Brief Description
We all yearn to experience a love that is more joyful and profound. Teachings on Love provides a time tested path we can follow to nurture this love in ourselves and for others.
Thich Nhat Hanh draws from many sources to present the Buddha's teachings on love in ways resonant for contemporary readers. He elaborates on the Four Immeasurable Minds -- love, compassion, joy, and equanimity -- as concrete expressions of our deepest love for ourselves, others, and all beings.
Weaving together traditional anecdotes, personal experiences, and a deep understanding of the Buddha's way of mindful living, Thich Nhat Hanh offers step-by-step practices that foster growth of understanding and intimacy in any relationship, even those that have done us harm.
Sample Chapter
DO YOU HAVE SOMEONE TO LOVE? WE ALL WANT TO LOVE AND be loved. If you do not have anyone to love, your heart may dry up. Love brings happiness to ourselves and to the ones we love.
We may want to help those in need. We may want to love children who are hungry, disabled, or abused, to relieve them of their suffering. We carry that love in our heart and hope that someday we will be able to realize it. But when we actually contact these children, they may be difficult to love. They may be rude, they may lie, they may steal, and our love for them will fade. We had the idea that loving children who need our help would be wonderful, but when confronted with the reality, we cannot sustain our love. When we discover that the object of our love is not lovable, we feel deep disappointment, shame, and regret. We feel as though we have failed. If we cannot love a poor or disabled child, who can we love?
A number of Plum Village residents of Vietnamese origin want to go back to Vietnam to help the children and the adults there. The war created much division, hatred, and suspicion in the hearts of the people. These monks, nuns, and laypeople want to walk on their native land, embrace the people, and help relieve them of their suffering. But before they go back, they must prepare themselves. The people they want to help may not be easy to love. Real love must include those who are difficult, those who have been unkind. If they go back to Vietnam without first learning to love and understand deeply, when they find the people there being unpleasant, they will suffer and may even come to hate them.
You think you can change the world, but do not be too naive. Don't think that the moment you arrive in Vietnam, you will sit down with all the conflicting factions and establish communication immediately. You may be able to give beautiful talks about harmony, but if you are not prepared, you will not be able to put your words into practice. In Vietnam there are already people who can give very good Dharma talks, who can explain how to reconcile and live in harmony. But we should not only talk about it. If we do not practice what we preach, what can we offer anyone?
We must practice harmony of views and harmony of speech. We bring our views together to have a deeper understanding, and we use loving speech to inspire others and not hurt anyone. We practice walking together, eating together, discussing together, so we can realize love and understanding. If older sisters do not hold each other's hands like children of the same mother, how can the younger sisters have faith in the future? If you are able to breathe and smile when your sister says something unkind, that is the beginning of love. You do not have to go someplace else to serve. You can serve right where you are by practicing walking meditation, smiling, and shining your eyes of love on others.
We want to go out and share what we have learned. But if we do not practice mindful breathing to untie the knots of pain in ourselvesÑthe knots of anger, sadness, jealousy, and irritationÑwhat can we teach others? We must understand and practice the teachings in our daily lives. People need to hear how we have to be able to overcome our own suffering and the irritations in our own heart. When we talk about the Dharma, our words need to have energy. That is not possible if our words come only from ideas, theories, or even sutras. We can only teach what we have experienced ourselves.
Eight years ago I organized a retreat for American veterans of the Vietnam War. Many of the men and women at that retreat felt very guilty for what they had done and witnessed, and I knew I had to find a way of beginning anew that could help them transform. One veteran told me that when he was in Vietnam, he rescued a girl who had been wounded and was about to die. He pulled her into his helicopter, but he was not able to save her life. She died looking straight at him, and he has never forgotten her eyes. She had a hammock with her, because as a guerrilla, she slept in the forest at night. When she died, he kept the hammock and would not let it go. Sometimes when we suffer, we have to cling to our suffering. The hammock symbolized all his suffering, all his shame.
During the retreat, the veterans sat in a circle and spoke about their suffering, some for the first time. In a retreat for veterans, a lot of love and support is needed. Some -veterans would not do walking meditation, because it -re--minded them too much of walking in the jungles of -Viet--nam, where they could step on a mine or walk into an -ambush at any time. One man walked far behind the rest of us so that if anything happened he would be able to get away quickly. Veterans live in that kind of psychological envi-ronment.
On the last day of the retreat, we held a ceremony for the deceased. Each veteran wrote the names of those he or she knew had died, and placed it on an altar we constructed. I took a willow leaf and used it to sprinkle water on the names and also on the veterans. Then we did walking meditation to the lake and held a ceremony for burning the -suffering. That veteran still did not want to give up his hammock, but finally he put it on the fire. It burned, and all the guilt and the suffering in his heart also burned up. We have taken one step, two steps, three steps on the path of transformation. We have to continue on that path.
Another veteran told us that almost everyone in his platoon had been killed by the guerrillas. Those who survived were so angry that they baked cookies with explosives in them and left them alongside the road. When some Vietnamese children saw them, they ate the cookies and the explosives went off. They were rolling around the ground in pain. Their parents tried to save their lives, but there was nothing they could do. That image of the children rolling on the ground, dying because of the explosives in the cookies, was so deeply ingrained on this veteran's heart, that now, twenty years later, he still could not sit in the same room with children. He was living in hell. After he had told this story, I gave him the practice of Beginning Anew.
Beginning Anew is not easy. We have to transform our hearts and our minds in very practical ways. We may feel ashamed, but shame is not enough to change our heart. I said to him, "You killed five or six children that day? Can you save the lives of five or six children today? Children everywhere in the world are dying because of war, malnutrition, and disease. You keep thinking about the five or six children that you killed in the past, but what about the children who are dying now? You still have your body, you still have your heart, you can do many things to help children who are dying in the present moment. Please give rise to your mind of love, and in the months and years that are left to you, do the work of helping children." He agreed to do it, and it has helped him transform his guilt.
Beginning Anew is not to ask for forgiveness. Beginning Anew is to change your mind and heart, to transform the ignorance that brought about wrong actions of body, speech, and mind, and to help you cultivate your mind of love. Your shame and guilt will disappear, and you will begin to experience the joy of being alive. All wrongdoings arise in the mind. It is through the mind that wrongdoings can disappear.
At Plum Village, we practice a ceremony of Beginning Anew every week. Everyone sits in a circle with a vase of fresh flowers in the center, and we follow our breathing as we wait for the facilitator to begin. The ceremony has three parts: flower watering, expressing regrets, and expressing hurts and difficulties. This practice can prevent feelings of hurt from building up over the weeks and helps make the situation safe for everyone in the community.
We begin with flower watering. When someone is ready to speak, she joins her palms and the others join their palms to show that she has the right to speak. Then she stands, walks slowly to the flower, takes the vase in her hands, and returns to her seat. When she speaks, her words reflect the freshness and beauty of the flower that is in her hand. During flower watering, each speaker acknowledges the wholesome, wonderful qualities of the others. It is not flattery; we always speak the truth. Everyone has some strong points that can be seen with awareness. No one can interrupt the person holding the flower. She is allowed as much time as she needs, and everyone else practices deep listening. When she is finished speaking, she stands up and slowly returns the vase to the center of the room.
In the second part of the ceremony, we express regrets for anything we have done to hurt others. It does not take more than one thoughtless phrase to hurt someone. The ceremony of Beginning Anew is an opportunity for us to recall some regret from earlier in the week and undo it. In the third part of the ceremony, we express ways in which others have hurt us. Loving speech is crucial. We want to heal the community, not harm it. We speak frankly, but we do not want to be destructive. Listening meditation is an important part of the practice. When we sit among a circle of friends who are all practicing deep listening, our speech becomes more beautiful and more constructive. We never blame or argue.
Compassionate listening is crucial. We listen with the willingness to relieve the suffering of the other person, not to judge or argue with her. We listen with all our attention. Even if we hear something that is not true, we continue to listen deeply so the other person can express her pain and release the tensions within herself. If we reply to her or correct her, the practice will not bear fruit. We just listen. If we need to tell the other person that her perception was not correct, we can do that a few days later, privately and calmly. Then, at the next Beginning Anew session, she may be the person who rectifies the error and we will not have to say anything. We close the ceremony with a song or by holding hands with everyone in the circle and breathing for a minute. Sometimes we end with hugging meditation.
Hugging meditation is a practice I invented. In 1966, a woman poet took me to the Atlanta Airport and then asked, "Is it all right to hug a Buddhist monk?" In my country, we are not used to expressing ourselves that way, but I thought, "I am a Zen teacher. It should be no problem for me to do that." So I said, "Why not?" and she hugged me. But I was quite stiff. While on the plane, I decided that if I wanted to work with friends in the West, I would have to learn the culture of the West, so I invented hugging meditation.
Hugging meditation is a combination of East and West. According to the practice, you have to really hug the person you are hugging. You have to make him or her very real in your arms, not just for the sake of appearances, patting him on the back to pretend you are there, but breathing consciously and hugging with all your body, spirit, and heart. Hugging meditation is a practice of mindfulness. "Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, she is so precious to me." If you breathe deeply like that, holding the person you love, the energy of care, love, and mindfulness will penetrate into that person and she will be nourished and bloom like a flower.
At a retreat for psychotherapists in Colorado, we practiced hugging meditation, and one retreatant, when he returned home to Philadelphia, hugged his wife at the airport in a way he had never hugged her before. Because of that, his wife attended our next retreat, in Chicago. To be really there, you only need to breathe mindfully, and suddenly both of you become real. It may be one of the best moments in your life.
After the Beginning Anew ceremony, everyone in the community feels light and relieved, even if we have taken only preliminary steps toward healing. We have confidence that, having begun, we can continue. This practice dates to the time of the Buddha, when communities of monks and nuns practiced Beginning Anew on the eve of every full moon and new moon. Thanks to our practice with veterans and others, we have adapted it for our community. I hope you will practice Beginning Anew in your own family every week.
Another practice you can use to bring about peace in your family and in relationships is the Peace Treaty. Because so much suffering arises when we become angry or upset, we at Plum Village drafted the Peace Treaty for couples and individuals to sign in the presence of the Sangha. The Peace Treaty is not just a piece of paper; it is a practice that can help us live long and happily together. The treaty has two parts--one for the person who is angry and one for the person who has caused the anger. I hope you will also sign and practice the Peace Treaty.