What am I? What is love? What is true about it? are questions given many answers…
But finding… being, how we are…is inexpressible…
I heard this song True Love Will Find You In The End by Daniel Johnston… playing in a Picturehouse cinema a couple of decades ago.
It’s a YouTube link and if you look in the comments underneath, some …like lolothesilly’s five years ago… are heart-warming
I liked it so much that I rang the cinema to find the title …and learned how to sing it… after a fashion!
Since then I had many years of unlearning, relaxing out of confusion and realising more clearly ‘how it is’ and so ‘how we are’ ahead of me…with the guidance of the perfect teacher – for me..
Happily I’ve lived ’til now to enjoy the learning…and the heart-opening that brings!
There is so much that’s been sung written and said arising from the multifarious concepts human beings have linked with that four letter word… ‘Love’ …
And for this Valentine’s day… here’s a bit more from a dharma perspective..
From this perspective, every sentient being has the potential to manifest ‘True Love’…as an expression of the absolute truth of their intrinsic buddha-nature.
This kind of ‘love’ is profound and inclusive…and of course …not about some graspable ‘thing’ grasping another 😉 !
Rather it would arise as gestures through receptive connectivity with another ‘processional manifestation of emptiness’ – as are we all, but otherwise believe.
However rather than the basis for the connectivity being karmic conditioning within a dualistic frame-work, as per usual… here the basis for the connectivity would be ground openness; from being relaxedly at home within, inseparable from… the ground of our being…
This love is natural, freely arising and free from judgment…not earned by deeds or representation …a love which, by its nature, is vey easing.
In the first line of the prayer the ‘Four Immeasurables’ …the meaning of love is expounded as the wish for all beings to have happiness …and more deeply, not just happiness… but the root of that happiness…
For all to enjoy the satisfaction of complete release from the dualistic tensions which arise from the ignorance of believing they are some self-existing, knowable entity…an evaluate-able ‘thing amongst things’…
released through the wisdom of realising their true nature, how they truly are…
And, in the lovely ‘Prayer for Happiness in the World’…there are some lines which go:
For all beings, human and non-human, may the precious excellent bodicitta (buddha-nature) arise naturally*
So that, free of harmful or troublesome thoughts and deeds… they have minds full of love for each other…
This next prayer comes from James’ recent book the Deep and vast Freedom of the Dharma:
May I rest in openness for the benefit of all
May I be present with the clarity of my potential for the benefit of all
May I be open, available and responsive for the benefit of all
With the fulfilment of that prayer I think we would not have just found true love, but would be it !
So this love is of a very different order of magnitude and orientation from the usual narrow and exclusive notions of love …romantic or otherwise…
Whilst ideas rooted in ignorance of their ground… through reification… invite attachment clinging and other forms of suffering ~ these gestures are light…without grasping… there is enjoyment.
With dharma as the DJ, it’s ‘good dancing’ ! (JL macclesfield talk ref.)
Buddhas are clearly not blind to the infinite potential of beings…and our spring-like new shoots of awakening, starting to open our eyes and hearts…climbing out from under the duvet of our assumptions… invite us to feel this kind of love…which shows itself in many ways…
Once they too envisaged themselves as being ‘something’ definable …with all that that entails… and they respond…according to the circumstances… : )
I had a go at altering the lyrics of the ‘True Love’ song so that they were a bit more fitting to this view:
True love, you’ll find.. and you will mend …
you’ll find how to rest.. in the end
Don’t be sad, I know you will…
But don’t give up until…
You see that it… does not depend…
~
This is a promise with a catch
Only if you’re looking will you find it
True love is looking too, but how will you recognise it
Unless you… step out into the light… the light… the light
~
Actually we are always in and of ‘the light’ of the sky-like mind…but, forgetting this, we tend to solidify and fuse with its movements… of any passing clouds, and surprising rainbows…(as thoughts, feelings and sensations)
However both are movements within the sky, and given its hospitable nature, both phenomena are equally welcome…
The space of the sky simply allows their movement and doesn’t try to fuse with…or reject either
So whether it’s a lovely meal, a kiss …a long stemmed rose …or none of those… that arrive for you on Valentines day…whatever comes will be just fine…if you get what you’ve got…
Your buddha-nature,
Sky-like mind…
There is an arrangement of coloured dots below for you…if you can imagine they are flower-buds…then you may imagine an infinite number of flower-buds for you and everyone …buds about to open in the sunshine!
… and today’s invitation to listen to the latest recording …part (vi) from Open to Life-the heart of awareness from the book the Open Door of Emptiness which maybe brings this view a little more clearly into focus… if you scroll down ….to the end!
