all beings be free from suffering and the cause of suffering
The second type of beneficial love is compassion. If one recognizes how vulnerable beings are generally and how little distance they have to their emotions that so mercilessly control them, then one will feel the need to protect them. Truly helping beings means giving or doing something meaningful for them without expecting anything in return. This noble and unselfish quality develops the inner richness of both giver and receiver, increases their strengths, and generates future benefits for both. Sooner or later true generosity is recognized and it always inspires others. Acting compassionately without expectation has a contagious effect and others will gradually find their own access into this beneficial type of behavior.
The non-criminal “faith” religions of the Middle East, Judaism and Christianity, which have influenced the West for over 1000 years, have a hard time differentiating between pity and compassion, or even distinguishing them from martyrdom. Without a doubt, the circumstances of others have to be understood in order to help them, but if one falls into the same situation as them and loses the overview, then no one benefits. To help others one should instead point out their strengths, which can be even further developed, and thus increase their ability to feel free and make their own decisions. Feeling pity means: poor little you, I don’t think you can make it. Whereas compassion, where one commends another for having handled even worse situations quite well, releases everyone’s power to master their own lives. If one acts with compassion and in accordance with what is possible, then a neurotic “helper syndrome” will not develop.
For a Buddhist, compassion is the recognition that due to actions in former existences, life is full of surprises, but the essence of all beings remains invulnerable space. Thus one learns to objectively understand and avoid the causes of future pain as well as the realization that difficult events also happened to oneself during countless former lives and were overcome. Unpleasant situations are, therefore, understood from all angles, and being part of a couple, with access to twice the empathy, one can really help. Compassion liberates as long as both partners thankfully experience a totality and find an area of activity where they can give their best. This can succeed if the idea of being a “giver” who keeps the partner dependent as a habitual client or victim doesn’t slip in, or if the other party doesn’t seek the role of a passive receiver.
On a related note, abusing government welfare, in which people are content with being taken care of for the rest of their lives without doing any work on themselves, or otherwise contributing to the world, ends up breaking down and corroding human beings.
A compassion-developing exercise:
To build up a healthy compassion for beings, one can imagine that one’s partner or mother is in a difficult situation. One then immediately wants to eliminate their difficulties and make them self-reliant. Once this true compassion for loved ones is experienced, one then expands this experience step by step in the same manner as the exercise for developing more love: first with friends, then with enemies, and finally with all beings.
Buddhism teaches that since beginningless time, all beings have been our parents at some point and we have been theirs as well. Thus, one has countless connections and experiences with them, as well as possibilities to help them. If helping them happens in the correct manner, tremendous benefits will develop.
The Four Immeasurables
Love: One likes all people without exception, regardless of what they do, say, or think and wishes them every possible happiness.
Compassion: One is aware that all beings, regardless of their living conditions, repeatedly experience suffering. Therefore, one wishes all beings to be free from suffering and acts accordingly.
Sympathetic Joy: One takes pleasure in the happiness of others, coupled with the wish that they come to know the nature of their minds so that their happiness remains permanent.
Equanimity: One is aware of everybody’s buddha nature and is not trapped by disturbing emotions like attachment or aversion.
Sympathetic Joy
May all beings always experience true happiness, which is totally free from suffering
The third kind of “healthy” love is sympathetic joy. It means sharing in the happiness of others, regardless of whether one benefits from the situation or not. For example, on a worldwide level, this could be our reaction when women attain more freedom in a country, or, on a narrower scale, when one’s partner is successful in his or her career. If one opens oneself to the happiness or relief that others experience and simply shares their joy, then envy, jealousy, and other disturbances will dissolve automatically. It is especially good style to let one’s own needs take a back seat to another’s. This can mean anything from forfeiting a favorite TV show for a dinner for two; or cancelling a scheduled seminar because the partner is having difficulty at work and needs the support; or encouraging the loved one to take additional career classes, though this will mean less time together; or taking the kids for a while so that the other finally has some free time. Doing so on a long-term basis will create much surplus, space, and power within the relationship.
Essentially, sympathetic joy is a feeling that creates a strong bond between people. The most vivid example in the Western world in our time is, without a doubt, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Everyone but those with ice water in their veins had to have felt sympathetic joy while watching jubilant people surge into Western Berlin towards freedom.
Based on the commonly understood experience that conditioned happiness is generally short-lived, one adds the wish that all beings may advance to the lasting happiness of recognizing one’s own mind. Since good impressions that are shared with others are also stored in one’s own mind, everyone benefits. As in the case of love and compassion, the feeling of “You” and “I” being separate increasingly dissolves and one becomes free.
A short exercise for developing sympathetic joy:
One may imagine the world from the perspective of outer space, focusing ever closer on this rotating ball. Then one imagines all the beings there, experiencing happiness and development, and rejoices with them. Finally, one wishes for ever more good things to come to them.
Enlightened Attitude
(Bodhicitta, Enlightened Mind)
In order to benefit oneself and all beings, one develops the enlightened mind. It is comprised of
- the wish to reach enlightenment for oneself and others, and
- the implementation of this wish through the practice of the Six Liberating Actions.
The enlightened attitude is supported by the Bodhisattva Promise: one pledges to work with unending diligence and strength to develop one’s capabilities and to use them for the benefit of all beings.
Equanimity
May all beings remain in the great equanimity, without attachment and aversion
The crown jewel of love is equanimity, a very noble emotion. Regardless of how poorly people behave or whatever obnoxious things they do, ultimately all beings carry the complete range of enlightened qualities within them. Neither mind, nor its inherent buddha nature and potential for enlightenment can be destroyed or harmed. Once it is recognized that everyone has the full potential but are just living under different conditions, one can develop the same mindset towards all beings: not being attached to those one likes or rejecting those that one doesn’t. This broad openness doesn’t mean apathy or dullness, but rather enables one to become beneficial to all beings eventually. Once this is understood, every conscious and educational activity, even those with the most difficult “customers,” becomes meaningful and the ultimate goal, the happiness of all beings, will stay alive in one’s mind.
This love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity—together, the finest motivations one may develop for others—is often observed in couples or families who have functioned well for years and have shared many experiences. Whether due to good karmas from former lives or because of developed wisdom, the partners handle each other in a way that inspires confidence and growth, and only small steps are necessary to expand this rich attitude towards all fellow beings. Other than maintaining an alertness in practical areas that others may tend to exploit, such as borrowing money, one can rejoice that all perfect qualities are already contained in each individual. If one manages to be an example of this view and awaken it in others, then from that moment on, one is only in good company.
Happiness is a Question of One’s Attitude
A couple’s inner attitude lays the foundation for every relationship. Whether the alliance will ultimately succeed or fail largely depends on to what degree one considers their partner’s happiness more important than one’s own. Sooner or later, being continuously self-centered and tight will strangle every kind of happiness, but if one manages to put the well-being and development of the partner before their own, then everyone wins. Even better, a couple can mutually grow by doing meaningful activities together. By deliberately maintaining one’s shared motivation for growth and developing a deep, mutual trust, the shared, positive impressions increase, and with them, the ability to give to others. If one realizes how much one’s partner longs for happiness and also suffers sometimes because of disturbing emotions and incorrect ideas, then one has a foundation of experience to work from and can learn to benefit many people in a skillful way.
The art of love lies in the ability to give one’s partner space. True love, without sticky attachment, always has the taste of freedom. Generosity and trust feeds the feelings and actions that allow partners to mutually learn and grow, reflects the priority that one’s partner develops, and that the surrounding environment thrives. Love succeeds when one isn’t interested in controlling or limiting one’s partner, but rather proudly enjoys the development of the couple’s inherent qualities: the power, beauty, and capabilities that both can joyfully radiate into the world. A relationship should offer the possibility for self-chosen development. If a couple stays together while doing so, then the connection is mature, and if they break up, but with understanding, they will be good friends again in future lives. One should continuously check whether one thinks more of the other person or more of one’s own wishes, and if one can reach beyond “I—You.” This way, a happiness that requires nothing from anyone develops—a main goal of meditators.
The biggest danger for new, deep relationships is when couples isolate themselves and avoid contact with the outside world. If the nights are already dedicated to one another, then days should be used to keep involved in the world and gain richness through the exchange with others. If this doesn’t happen, a lack or severely limited supply of news will soon lead to insecurity with others and an intellectual kind of poverty will arise—which is known as “boredom.” Therefore, it is vital to stay current, both in one’s relationship and elsewhere in life, and to be sure that one is not being superficial with others, but is, instead, sharing something meaningful with them.
It is particularly important to pay attention to essential subjects in which politicians turn a blind eye. For example, the birth rates of different population groups should be considered well into the future, as well as equal rights for women, and the preservation of human freedoms and the Western values of our countries. Those who look beyond what is currently comfortable will realize that events, actions, and values are not merely “good” or “bad,” they should be evaluated based on whether they will bring about happiness or suffering in the long run, regardless of what is considered “politically correct.” A historically-informed and alert view not only ensures a positive result from an action, it also allows one to avoid a dangerous loss of time and quickly evade confusion. In this way, the framework for the most perfect of all accomplishments, fully developed people who radiate their insight onto a confused world, can arise. If one is ever unsure which direction to pursue, one should simply ask: which will bring more happiness and freedom to more people in 50 years?
A couple experiences the highest level of meaning and establishes the basis for lasting joy when they decide to drink together from the only everlasting source: the richness and perfection of mind. Only mind experiences happiness, and the richest and securest relationships are nourished through the strong wish to recognize mind and benefit others through this knowledge. The bridge that appears from people opening up to their partners gradually leads to a “We” attitude towards all beings. This unlimited experience not only sounds good, it also feels exceedingly liberating and gives the assurance that overcomes all dilemmas: if one thinks of oneself, then one has problems; if one thinks of others, then one has interesting tasks to fulfill.
The search for the power to truly benefit others as early as possible is the force behind the numerous, superb, and personal relationships that have propelled Buddhism in the Western world since the early 70s. The mature and far-reaching aspiration to give happiness to others and point to the causes that bring it about is called enlightened mind. In order to maintain this liberating mindset that gives meaning to one’s life, even when under pressure, Buddhism utilizes an “inner” promise to the buddhas and one’s self. This promise effectively protects one from limiting the motivation, or even from giving it up completely and falling back into a divisive and poor way of thinking.
Out of a growing understanding that all beings are important, coupled with the insight that the best example to others is one’s own development, one gradually puts an end to harmful actions and habits. Afterwards, one consciously builds up—and on the Great Way and especially the Diamond Way Buddhism there are exceedingly skillful methods for doing so—immense amounts of valuable impressions in one’s subconscious (Buddhist: store consciousness) and leads a useful life that all are able to recognize. In conjunction with a good deal of meditation and a joyful and developing pure view, one is on a secure way to enlightenment. The Bodhisattva Promise to achieve enlightenment for the good of all beings and to work with strength and diligence for their timeless benefit, is best made in the presence of a realized Buddhist lama, but should also be repeated when alone. It gives meaning and dimension to one’s life. If one has this beyond-personal motivation, then the teachings Buddha gave are the right fit. An inner life based on compassion and wisdom is the way to go.
Three primary approaches of helping others to liberation and enlightenment are mentioned in Buddha’s teachings and have been observed for thousands of years since. The first example is the king. It’s in his nature to first build power and magnitude in order to be able to help others effectively. He thinks: when I am strong, I can make things happen! Through influence, knowledge, and victorious action, he inspires people forward. In these peaceful times, this inner approach is often found in heads of families who push to advance professionally in order to provide, hopefully with more power and money, a better life for their partner, children, and friends.
The second example is the ferryman. He looks forward to reaching the other side of the water, keeping in the company of his people. He naturally wants to share and communicate with others. This strong, connecting feeling can be seen in couples when they support each other during difficult times, or in families, when children and parents maintain contact from all corners of the world. Though more influence and glory can be attained in the role of the king, the ferryman type enjoys significantly more close and honest human relationships.
The third style of working for the benefit of others is likened to a shepherd. He takes care of the ones he is responsible for before he thinks of himself. Although the powerful action of the king and the jovial exchange of the ferryman are missing, he may gain the fastest results simply because he forgets about himself. For introverted personality types, this is the quickest and most suitable way to advance. This type can be found in mothers who do everything for their families or with lovers who first think, “How else can I make you happy?”
Since all three forms of enlightened mind are ultimately concerned with going beyond the perceived “I,” they all liberate and open the way to enlightenment. Therefore, one can cheerfully choose to follow any of the examples that best-fit one’s disposition, as well as choose traits from all of them.
Giving Deep Meaning to Love
Methods, knowledge, and life experiences are crucial for a harmonious development of love. If causes for disturbances can be avoided by observing one’s own behavior and generally adopting Buddha’s Ten Useful Actions, then half of the battle is won. Through meaningful thought, speech, and action, space for development appears. As a result, abilities and qualities, which were previously blocked by tensions with the outer world or stiff mental states, can unfold. Such richness powerfully grows through the conscious use of compassion, which is again determined by how much one allows oneself to understand the non-reality of an “I”: that anything personal—bodies, thoughts, and feelings—changes constantly and that the outer, external world is like a dream. Thus, inner richness has a liberating effect as well. Those with such insight are far along on their way.
