Dear Thay, what concerns me is the pain that I sometimes feel. I am a little embarrassed to ask this question and I am sorry, it is a little difficult. But what I sometimes feel is a lot of pain from wanting to share my life with someone, but not having a partner.

And sometimes this ache is so sharp that it actually physically hurts. And often I will remind myself of how fortunate I am to have really wonderful friends and family. But other times, I am so sad that I do not know what to do with this heartache.

And I do not think it is bad to want to be with someone. So sometimes when I feel such a loss for being without that special partner, and it hurts for wanting someone to love, I do not know what to do. And I do not know how to handle that ache when it comes sometimes. And that is my difficulty that I bring to you. And I thank you for your thoughts on that.

[One sound of the bell.]

There is a fear within. The fear that our desire, our need to love and to be loved cannot be fulfilled. The fear is always there in everyone. Fear of being left lonely.

Because everyone of us wants to love and wants to be loved. And we are afraid that we have no chance to love and we have no chance to be loved. So we have to recognize that fear, that need within ourselves.

But the practice is to look deeply into that kind of fear, that kind of need. To love is to offer understanding and comfort. You would feel miserable if no one can understand you.

And when someone does not understand you, he or she cannot love you. Because understanding is the source of love. You cannot say that he loves me but he does not understand me. That does not make any sense. Because without understanding, love is impossible. So the truth is that we need understanding. We need love. And we are looking for someone who can provide us with that understanding, that love. Suppose there is one person who is capable of offering us understanding and love. Suppose he is somewhere there, she is somewhere there. But we have to ask the question whether we are capable of offering him or her understanding and love.

Are we capable of generating the understanding and the love that we so need and the other people also need? This is the real question: whether we ourselves are capable of generating the energy of love and understanding. Because if we are not capable of generating that energy of love and understanding, nothing will come out. Nothing will happen.

The teaching of the Buddha aims at helping us to generate the energy of love and understanding. And if we can produce that energy of understanding and love, that energy will first help us satisfy our need. And with that capacity of love and understanding, we can embrace the people who are with us now, and we can make them happy while we are happy ourselves. Because the energy of understanding and love are very positive energies that have the capacity of nourishing and healing and bringing happiness.

So the question is not whether there is love and understanding around so that we can obtain. The question is whether we have the capacity of generating love and understanding. If we have that capacity, then we will feel wonderful because these energies will satisfy us first and satisfy the people around at the same time.

And then maybe everyone will be our partner. And that is the love of the Buddha. The Buddha wants everyone to be his partner. And true love is like that. Because to love one person is an opportunity for you to learn in order to embrace everyone with that love. You do not stop at that.

In the Buddha film, we try to show that. Siddhārtha also began with one person. And he was not satisfied with that. He wanted his love to grow, to embrace everyone. That is why to love one person is really an opportunity. And you can do that now, here and now. You don't have to wait, if you have the capacity to love and to understand.

So the first question is whether we are capable of understanding and loving. And that is the practice. And if we succeed on this matter, the worry, the fear will no longer be there. We feel wonderful right away. Please reflect on this. It's very important. Thank you.

Lieber Thay, ich weiß, dass du einer der emanzipiertesten Männer von dieser Welt bist, und ich möchte dich fragen, ob deine Position oder deine Arbeit später einmal auch eine Frau machen könnte. Ich möchte wissen, ob in Zukunft es eine Frau sein könnte, die deine Arbeit fortsetzt.