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The Four Dimensions of True Love
Time is made for living and for loving. Learning how to use our time is an art that allows us to establish ourselves in the present moment, far from worries about the future and regrets about the past. The practice of love begins with maitrī, the energy that allows us to generate our own happiness and the happiness of others. Walking gently on the Earth, each step has the power to nourish, to heal, and to generate an energy of freedom, solidity, and peace. Offering freedom and space is essential, because happiness cannot exist without a certain freedom.
True love manifests through four elements of an interdependent nature:
- Maitrī: the offering of joy and happiness.
- Karuṇā: the capacity to transform and remove suffering.
- Muditā: altruistic joy and the absence of jealousy.
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Upekṣā: equanimity and nondiscrimination.
Happiness is not a goal but the path itself, available in the here and the now. It requires deep looking to recognize whether our consumption and the objects of our joy are sources of true well-being or of destruction. By identifying the source of nourishment that has brought about suffering or depression, ill-being can dissolve.
When love is inhabited by mahā-maitrī and mahā-karuṇā, it becomes necessary to build a Sangha. This sangha-kāya offers thousands of eyes and arms to act and to listen. Bodhisattvas are living realities who use this energy to save and protect. Even in situations of incarceration, giving rise to compassion in one’s heart allows one to stop suffering. The practice of mindful breathing and smiling, touching the wonders of life such as the blue sky, transforms pain into peace.