The Heart Of A Lover

If you take a spoonful of salt and add it to a cup of water, it turns salty. If, however, you add a spoonful of salt to a river, it does not turn salty. The heart of a lover is like a river - immense in its capacity to receive, embrace and transform.

When our hearts are like a cup of water, we suffer. To cultivate happiness, we must develop the heart of a lover.

Wish you a Mindful New Year! Be a lover. Be free.

When A Cloud Met A Flower

Once upon a time, there lived a handsome young man - Megh (Cloud). One day, Megh left his village for the capital in search of a job. On his way to the capital, Megh stopped at many places to do small time jobs. By the time he reached the capital, Megh had earned five gold coins.

When Megh reached the capital, he heard that the Buddha Dipānkara was going to make an appearance. Everyone was so excited! Megh too wanted a glimpse of Buddha Dipānkara. He had heard so much about him. Here was a chance to see a Buddha in person! Megh did not want to meet the Buddha empty handed. But what do you gift a Buddha?

Suddenly she appeared, right in front of him, carrying five lotus flowers in her hands. It was as if the Goddess of Beauty, Rati had appeared in human form. She looked at Megh. He looked at her. The poet Kalidas has said that love begins with exchange of glances.

Her name is not mentioned in the scriptures so let's call her Pushpa (Flower). If you look closely, you can see the cloud in the flower and the flower in the cloud. So we will call her Pushpa.

"Those are beautiful lotus flowers! Where did you find them?", asked Megh.

Pushpa replied, "I bought three from the local florist and plucked the other two from the lake near my house."

"I was looking to buy a gift for the Buddha Dipānkara. Will you sell them to me?"

"Why should I? I intend to offer them to the Buddha myself."

"I will give you five gold coins."

"I don't care much for money."

"Ok. Keep the three that you bought from the florist and sell the other two to me."

"What's your name?"

"Megh."

"Listen Megh, flowers are a symbol of love and love is not for sale."

Megh didn't know what to say. Suddenly it was announced that the Buddha Dipānkara was going to appear on the stone platform. Pushpa slipped two lotus flowers into Megh's hands. He smiled. She smiled back. Second stage of love.

The Buddha began speaking. "Dear friends, look at this mango. But can you also see the mango tree? A mango tree comes from a mango seed, earth, water, air and sunshine. These elements are already present here but you are unable to see the mango tree. A mango tree is a sign. We are caught in signs. Where there are signs there is deception. The mango tree is right here but you don't see it because you are looking for certain signs. When those signs are not present we think the object is not present. We experience separation. We experience suffering. But I have some good news for you. Separateness is an illusion. We can awaken from this illusion. To be awake is to be mindful. The Five Mindfulness trainings are the practice of Right Mindfulness. They are an expression of true love. Learn to love. If you truly love, you can be together forever. You can be free from birth and death."

The crowd applauded. Megh and Pushpa were delighted. Megh threw a lotus in the Buddha's direction. It fell right into Buddha Dipānkara's hands. Pushpa too threw a lotus in Buddha Dipānkara's direction. That too fell right into his hands. Everyone cheered! Buddha Dipānkara smiled. He called Megh and Pushpa on to the stage. He could see true love blossoming in their hearts. He advised them to practice the Five Mindfulness trainings together.

A few days later, Megh and Pushpa married. They were happy.

At the age of 50, Pushpa died. Megh suffered. Separation causes suffering. Megh began to understand this. We suffer when we are separated from a person, an object or a condition that we desire. He truly loved Pushpa and did not want to live without her. What is the use of meeting if we must part? Everything ends in separation in samsara. There is no happily ever after in samsara.

Such experiences lead to one of the two things - despair or a quest. Pushpa's love and their practice of the Five Mindfulness trainings inspired Megh to find his way back to her.

Many years later, Megh was born as Prince Siddhartha in Kapilvastu (Kausambi). Pushpa was born as the Koliyan Princess Yashodhara. They never parted again. But that's a story for another day.

#ThichNhatHanh #5Mindfulness #Vijñaptimatra #TrueLove

The Three Stages Of Love

What would you say to a person who is in love with someone because that someone is very pretty or very rich? No doubt you think that is not true love. The desire for someone because she is pretty is a sensual desire and the desire for someone because he is rich is a material desire. True love is not a sensual or material desire. What is love and what has this got to do with veganism, you, me, a monk who lives in France and a cloud? I will tell you, but you must be open minded. If you have a concept of love in your mind then you cannot experience true love.

Bring to your mind the day you fell in love. The day your loved one manifested in your life, like sunshine, making your world bright. It was a nice feeling isn't it? That's the first stage of love - coming together (contact). Contact is possible because we have form (body) and consciousness (five senses, mind, manas and store consciousnesses). Contact does not mean beginning. There is no beginning. Your loved one existed even before you met that person. You existed as well and so did love. Contact is coming together. Contact develops into feelings, feelings into mental formations and mental formations into volitions. Depending on the type of contact feelings arise, depending on the type of feelings mental formations arise and depending on the type of mental formation that has arisen we make a decision (volition is the process of making a decision). Our volitions determine the future of our love.

The second stage of love is separation. If our coming together is based on the body or perceptions then we must part. Imagine a person in love with a man who is very rich. She wants material comforts. One day the rich man loses all his money. Then her desires remain unfulfilled. She will be angry, they will fight and will part. If you love someone because she is a girl or a boy, then one day that person will die and you will experience separation. Everyone who has ever loved a conceptual "person" has lost that person. If you love a body or a perception, it will end in suffering. When someone dies we miss them. When we die our children suffer, we are not there to help them when they need our help.

The third stage of love is liberation. How to be free from the suffering of separation? I will tell you, a little bit, today. I know a monk who lives in Plum Village, France. He is my teacher. He is very mindful. One day observing a cloud he realized that a cloud never dies! It transforms into rain, ice, steam but never dies. He then realized that nothing dies. We only fail to recognize the manifestations. We are unable to recognize the cloud when it transforms into rain and miss the cloud. But the cloud has now become water and is closer to us! If nothing dies how can a person die? When we think a person has died, it is because we consider her to be her body. This is so because of our habit of recognizing and discriminating on the basis of the five sense perceptions - body, voice, touch, taste and smell. To be liberated is to be free from the suffering of separation. There are two hurdles that must be crossed - knowledge and perceptions. A cloud can help you with knowledge. A bird can help with knowledge. A teacher can help you with knowledge. But to overcome the hurdle of perceptions you will have to transform your habits. One who practices the Five Mindfulness Trainings is doing just that! True love is the third mindfulness training.

Since separation is because of our habit of recognizing and discriminating on the basis of the five sense perceptions - body, voice, touch, taste and smell, we must first learn to stop making our love contingent upon sensual perceptions. We must stop discriminating on the basis of physical features, manners, their views etc. We cannot treat one race or one sex or one specie with love and another with hatred. Why? If you smoke cigarettes everyday, then it becomes a habit. Then you become a slave to the cigarette. Then you get a lifestyle and ailments that come with smoking.

Once we are ready to look beyond body, we realize that love is not sexual desire. Love is liberating in nature. It makes us happy. Let a bird, a chicken, a cow come to you expecting love. When we practice loving animals, we are transforming our habits. We are practicing love that is not contingent upon how the other person looks. In fact, true love is true love because it is not contingent upon any conditions. Something is true when it does not change. Because of our habits we stop loving people when they change or they say something we don't like etc. We become angry or sad. Such love is like that of a selfish person who says, "I love myself, now you also love me", selfish and subject to change. True love is not contingent upon religion, political views, specie, gender, color etc.

What do you do when you love someone? The selfish lover wants his own happiness. He doesn't care for the loved one's happiness. The true lover wants his loved one to be happy. Will you kill and eat a woman because you love women? Then why do you kill and eat a chicken if you love chicken? We must learn to love all beings without discrimination. We don't hurt someone we truly love. We don't kill them. We don't eat them.

When we begin to practice true love, we are transforming our habits. It is very difficult. It may not happen overnight, not even in weeks but we have to try and make it happen because then all sufferings will end. There is only one vehicle that can free us from suffering in one lifetime and that is not any religion or doctrine or a pill or a person or an imaginary concept. It is true love.

The one who loves us is our true home. We can go home and be happy. The home does not follow us when we go to office. All sentient beings are waiting to love you. It is time you came home!

(The author, Saurabh Singh, is a student of Thich Nhat Hanh.)

#विज्ञप्तिमात्र #Vijñaptimātra #ThichNhatHanh #5Mindfulness #Enlightenment #Veganism