My heart is beating really fast. I am now in a beautiful love relationship with my partner, but she is not here right now. She is in Canada. We will be separated for maybe five months before we can meet again. And we talk on the phone and we are experiencing both together very strong desires sometimes, attachment and confusion and suffering. And also we nourish very much our joy and happiness to be able to know each other and to share a path together. I would like to receive your insight about how can we best transform our desires, attachment, so together, fear and confusion, we can heal ourselves and liberate ourselves, walking together in our relationship.

You are sure that she is not here?

When we love, we have the tendency to create an image of our beloved one. And the object of our love is more that image we created than the real person. It takes us several years in order to to modify, to correct that image we have created in order for it to coincide more with reality.

That's universal. And those of us who have had the experience of love know that. That in the beginning, falling in love, it always creates a beautiful image of the other person.

And if you have the opportunity to live with each other 24 hours a day, There's a lot. And that is not easy. If you meet once a week or twice a week, that is very easy. But if you are to spend 24 hours with each other a day, that may become quite difficult.

Because you cannot hide yourself. from her and she cannot hide herself from you. With all your beauties and weakness, with her beauties and weakness at the same time.

You are made of elements that are not yourself. Elements that you like and elements you don't like. There's a lot of parents elements in you, ancestors elements in you, society elements in you, country elements in you. And it's nice to recognize them as non-you elements. And you don't have to feel responsible for everything within yourself.

And the same kind of practice can be taken up when you look at her. Look at her not as a separate entity, but a creation, a manifestation of many, many elements, from many, many elements. To be able to see her parents, her ancestors, her culture, her society in her. and not to be surprised when you see all these things manifest.

So both of you have to practice the same, to be aware. That is the practice of non-self. Self is made of non-self elements. It's very important.

And then love in the Buddhist context means to be able to make the other person happy, to help remove the pain and suffering from the other person. Maitri and Karuna. Maitri means to offer happiness. Karuna means to remove pain. Love is also mudita, means joy. If there is no joy in the relationship, it's not worth it.

And the fourth element is upeksha, which means no discrimination. Not only between you and her, but between this and that. Because the kind of love that is still smeared with discrimination, it cannot bring happiness. And Upeksha made it possible that while loving, you still retain your freedom and you can help retain her freedom. To love does not mean to lock the other person in a prison, the prison of your views, your need and so on. So upeksha means to love in such a way that you can retain your freedom And she can retain her freedom also. Because without freedom, happiness is not true, is not possible. So the four ingredients of love spoken by the Buddha, we have to look into the nature of our love to see whether they are there or not. Maitri, karuna, buddhita, and upeksha.

And if they are still weak and they have to practice in such a way, practice loving in such a way that they can grow every day. Because if these four elements can grow every day, suffering will diminish and happiness will increase. It's very concrete.

In the teaching of the Buddha, self-love, is the foundation for the love of the other person. So in order to really love her and make her happy, you must make sure that you can love yourself and make yourself happy. If you don't know how to take care of yourself, how to take good care of yourself, and to offer you solidity, freedom, joy, and then you cannot make her happy.

So self-love is the foundation for the love of others. This is a real, authentic Buddha's teaching. Because if you don't have it, you cannot offer it to anyone. You should have the joy, the stability, the tolerance, the compassion. the happiness in order to offer it to the other person. And that is why bringing into your person all these elements means self-love. And self-love means self-understanding. Self-love is not possible without self-understanding. The understanding of self is the foundation for love. We have to understand our suffering.

and our happiness, the cause of our suffering and the causes of our happiness, the causes of our difficulties, the causes of our despair, and so on. So self-understanding is the basic practice in order to have self-love. And self-understanding and self-love make you into a happy person. And then you are in a position of loving and sharing your happiness with the other person. So everything comes from within first. If you don't have this element, you can destroy the other person. And there are many teachings that can be used in order to develop these four elements of love within ourselves. The practice of mindfulness makes it possible for you to recognize your strengths and your weaknesses in every moment of your daily life.

Everything you do for yourself, for the sake of your solidity, freedom, you do for her at the same time. When you make a step with solidity, with freedom, you make it for her at the same time. And if you cannot make a stable, solid, free step like that, you have not much, you wouldn't have much in order to offer to her. So to love is to offer happiness, offer the transformation and healing. And if you know how to recognize your anger, your doubt, and then you become a pleasant person, a gift for your beloved one. And you would be in a situation to help her to overcome her afflictions also.

Every time you say, think of something that is not positive, you are doing harm to yourself, you are doing harm to her. And anything that can create a knot in the other person can be a seed of suffering for her. And that is why the practice of beginning new in Plum Village is very important. Every week you sit down and you have the time to look.

You ask the other person, darling, during the last week, have I said something that made you suffer? Because we may have done it without awareness. Maybe out of our forgetfulness we have said it, we have done it, but it has created a knot, a mental, an internal formation, a little block, a little work of suffering in her. So she will have the time to think about it. And she has the duty of telling you. Because if she is afraid, she does not want to tell it, next time if you repeat the same kind of mistake, And that formation of suffering in her will grow double until it becomes a block. And at that time it's not easy anymore.

Suppose during a reception you tell friends of something that is not entirely the truth. And she was aware. And she has lost some of the esteem, her esteem for you because you did not tell the whole truth. You want to say that in order to impress your friends.

But you didn't think about it, but you have created a seed of disrespect in her. Because she knew that you were not telling the whole truth. You were exaggerating or something like that. So that seed of disrespect in her, although very small, but it counts. Because next time you may do it again and you'll grow. That is why she has the duty And we should give her the opportunity to say, darling, the other day during the reception, you said that. Is that true or not?

I have the impression that you exaggerated. And then you have an opportunity to explain. If that is not true, and then you tell her that it's not an exaggeration. And she will remove that disrespect in her. It's very important. And if it is true, and then you say that, I'm sorry darling, next time I will not do it again. And then that disrespect is also removed.

It's a very important practice. And if every week you do like that, the practice is called beginning new. Even if you don't have big problems, where you are safe.

Be aware of the forming of knots of suffering in the other person, in yourself. So you listen to her, she listens to you. And make sure that nothing It's left out without, you turn every stone in order to see something is hidden there.

It's very important and it's very easy to do it. It is a pleasure also in the beginning. If you don't do it, then when there come big blocks of suffering, you cannot talk to each other anymore. And this is what we recommend for all young couples. I think this is the last question and answer for today.