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The Four Elements of True Love
Time is made for living and loving, and learning how to use it is an art. Maitri, this energy that allows us to generate our own happiness and that of others, is practiced notably through walking meditation, where every step nourishes, heals, and generates freedom, solidity, and peace in the present moment. Happiness is not a goal to be reached but the path itself, accessible here and now through looking deeply into our actions and our daily consumption.
True love is based on four interdependent elements:
- Maitri, loving-kindness, which becomes maha maitri when it moves us to build a Sangha to act and listen collectively.
- Karuna, compassion, which allows us to understand, remove, and transform the suffering in ourselves and in the other to become maha karuna.
- Mudita, altruistic joy and the absence of jealousy, which consists of rejoicing in the happiness of the other, provided that this joy is true and does not destroy the body or the mind.
- Upeksha, equanimity and nondiscrimination, which erases the boundary between the one who loves and the one who is loved, offering total freedom without possession or dependence, and allowing for reconciliation in a nonpartisan spirit.
This practice relies on the wisdom of non-self and the insight of interbeing taught in the Diamond Sutra. By looking deeply, we realize that a thing is made only of elements that are not itself, which allows us to transcend rigid notions and cultivate deep understanding, the indispensable foundation of true love.
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