Desire, passion, attachment, need—all are mixed up together in that messy thing we call love, and how we sort them out is vital to our own happiness and the happiness of those we, well, love. Fortunately, we have a celibate Zen monk in his eighties to help us. Thich Nhat Hanh may be one of the most important Buddhist teachers in the world, but he’s also a master psychologist who brings together a deep understanding of the Western psyche and traditional Buddhist teachings on how our minds work. Here he helps us to a new understanding of love so that it will always benefit ourselves and others.
Every human being wants to love and be loved. This is very natural. But often love, desire, need, and fear get wrapped up all together. There are so many songs with the words, “I love you; I need you.” Such lyrics imply that loving and craving are the same thing, and that the other person is just there to fulfill our needs. We might feel we can’t survive without the other person. When we say, “Darling, I can’t live without you. I need you,” we think we’re speaking the language of love. We even feel it’s a compliment to the other person. But that need is actually a continuation of the original fear and desire that have been with us since we were small children.
As babies, we were helpless. We had arms and feet, but we couldn’t use them to go anywhere. There was very little we could do for ourselves. We went from having been in a very warm, wet, comfortable place inside the womb to being in a cold hard place full of harsh light. In order to breathe our first breath, we had to first expel the liquid from our lungs. It was a dangerous moment.
Our original desire is to survive. And our original fear is that no one will be there to take care of us. Before we could talk or understand language, we knew that the sound of footsteps coming closer meant someone would feed and care for us. This made us happy; we really needed that person.
As newborns, we could distinguish the smell of our mother or the person taking care of us. We knew the sound of her voice. We came to love that smell and that sound. That’s the first, original love, born from our need; it’s completely natural.
When we grow up and look for a partner, the original desire to survive is still there in many of us. We think that without someone else, we can’t survive. We might be looking for a partner, but the child in us is looking for that feeling of safety and comfort we had when our parent or caregiver arrived.
When we were infants, the smell of our mother was the most wonderful smell in the world, because we needed her. In Asia, people use the nose more than the mouth when they kiss each other. They recognize and enjoy the smell of the other person.
We might relax into a relationship, thinking, “I’m okay now, because I have someone to love me and support me.” But the infant in us is saying, “Now I can relax; my caregiver is here.” That feeling of joy does not come simply from a true appreciation of the presence of the other person. Rather, we are happy and peaceful because with this person we can feel safe and at ease. Later on, when our relationship becomes difficult, we aren’t relaxed anymore, and happiness is no longer there.
Fear and desire are connected. Out of our original fear came a desire for the person who made us feel comfortable and safe. An infant feels, “I’m helpless; I have no means to take care of myself. I’m vulnerable. I need someone, otherwise I’ll die.” Unless we recognize, take care of, and release those feelings, they’ll continue to determine the decisions we make. If, as adults, we continue to feel insecure and unsafe, this is the continuation of the original fear that we haven’t yet recognized and understood.
If you have fear, you can’t have happiness. If you’re still running after the object of your desire, then you still have fear. The fear goes together with craving. If you stop the craving, the fear will go away naturally, and then you can be free.
Sometimes you’re fearful, but you don’t know why. The Buddha says the reason you’re fearful is because you’re still craving. If you stop running after the object of your craving, you’ll have no fear. Having no fear, you can be peaceful and free, no longer drifting and sinking and no longer dependent on external conditions for the peace of your body and mind. With peace in your body and mind, you aren’t beset by worries and you have fewer accidents. Releasing that craving, you are free.
One of the greatest gifts we can offer to other people is to embody nonfear and nonattachment. This true teaching is more precious than money or material resources. Many of us are very afraid, and this fear distorts our lives and makes us miserable. We cling to objects and people, like a drowning person clinging to a floating log. By practicing nonattachment and sharing this wisdom with others, we give the gift of nonfear. Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. That person walks away. Happiness is still possible.
When we love someone, we should look deeply into the nature of that love. True love doesn’t contain suffering or attachment. It brings well-being to ourselves and others. True love is generated from within. With true love, you feel complete in yourself; you don’t need something from outside. True love is like the sun, shining with its own light, and offering that light to everyone.
CRAVING
In verse 31 of the Sutra on the Net of Sensual Love, the Buddha calls our desire by its true name: craving. Although we want love and healing, we still follow our sensual cravings. Why? The craving makes knots in the deeper part of our mind. The internal knots push us. Sometimes we don’t want to move, speak, or act like that. But something deep inside us pushes us to speak and act in that way. Afterward, we feel so ashamed. That internal knot is ordering us around. It pushes us to do and say things against our will. And when we’ve done it, it’s too late, and we feel deeply sorry. We say to ourselves, “How could I have said or done that?” But it’s already done. The root of that craving is our habit energy. When we look deeply at it, we can begin to untie the knot.
HABIT ENERGY
Habit energy is there in all of us in the form of seeds transmitted from our ancestors, our grandparents, and our parents, as well as seeds created by the difficulties we ourselves have experienced. Often we’re unaware of these energies operating in us. We may want to be in a committed relationship but our habit energies can color our perceptions, direct our behaviors, and make our lives difficult.
With mindfulness, we can become aware of the habit energy that has been passed down to us. We might see that our parents or grandparents were also very weak in similar ways. We can be aware without judgment that our negative habits come from these ancestral roots. We can smile at our shortcomings, at our habit energy.
Perhaps in the past when we’ve noticed ourselves doing something unintentional, something we may have inherited, we’ve blamed our individual, isolated selves. With awareness, we can begin to see our actions have deeper roots and we can transform these habit energies.
With the practice of mindfulness, we recognize the habitual nature of our desire. Mindfulness and concentration can help us look and find the roots of our actions. Our actions may have been inspired by something that happened yesterday, or they may have been inspired by something three hundred years old that has its roots in one of our ancestors.
When we’re able to smile at a provocation or direct our sexual energy toward something positive, we can be aware of our ability, appreciate it, and continue in this way. The key is to be aware of our actions. Our mindfulness will help us understand where our actions are coming from.
If we aren’t yet able to transform that habit energy, we will come out of the prison of one relationship only to fall into the prison of another. It’s common practice, when we encounter difficulty and suffering with our partner or spouse, to think we need to separate or divorce. By getting away from the other person, we think we’ll have freedom. We think that person is the cause of our suffering. But the truth is that even though we may feel freer right after the divorce or separation, we often get entangled immediately with someone else. We may stick to this new person, but we end up acting just like we did with the last one. We are the victims of our own habits. The way we think, speak, and act has not changed. What we did to cause suffering to the first person, we now do to cause suffering to someone new, and we create a second hell.
But if we are aware of our actions, we can decide whether or not they are beneficial and if not, we can decide not to repeat them. If we’re aware of the habit energies in us and can become more intentional in our thoughts, speech, and actions, then we can transform not only ourselves, but also our ancestors who planted the seeds. If we’re able to do that, it means our ancestors are also able to smile at what is provoking them. If one person keeps calm and smiles at a provocation, the whole world will have a better chance for peace.
COMPLEXES
Pride is a current that runs along with habit energy. Our pride is often connected to our sense of sexual self-worth. When a person is attracted to us, we have the impression that our self-pride is satisfied. We feel we have some value, some attractiveness, some good qualities, and that is why the other person is attached to us. We want to be with someone to prove that we are talented and beautiful. If we’re alone, we often think that it’s proof that we’re not interesting or pretty enough, and we suffer.
We’re always comparing. Our thoughts are reinforced by the images we constantly see around us and by our superficial view of others. We think we’re better or worse than someone, or else we’re focused on trying to be equal to that person. These three complexes—better than, worse than, and equal to—are intimately connected with our sexual energy.
Maintaining our idea of a separate self is the source of all of our complexes. We see ourselves as separate individuals, so we compare ourselves with others to see if we are better, worse, or equal to them. But looking deeply, we see that there is no self with which to compare. Our dualistic thinking is the basis of our attachment and craving.
We have two hands and we have names for them, right hand and left hand. Have you ever seen the two hands fighting each other? I have never seen this. Every time my left hand gets hurt, I notice that my right hand comes naturally to help. So there must be something like love in the body. Sometimes my hands help each other, sometimes they each act separately, but they have never fought.
My right hand invites the bell, writes books, does calligraphy, and pours tea. But my right hand doesn’t look down on the left hand and say, “Oh left hand, you are good for nothing. All the poems, I wrote them. All that calligraphy in German, French, and English—I’ve done it all. You are useless. You are good for nothing.” The right hand has never suffered from the complex of pride. The left hand has never suffered from the complex of unworthiness. It’s wonderful. When the right hand has a problem, the left hand comes right away. The right hand never says, “You have to pay me back. I always come to help you. You owe me.”
The stream of desire flows along with the stream of our complexes. We want to prove that we are someone, that we are worthy, that we have value, so we look for someone to approve of us and in this way we pull others in to the suffering caused by attachment. This is a pity. When we can see our partner as not separate from us, not better or worse or even equal to ourselves, then we have the wisdom of nondiscrimination. We see the happiness of others as our happiness, their suffering as our suffering.
Look at your hand. The fingers are like five brothers and sisters of the same family. Suppose we’re a family of five. When we remember that if one person suffers, we all suffer, we have the wisdom of nondiscrimination. If the other person is happy, we are also happy.
Very few people know how to see love and romance in terms of impermanence and nonself. Realizing nonself, we can see ourselves in our beloveds, and see them in ourselves. At that point we become healthy, light, and happy. To belittle or praise our loved ones is also to belittle or praise ourselves. Nonself is an insight that can help resolve the problem of sexual desire. Instead of denying love, we can view love in light of the insight of nonself.
To love, in the true sense of the word, is to feel no discrimination. We should have the element of equanimity, so that we can love without boundaries. Equanimity is the absence of the three complexes—better, worse, and equal. We no longer discriminate. We are able to embrace everything and we no longer suffer. When there is love without discrimination, there is also an absence of suffering.
RELEASING CRAVING
Some time after the Buddha was enlightened, he went back to his native kingdom. He saw that the political situation was very bad. His father had already passed away and many of the high government officials were corrupt. Mara, the embodiment of craving, appeared and said, “Buddha, you are the best politician in the world. If you decide to become king, you can save the situation in your native country; you can save the whole world.” The Buddha said, “Mara, my old friend, many conditions are needed for the situation to change; it’s not just a matter of who is king. I abandoned this kingdom seven years ago in order to practice. Since that time, I have discovered so many things; I can help countless people, many more than I could help if I were to become king.”
That pushing desire in each of us is Mara. The Mara inside us says, “You’re good; you’re the best.” But when Mara says these things, we have to recognize that they come from Mara. “I know you; you are my Mara.” Each of us has many Maras inside. They come and talk to us. As soon as we recognize that negative energy, we can say, “My dear Mara, I know that you are there. You can’t pull me.”
When sensual desire arises, you can say, “My dear sensual love, I know your root. You come from desire based on my wrong perceptions. But now I don’t have that craving, and you can’t touch me. Even if you are there, you can’t pull me. I don’t have any more wishes, and I have no more wrong perceptions about you. So how can you arise?”
Now you are like the fish who already knows the hook is in the bait. You know the bait isn’t a source of nourishment, and you are no longer caught by it. Your perception is clear. You are awakened, and you can’t be pulled by this and that.
When we let go of our complexes and look deeply at our habit energy, our cravings disappear. We can undo the ordering energy, the pushing knot. We come out of the abyss. Looking deeply, we understand better. We can undo all the internal knots, and then we are free.