Big Love : Loving Like Buddha
Have you ever stopped to contemplate and comprehend how big love is?
From a Buddhist perspective it is something that stretches so far and so wide that wrapping our minds around it feels near impossible! Every single thing that we experience both inside and outside of ourselves is completely interwoven. Consider the seamless connection of the sky and the many clouds; the rain and it's connection to our rivers, streams, the water we drink and the flow of it that makes up over 75% of our bodies... There is no separation at all and this tapestry of interconnectedness is what we refer to as interdependence. Without this oneness nothing would be; or at least not nearly in the way that we perceive and know the world that we live in. When you consider this oneness, we can begin to understand why the expanse of love is so hard to wrap our minds around. We can also come to quickly see that love is something that we cannot separate ourselves from... it's prana or the life force that is soaked into absolutely everything! It's as potent as the rays of the sun; forging life all around and within each and every single one of us.
We all have a tendency to create stories about love. We can quickly believe that love is only for certain people or for certain times and that it is something that we need to guard or protect... we believe it's something that we can lose. In that gripping fear we actually begin to live from a place of lack instead of love. Consider what happens when a break up occurs or when someone passes away. We can actually close our minds so far that we believe that love is completely lost when a phase of a relationship simple ends. What we fail to see in that smaller thinking, is that love is always changing shape, evolving and is something that cannot be lost. When we shake off the stories that imply that love is reserved for one person, place or thing, we can begin to comprehend that love must be understood in a much grander context.
What if love just is? What if it is unconditional and eternal? What if it is a substance more like how we perceive air that permeates everything for all time?
When we wake up to this reality and understand that we have such easeful access to this "substance"in the here and now, we rouse and wake up our hearts. It takes a lot to open up to the flow of the moment... we might say that it takes courage. But right there, we have an endless supply of lasting love that is not mired by our stories, delusions and small thinking. In the most painful experiences, we can pause and see that the pain is essential because it connects deeply to each other; to our love for life. In the middle of it all, there is a richness, that can be touched into by every person everywhere regardless of circumstance.
Take a moment to steady yourself. Close your eyes and see with the eyes of your heart. See love as the oxygen that you breathe into your lungs, the breath that you expel from your lungs. If the breath is love, do you find yourself breathing differently? Can you contact that gift in the core of yourself; an offering that is free for your taking and abundant for your giving? As you breathe love, receiving and sending, do you sense your ability to relax and extend trust that love is unending, enduring and so vast that only our consciousness itself can touch into any bit of understanding. Continue to breathe love into the heart and send it out. Take the first few moments in this practice to just bathe in what flows. Create a bubble of goodness that you sip from and contribute to in an unending cycle. In this process, sense how supported you are in these present moments that unfold before and within you. Sense how interwoven you are with this flow of love and breath. True love is here and now. It cannot be lost, even if we try... here it is. Extending this practice to include others by seeing them and their capacity to breathe in and send out with absolute ease. Sense the vast interconnectedness of us all, of our world, our planet and beyond. We all share in this goodness together. Know that you can extend this perspective into your daily life. When you feel without love, when the stories get more elaborate, more painful, take a pause and remember your access to what is pure and nourishing.
Practice loving like the Buddha (the knower). Living and loving from your bodhi, your innate well of wisdom that comprehends that we are love forever and always.
From my tender heart to yours,
Meg
For an audio version of this blog and meditation visit www.theheartrevival.com/audio