True Love

“You cannot love someone if you don't understand that person. This is simple. And if you love without understanding, you are making him or her suffer. That is not true love. Deprive the other person of space, of freedom, of freshness, and you can see that. And when the other person is not nourished by love, you will not be nourished by love.

When you practice love and kindness, you are the first person who profits from the practice. A man or a woman that is motivated by bringing joy and transforming suffering is beautiful, in himself, or herself. And of course the person he loves or she loves will be beautiful too, because she is water by my tree. So, when the other person does not look happy, we know that there is something wrong in our love. We should stop saying, “I love her so! I have done everything in my power in order to make her happy. Why isn't she happy? She doesn't want to be happy!” We should not blame like that. We should go back and look deeply into the nature of our love, to see whether we understand that person and her sufferings.

In the beginning, she is a flower. We think, without her, how could we survive? But now, she doesn't look like a flower. And we blame her! We blame her for not being our flower. But who is the person responsible for the flower? You. What have you been doing to your flower? Love has turned into hatred. And now you have a different kind of opinion. You think that separation is the best way. “I cannot live with her anymore.” Quite an opposite statement.

So love transforming into hatred is a very common thing. And therefore you should practice love everyday in order to keep love alive. And love, in the Buddhist context, is bringing joy and transforming suffering in the other person. How can you do that if you are not calm enough, if you do not look deeply into him or her in order to see what kind of need he has, what kind of suffering she has? Who does not need meditation?”

-- Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master