So today I would like to explore with you the topic of love.
And love in the most basic sense of the word is about connection.
That's it.
When we talk about love,
We're talking about simple connection.
That's how I'm defining love.
Just connection.
You know,
Millions of people live with very little connection.
And research tells us that lonely people are more likely to become ill and experience cognitive decline and die early.
But being connected,
On the other hand,
Even having just a few friends supports longevity.
So love also can have a lot of different meanings for people.
It's loaded with cultural conditioning,
You know,
Loaded with romantic notions,
Sometimes lost,
Sometimes neediness.
And in the Buddhist tradition,
Love is associated with a kind of freedom.
So a love that depends on a particular condition or wanting or grasping,
That's actually considered a form of bondage,
Not liberation,
Not freedom.
So I heard this story last year when I was on retreat,
And it's worth sharing.
I think I shared it,
But it's worth sharing again.
It's a true story.
It happened in Berkeley,
California.
Some friends were getting together for an outdoor evening meal.
And they were in the backyard.
And as many homes in the Berkeley area have,
They have like a side gate.
So you could go along the side of the house,
And you can come through the side yard to get into the backyard.
And so people were entering through the side.
And they were eating and drinking and listening to music and talking like,
Like we do,
Right,
Like when we have a barbecue.
And then this man comes into the yard.
That's not an invited guest.
And he holds a gun to one of the guests,
Like to the head of one of the guests.
And he says to the guest,
Give me your money.
But this is a,
You know,
A friend and he came over without his wallet,
You know,
There was no need to carry cash.
And so he said,
I don't have my wallet.
And so the man does this again to another guests holds up gun and says,
Give me your money.
And this one person at the party came like,
Came up to this this gunman.
And she approached him kind of like a friend and said,
We don't have money,
But we have cheese and we have wine.
Can I get you a glass of wine?
And he was like,
Startled by this.
And he took the glass of wine.
And like he's sitting with other people.
And it's awkward.
But he says,
I think I made a mistake.
And there was a long pause.
And he says,
Can I get a hug?
And so this woman gives him a hug.
And then he asks,
Can I get a group hug?
And the group encircles him.
And they hug him.
And he says,
I think I've come to the wrong house.
And he left.
So this is a kind of an extreme example of how we all need connection,
Simple connection.
And you know,
We live in a time where connection,
Connections are just frankly,
Kind of strange.
You know,
We're also busy in our lives doing so much.
You know,
Even those who are retired have full lives.
So our connections are often around our doing.
And those connections can sometimes feel shallow.
And then there are these connections to our little devices.
You know,
And a lot of the connection is based on taking photos,
You know,
Of what you're eating or where you're at.
And the other day,
I was at the hot springs.
And this couple,
They entered the hot springs,
And they each had a waterproof pouch around their necks for their phones,
So that they were in the hot springs pools with these,
Their devices hanging around their necks,
So they could soak together,
And they could text together.
And that's what they were doing.
So was that connection?
You know,
We want connection so badly,
But we're going about it in this,
This way that seems a little cut off.
Poetry is a phenomenal Dharma teacher on love.
Many of the poets that inspire me know something about love,
You know,
They distill love so beautifully.
They distill that connection.
This is from the poet Mary Oliver.
I have been in love more times than one.
Thank the Lord.
Sometimes it was lasting,
Whether active or not.
Sometimes it was all but ephemeral,
Maybe only an afternoon,
But not less real for that.
They stay in my mind,
These beautiful people,
Or anyway,
Beautiful people to me,
Of which there are so many,
You and you and you,
Whom I've had the fortune to meet or maybe missed.
Love,
Love,
Love.
It was the core of my life,
From which of course comes the word for the heart.
And oh,
Have I mentioned that some of them were men,
And some were women,
And some,
Now carrying my revelation with you,
Were trees,
Or places,
Or music flying above the names of their makers,
Or clouds,
Or the sun,
Which was the first and the best,
The most loyal for certain,
Who looked so faithful into my eyes every morning.
So I imagine such love of the world,
Its fervency,
Its shining,
Its innocence,
And hunger to give of itself.
I imagine this is how it began.
So the connection with nature,
With trees,
That's a wonderful way of exploring love,
Going outside.
Growing up in the redwoods,
I have a deep connection to the old growth.
These trees,
They feel like ancestors to me.
And when I sit with them and I touch their mossy bark,
It's kind of like stroking my son's hair when he's tucked into bed.
And I leave things with these trees when I visit California,
These beings.
I release habits and ritual and it just stays in the forest.
And when I leave the forest after visiting with these ancestors,
I feel lighter.
Love is lighter in the body and in the mind.
It's not heavy.
And if you think about it,
Love is why we practice.
It might not feel that way when we sit down,
You know,
With our anxiety and our sadness and the disappointments and our to-do list.
But when we practice connecting with ourselves,
Even connecting with too much to do or not enough time,
And we just relax back,
Just breathing in and breathing out and staying with the feeling tones of the body.
And we connect with our joy and we connect with our pain and our loss.
When we get up from that sit,
I hope and I know for myself that I feel a little bit lighter,
A little bit more capable.
To connect with my life,
This beautiful,
Messy,
Fleeting,
Disappearing life.
So we grow our love in practice.
And it starts with us.
You know,
We start with feeding and supporting our own happiness,
Creating space for ourselves.
Sometimes when we take on self-compassion or self-love practices,
What can happen is we come up against the feelings of lack.
You know,
It's subtle,
But the feeling of being empty inside or longing.
And so what can also happen with that when we connect with that lack and that longing is we don't know the cause.
And so we look outside of ourselves.
So we feel less lonely,
Less empty.
We want to find something,
But we don't know what we're searching for.
You know,
It's in all of us.
There's this desire and expectation deep inside,
Like expecting that something better will happen.
That's why we often are checking our email and our texts and,
You know,
All of so much time during the day trying to connect with something better.
But true love on this path of practice is loving kindness to ourselves for having this longing,
Compassion,
Experiencing the little joys of watching children or birds or animals.
The balance of meeting every day.
These are what Thich Nhat Hanh calls the elements of holiness.
The elements of holiness.
So I'll stop now,
But I want to invite you to practice this week with love and this very simple way of simply connecting.
Just connect more to family,
To friends,
To nature,
To your pets,
To the people who make your life easier because of their service.
Connect and tune into how that feels,
The lightness that's there.
And connect also to yourself.
Yourself as the earth,
Yourself as beloved.
I'll close with this poem that I love by Swami Babuji.
The time has come,
Your time to live,
To celebrate,
To see the goodness that you are.
Let no one,
No thing or ideal or ideas obstruct you.
If one comes,
Even in the name of truth,
Forgive it for its unknowing.
Do not fight.
Let go and breathe into the goodness that you are.
