THE POWER OF LOVE AND ITS ROLE IN LIBERATION. The Buddhist vs. worldly view of love and attachment and its connection to joy and bliss, and Je Tāranātha on love as the ‘water of compassion’ and an essential qualification of a teacher

“Love is the wish that sentient beings meet with fresh and unprecedented bliss.  Similarly, compassion is the wish that they be separated from suffering and, from now onwards, the ways in which suffering arises are stopped. Joy is the mental bliss that is brought forth by rejoicing and liking it when other sentient beings experience happiness and joy.”

” Without the opposing antidotes to pleasure-seeking out of attachment and desire, the negative and destructive physical, verbal and mental conduct will increase. Due to pleasure-seeking and the mind that wants harm, other afflictive emotions will also increase and flourish. It will cause the arisal of infinite faults and dangers, both now and in the future.”  –Je Taranatha in Hundred Blazing Lights Kālacakra commentary

‘Even giving three hundred pots of food three times per day, every day is nothing compared to the merit of one moment of loving-kindness.’ — Nagārjuna’s ‘Precious Garland’

 

Today, worldwide millions of people celebrate St Valentine’s Day, a day associated with romantic love, couples, flowers and expensive gifts. Although, celebrating love and generosity can only be a good thing, from the Buddhist perspective, it is a source of suffering if it based on a worldly idea of love, which means “I want to be happy, and I want you to help make me that.’ The Buddhist idea of love is the opposite of that, and says: “I want you to be happy, whether with me or without me, and I want to help that happen, if I can.” In a nutshell, one is very inward-focused and the other is very outward-focused.

All the great Buddhist masters have spoken of the importance of love for generating the very crucial mind-state for attaining full awakening, on any of the three paths, which is bodhicitta, the mind that seeks full awakening for the benefit of others.  The foundation stones of bodhicitta are immeasurable love and compassion. Note the key word here ‘immeasurable’ that means genuine love and compassion fo all beings, regardless of whether you are personally close to them or not, or like them or not.

The great Shangpa Kagyu and Jonang Master, Je Tāranātha spoke about the importance of love in his Kalacakra masterpiece Hundred Blazing Lights.  He calls love ‘the water of compassion’, as without love there can be no real compassion. Although of the four immeasurables, he says compassion is the most important because if “one does not have compassion, one cannot enter into the training of the Bodhisattvas”.  Compassion is also cited by Tāranātha as one of the essential qualities of a qualified teacher, see here. and that even if a teacher does not possess all the required characteristics, they must have genuine love and compassion for all beings. However, Tāranātha then states that love, and the other immeasurables, cannot by themselves free one from desires and attachment:

“Merely meditating on love and so on, does not have the power to free oneself from desires and attachment, so it is not correct to say one can do this, when being born in the godly/Brahma realms.”

For more from Je Tāranātha and the 1st Jamgon Kongtrul on the role of love and ‘erotic’ and ultimate  ‘bliss’ in Vajrayāna union in practice, see here.

Last year,  ‘Tricycle: The Buddhist Review’ published a feature article discussion with myself on love, bliss and relationships from a Buddhist perspective. Also, here is a short video I made talking about the Buddhist vs worldly view of love, and a short video on the importance of genuine love and its connection to ultimate bliss in Vajrayāna, in particular when practising ‘union’ as a male-female. In an interview last year, for the podcast channel Love and Liberation, I speak at more length about love, bliss, sexuality, celibacy and Vajrayāna practice.

In summary, romantic love and family love based on biological ties can be pleasurable and beneficial, but more often than not (as we all know from experience), they are the root of suffering as well because they are based on attachment, rather than genuine love. That is why the Buddha preached that reducing desire and attachment, and the way of celibacy is an essential part of the Dharma path to full awakening. Such ethical discipline if taken with the right motivation, far from being a ‘joy-killer’ as worldly people often think or say, but a ‘joy-creator’ as it is based on generating happiness/inner bliss from within and on wishing to benefit others and not only oneself.  So for all those experiencing suffering, loneliness, sadness, heartbreak this Valentine’s Day let us all try and remember that real love should not cause oneself harm or suffering, only attachment and selfish desire do.

Music? The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, I Want to Know What Love is by Foreigner,  Where is the Love? by Black-Eyed Peas…’take control of your mind and meditate, gravitate to the love ya’ll’.

Written ‘with love’ by Adele Tomlin, 14th February 2024.