Making Love

In a previous post, I’ve mentioned maitri – the yogic concept of lovingkindness that is known as metta in the Buddhist traditions – the practice of unconditional love.

Loving the whole world is a good idea, right?

But what about the guy who honked at me in traffic yesterday? Do I have to love him?

Or, what about some of our nation’s leaders, with whom I keep finding myself in complete disagreement? Do I have to love them?

What about the second grade teacher who shook me until my baby teeth rattled?

And, what about me? I wish I was taller, younger, thinner, smarter, wealthier, more dedicated. If I love myself exactly the way I am, won’t I just be lazy and complacent?

Maitri, like physical yoga, is a practice. It’s a place we can turn, time and time again, for refuge from the world.

I recently stumbled across a beautiful essay by Eknath Easwaran in his book Words to Live By: A Daily Guide to Living an Exceptional Life.

Easwaran, the founder of the Blue Mountain Meditation Center, based in Tomales, California, not far from my home, was a revered scholar and meditation teacher, and I have found inspiration in his writing. (You can read more about him here.)

His essay of May 14, begins with a quote from St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, grant that I may not so much seek to be loved as to love.

And Easwaran begins by explaining that in these words, St. Francis offers the cure to loneliness and isolation.

We’re socially conditioned to seek love from other people. In fact, loving someone who doesn’t love us back is regarded as a tragedy of mythic proportions. As a result we try to make our love as safe as possible, taking few risks with our own sense of comfort.

This begins early in life, in about the fifth grade:

“Do you have a crush on Lisa?” “I don’t know. First ask her if she likes me.”

But Easwaran says that if we want to learn to make love, as in making it grow without end, we have to try to look upon the “other” as someone we can give our love to, and continue to give it, for all eternity.

He defines love as a practice – like asana, or meditation, or journaling, or prayer – one that requires attention and exercise:

“Learning to love is like swimming against the current of a powerful river; most of our past conditioning is pushing us in the other direction. So it is a question of developing your muscles: The more you use them, the stronger they get. When you put the other person’s welfare foremost every day, no matter how strong the opposing tide inside, you discover after a while that you can love a little more today than you did yesterday. Tomorrow you will be able to love a little more.”

But Easwaran says nothing about reciprocation. He doesn’t promise that if we love wholeheartedly, we’ll be loved back in kind.

In fact, the practice of maitri, or metta, absolves the “other” of all responsibility for our happiness.

In this practice love doesn’t come when someone turns their favor upon us. After all, we’ve all felt that seductive glow of newness and flattery. But it’s guaranteed that soon after the warmth of that glow follows a nagging fear it will be withdrawn or evaporate. And this fear starts a cycle, as we struggle to recreate that glow, either in attention of the same person, or by seeking out person after person – be they lovers, friends, bosses, therapists, or strangers.

If we can practice loving, and stop seeking, we create a glow that endures and has the capacity to light up everyone we contact.

In his book The Wisdom of Yoga, Stephen Cope offers this translation of Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.33 (which I referenced in an earlier post called Right Action and Reaction):

Consciousness settles as one radiates friendliness, compassion, delight, and equanimity toward all things, whether pleasant or painful, good or bad.

And he suggests the following Buddhist medition practice for developing metta or maitri;

Focus your awareness on a series of repeated phrases of well-wishing, or prayers, such as this one, developed by Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein:

May you feel protected and safe
May you feel contented and pleased
May your body support you with strength
May your life unfold smoothly and with ease

Then, Cope explains:

“In the classic teaching the well-wishing is first aimed toward the self, then toward a “benefactor,” then toward a “neutral person,” and finally toward the more difficult persons in our lives (or even a so-called “enemy”).

Take a few moments to try this. Set aside your seeking for a moment, and instead focus on people from whom you want nothing. Realize that the purpose of the meditation is to create love within yourself and in the world, not to receive their love, or change their behavior.

Then, try it again tomorrow.

We know, and science has supported the idea, that consciously smiling when we’re not happy can actually improve our mood.

I believe that in the same way, consciously loving can create and sustain love.

Namasté.