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The Four Elements of True Love

Thich Nhat Hanh · July 27, 2010 · Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France · Audio Only
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The word interbeing does not yet exist in the dictionary, but the idea is that “nothing can be by itself”:

  1. left and right inter-are, above and below;
  2. lotus flower and mud, cloud, sun;
  3. tea and cloud, tea and Dharma;
  4. father and son, suffering and happiness;
  5. right and left hands, chopsticks in the oven.
    Looking deeply, we always perceive what allows the other to be, and the insight of interbeing removes separation, fear, and discrimination.

Four elements make up true love:

  1. maitrī (friendship, the capacity to offer happiness, based on understanding one’s own suffering)
  2. karuṇā (compassion, the intention to transform suffering, requiring understanding the suffering of oneself and the other)
  3. muditā (pure joy, producing moments of joy through mindfulness, concentration, and deep looking)
  4. upekṣā (non-discrimination, inclusiveness, equanimity, “love without boundaries” that allows us to love all beings).
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