On Love 2

In learning about love, these are the kinds of questions we can ask ourselves: What is love? What are the advantages and drawbacks of love? How does love arise? How is love sustained? How does love decay and end? What are the impurities of love? What preserves and purifies love? How should we behave with respect to love so as to maximize happiness and minimize pain?

Mundane love has natural limitations simply through being a part of the world. It is always in some way deficient. That is the bad news. But the good news is that there is another, superior kind of love, namely lovingkindness (metta). It is an unconditional love, expressed universally without bias, for all living things. It is a truly pure love. When an attachment is boundless, it does not cause suffering. On the contrary, lovingkindness brings only happiness of a most satisfying kind, because rather than being a part of the unfulfilling world, it lies on the path to liberation.

As spiritual practitioners we strive to understand love. When we examine love with a neutral, unbiased mind, attachments that have arisen from delusion will gradually dissolve along with the various impurities that have entered into our hearts and become bundled together with love. We will begin to appreciate the taste of non-toxic love, and finally in the hearts of those who have practiced well will remain only a clear, clean and unconditional love that overflows naturally from a joyful mind.

These reflections from Ajahn Jayasaro are from the book, On Love, pp. 3, 6, 8 respectively.