Hello and happy Valentine’s Day. It is a great day to think about love, although the same can be said of every day.
I returned yesterday from teaching a weekend workshop called The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, based on a book I wrote by that title. Once again, I was reminded of some very interesting things about love:
1. When we say we’re looking for love, most of us mean we’re looking for safety. Loving is the opposite of safe. Then what?
2. There is only one seat of power when it comes to love, and that is as a lover.
3. Heartbreak is simply love unbound from an object.
4. It is possible to stabilize your heart in this (broken) open state.
One of the best things ever said about love comes from Zen priest and poet, John Tarrant Roshi:
“Attention is the most basic form of love. Through it, we bless and are blessed.”
Perhaps above all, as Tarrant Roshi suggests, love is about the ability (and willingness) to simply pay attention to others, to be mindful of them. Of course a meditation practice teaches this exact skill. Please sign up for The Open Heart Project to receive instruction and support.
Indeed love is about safety, it is also about compassion and forgiveness, and ultimately it’s about joy and spreading it. With or without guard.
Yes.
Thank you so very much for this particular session. It was very important to me and helped deepen my awareness and insight into love. I felt a little click of, ” oooh – that’s not new but I don’t think I heard that way before” – when you suggested that the seat of power is as a lover, i.e. someone who is loving. I could feel the wildness of love without an object too. Yes, man oh man, Susan, I needed these words in my practice today. I am deeply grateful.
Also I had not heard the Metta Meditation quite like that – thank you.
As for the music – I think I preferred the silence – there’s enough marketing ideas in every second of our life without having to resort to it here. I used to produce music for television and I suppose I’m just sick of it. So, I kinda prefer the peaceful approach. Just my thought. I like that it was reggae though. I’m hip to your groove sista Su.
Metta
S
So glad you found this useful, Stephen. I am very happy to know that. And thanks also for your additional feedback! Glad to be connected.
Thank you Susan for the generous and abundant love that you extend into the world through the Open Heart Project. I feel so blessed to be a part of it, to receive this love and care through your site and so inspired to open my own heart up, to extend my own love as generously and abundantly as I can.
With deep gratitude,
Kate
Kate, you are so kind! Receiving this message is very inspiring and motivating for me. Sisters in practice, Susan
Yes… exactly… thank you.
You are completely welcome.
Dear Susan – this is an absolutely beautiful post. There is so much in these few words about love. Thank you for the thought and care you put into every post, video, talk, and book. Your words have really helped me see a different perspective on some of my most painful experiences.
We have written on our family blackboard
God loves our family.
We show our love to God by being nice to each other…
We could have written “attentive” to each other…
thoughts?