Love, like any living being, if not nourished with “food” every day, will gradually die: each day we need to learn the art of nourishing love so that we ourselves are healthy, full of love, and able to offer it to others. When we see our relationship with our parents, spouse, or children as if it has died even though they are still alive, that is a sign that we have let our love be extinguished. If we do not wake up in time, and only weep when that person has passed away, it is often not out of longing for love but out of regret. The teachings of the Buddha and the practice of mindfulness and meditation help us revive the love we thought was dead, bringing back to life the fire of love buried under ashes.

To build and protect the happiness of both ourselves and our family, we need to combine three powers of a practitioner—not only for monastics but also for lay people:

1. The virtue of letting go (knowing how to cut off the roots of craving, anger, and ignorance)
2. The virtue of wisdom (deep looking to untangle suffering)
3. The virtue of gratitude (the capacity to forgive, to embrace those who are difficult to love)

When conflict arises, three sentences of loving speech should be practiced immediately to revive love:

1. I am angry, I am suffering, and I want you to know this.
2. I am practicing to the best of my ability as a practitioner.
3. Please help me; perhaps I have not been able to untangle all of these feelings on my own.

Unhappiness begins with our own passions, jealousy, and anger, making it impossible to help ourselves, let alone help the other person. The key is to return to ourselves in order to take care of, to manage our sadness, our anger, our despair, so that suffering is lessened. Only when we are calm and fresh do we have the capacity to listen and look deeply to understand: what are the difficulties, the suffering, and the aspirations of the other person? For example, in the story of a husband who, six years after his wife passed away, found new love, which broke the connection between father and child: the eldest child secretly took the father’s passport and plane ticket, but the more force was used, the more distant the father became. The advice from Deer Park Monastery is to practice mindful breathing and walking meditation for three days to become fresh and open the heart, and then to sit down and talk with the father in the spirit of deep listening to understand before trying to persuade.

Buddhism teaches us to develop loving kindness through the Four Immeasurable Minds, each of which grows boundlessly through wisdom and practice:

• Maitri (Loving-kindness) – friendship, offering happiness
• Karuna (Compassion) – the ability to transform the suffering of the other person
• Mudita (Joy) – the joy of giving and receiving
• Upekkha (Equanimity) – non-discrimination, non-attachment, sharing both suffering and happiness as one family

Deep listening and loving speech, using the eyes of love and the ears of love to understand the roots, then gathering the collective insight of both sides, will renew the relationship, transforming a relationship of suffering into a refuge of happiness.

In the retreat, there are about 100 monks and nuns, among whom

• the young monks and nuns bring freshness and youthfulness, relying on the elder brothers and sisters for solidity, dignity, and ease
• the senior monks and nuns offer solidity and ease, and also rely on the freshness of the young ones to nourish the collective energy

The retreat focuses on three themes

1. health (physical and mental well-being in harmony)
2. relationships (between father and child, mother and child, husband and wife, friends)
3. livelihood (success linked with good health and harmonious relationships)

Regarding basic practice, we use the breath and our steps to simultaneously maintain mindfulness (shamatha) and develop insight (vipashyana). The main exercises include

• Breathing in, I know I am breathing in; breathing out, I know I am breathing out
• Following the breath from beginning to end (in-breath, out-breath)
• Breathing in, I enjoy; breathing out, I enjoy
• Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body; breathing out, I relax my whole body
• Inviting the Buddha within to breathe lightly and rest, so that I too can breathe lightly and rest