How to Love: Legendary Zen Buddhist Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on Mastering the Art of Interbeing
At the heart of Nhat Hanh's teachings is the idea that "understanding is love's other name" - that to love another means to fully understand his or her suffering. ("Suffering" sounds rather dramatic, but in Buddhism it refers to any source of profound dissatisfaction - be it physical or psychoemotional or spiritual.)
Real, truthful love, he argued, is rooted in four elements - loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity - fostering which lends love "the element of holiness." The first of them addresses this dialogic relationship between our own suffering and our capacity to fully understand our loved ones: The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. You can be the sunshine for another person.
You can't offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Leam how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person.
This interrelatedness of self and other is manifested in the fourth element as well, equanimity, the Sanskrit word for which - upeksha - is also translated as "inclusiveness" and "nondiscrimination."
In a deep relationship, there's no longer a boundary between you and the other person. You are her and she is you. Your suffering is her suffering. Your understanding of your own suffering helps your loved one to suffer less. Suffering and happiness are no longer individual matters. What happens to your loved one happens to you. What happens to you happens to your loved one.
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When you love someone, you should have the capacity to bring relief and help him to suffer less. This is an art. If you don't understand the roots of his suffering, you can't help, just as a doctor can't help heal your illness if she doesn't know the cause. You need to understand the cause of your loved one's suffering in order to help bring relief.
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The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of one reality. The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same.
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