Love and Zen

[Jinyo]

(my highlights)

Since nobody has picked up Alan's statement yet, I will - just to throw it out there, as I'm not quite sure where I stand on this myself.

Is love equal to attachment?
Can it be true love if it is free from attachment?
Is love free from attachment just an ideal?
Does love get "better", "more pure" or whatever when attachment lessens?

My "ideal" love is expressed in this story:


Taken to our relationships, this would mean:
I know that my husband, mother, father, sister, friends are already dead, so I enjoy them incredibly...

Hi Nindo - I like the story about the glass - not sure that I'd interpret it as meaning that objects of attachment are already dead, but it certainly
points to the inherent impermanence of all dharmas.

I think culturally we have a lot of difficulty with the buddhist notion of attachment - I'm wondering if we need to re-express the meaning of this in our own
words for our own time. All of our current knowledge on child development comes from 'attachment theory' and how important it is (to be able to love) to have
healthy attachments.

Not understanding what is meant by non-attachment in buddhism seems to throw up a lot of problems and misunderstanding.

I think in terms of loving, expressing love, we must embrace attachment - attachment is human and it's the emotional glue that holds together the bonds of love and caring we make.
Dhukka comes when we can not accept that attachment is no guarantee of permanence - all that we are and all that we love will pass away. Personally - I am not convinced that buddhism can protect us from the pain - but it can perhaps help us with acceptance.

Gassho

Willow

[Taigu]

Easy... I am attached to my beloved ones...So attached, just like anybody else. When they go, everything goes.

Easy, I am in pain when the beloved ones are suffering.

Easy, I am deluded.


And-Shikantaza-guy I sit
through
in
out
with
for it
without it
with it
or
i don't know


I sit in being this


Easy...


gassho


Taigu

[pinoybuddhist]

I care, I love, I form attachments, I embrace... and sometimes I get hurt because of this. Still: I care, I love, I form attachments, I embrace...

The blue sky does not push the clouds away.

[Marla567]

When I woke up today, I thought about a poem, that was very important for my life and I now want to share it with you.

Before I decided to go some kind of "spiritual path" (or better to say to go it again) I had a time I felt very cold and numb. I got the impression that I only have to function and it doesn't matter at all what it feels like. But that is really not true, because love and health are bound together: Our true self and love can't be divided.

That is the meaning of the poem and even if it is a christian story that is told in the poem I first read it in a Buddhist book and it's meaning truely is universal:

St. Francis And The Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Galway Kinnell

Gassho
Bianca

[Mp]

I care, I love, I form attachments, I embrace... and sometimes I get hurt because of this. Still: I care, I love, I form attachments, I embrace...

The blue sky does not push the clouds away.

Nicely put ...

Gassho
Michael

[Dosho]

Lovely Bianca...just lovely. May I ask what book that poem came from?

Gassho,
Dosho

St. Francis And The Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Galway Kinnell

[Marla567]

Lovely Bianca...just lovely. May I ask what book that poem came from?

Gassho,
Dosho

Joseph Goldstein: Insight Meditation

I liked this book very much. It is not about Zen, but about Western Buddhism in general. It was a recommendation of a German, who went to Thailand to become a monk and then came back to Germany as a monk to study and teach Buddhism.

Gassho
Bianca

[Seizan]

Hi Hans.

There is a wonderful Theravadin monk I know who's mother recently died. He has been a monk for maybe 40 years, and has been abbot of several monasteries. About ten years ago his elderly mother took ill and did not recover. My friend stepped down as abbot, returned to Canada, and moved in with his mother to nurse her.... she was very frail and could not take care of herself. He did this for ten years, which is tough for a Theravadin monk living by strict vinaya. His focus was nursing his mother, but he still gave talks from time to time, and lead the occasional weekend retreat. One time during a public talk, a lay person who was aware of his situation challenged him.. and told him he was (horrors) "attached" to his mother. This monk's response was angry.. "Ofcourse I'm attached to my mother.. SHE'S MY MOTHER!!". Now that is Theravada Buddhism, where sometimes you'll fine hard cases who just want to kiss this suffering world goodbye. But, I have found a pretty cold attitude among some Zen folk to... a kind of sublime sociopathy for an "illusory" world. It is not a stretch to imagine the Zen soldier hacking his way through Nanking. So.. yes, if I understand you correctly, I agree, more loving commitment... less selfish preoccupation with cool non-attachment, and the dissolving of every human value in emptiness to that end.

Gassho, kojip.

I definitely have to come back and read *every* post on this thread, but I thought I would chime in. When I first started studying Buddhism, I was really focusing on works by the Dalai Lama. He mentioned love so very often, and ways to cultivate love. He would often in the next paragraphs discuss attachment, but never was a clear correlation explained to me. In the margins of quite a few books I wrote notes on "why all this love if we can't be attached?"

I was very dismayed at the thought of non-attachment. Like Kojip's friend, I could not imagine not being attached to my husband- of course I am! I think you don't hear much about love in the teachings because it comes, in all its forms and definitions, easily in life. We love from the moment we are born- we love our mother for sustaining and comforting us as infants and then move on to other stages and manifestations. Non-attachment is something most people have to really study and work for.

I brought this up at a Tibetan group I was attending for a bit, and their answer after much discussion very much satisfied me. This might be a little off topic but just a theory I wanted to share that cleared up my own misunderstanding. Practicing non-attachment does not mean don't love, or that love itself doesn't matter, but it just means don't be so attached to things that when their true nature (impermanence) arises you are blindsided, kicked down, devastated, destroyed, overwhelmed etc. Love with clear sight.

I definitely think this ties in with the Zen readings I've studied so far- zazen is real life, life is zazen, zazen is seeing clearly. I think that love isn't really brought up so much because it is so natural and is already there when non-attachment is realized. Just my take, may have already been voiced and may be off topic! When you see clearly, the part that was taught and worked at (non-attachment) co-exists with the love you already knew.

Thich Nhat Hanh has a book that is really focused on love- I have yet to read it but I read in the descriptions that he fell in love with a young nun once and used that love to further his practice. http://www.amazon.com/Cultivating-Mi.../dp/1888375787.

Hope this wasn't repetitive/too off topic.

Gassho,
Dani

[Amelia]

Dani said: "...This might be a little off topic but just a theory I wanted to share that cleared up my own misunderstanding. Practicing non-attachment does not mean don't love, or that love itself doesn't matter, but it just means don't be so attached to things that when their true nature (impermanence) arises you are blindsided, kicked down, devastated, destroyed, overwhelmed etc. Love with clear sight..."

I like this.

[Jundo]

Practicing non-attachment does not mean don't love, or that love itself doesn't matter, but it just means don't be so attached to things that when their true nature (impermanence) arises you are blindsided, kicked down, devastated, destroyed, overwhelmed etc.

I would say that is just how we would say it too. Thank you.

Can you love with all you heart ... yet not smother or overly cling?

Can you hold someone tightly in your arms when together ... yet be willing to let them go when life makes it so in passing time?

Can you feel the natural grief and tears of loss ... yet the Peace and Buddha Smile of acceptance ... All At Once, As One?

I would say this is what we Practice.

Gassho, Jundo