This is not a love story.
This is a story about love.– Movie tagline
“This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie ‘The Graduate’. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent’s marriage she’d only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.”
Thus quipped the narrator of ‘(500) Days of Summer’. The story is a rom-com of the tensions between expectations and reality in love relationships, of the difficulty (or rather, impossibility) of living the paradox of being ‘committed’ to ‘casual romantic love without commitment’. Most of the time, at least one heart is going to break when attachment and hopes grow.
Be we guys or girls, I think many of us have had at least one experience of assuming our lives would be complete and perfect once we meet the one true love of our lives. (But why should all of our happiness be one huge egg in one basket?) We might even have encountered this one person, who could be our first loves, through whom our first crushes were crushed… as we wonder how could something that seemed so right go so wrong. I suspect many of of us have yet to fully realise the pain that is guaranteed from assuming that our happiness pivots upon one unenlightened person’s love of us. Our True Happiness actually pivots upon something else – how well we can love as many of the unenlightened as possible, in ways as enlightened as possible, with the least craving for reciprocation. This is when being loving is already its own lovely reward.
To find True Love,
be True Love.True Love is not being loved truly;
True Love is being truly loving.– Stonepeace
[ad#500days]
“I suspect many of of us have yet to fully realise the pain that is guaranteed from assuming that our happiness pivots upon one unenlightened person’s love of us.”
It’s almost like saying maybe there’s no point of starting a love relationship with another unenlightened being? (U)
Be it love of family, friends or otherwise, i think we all have to learn to love somewhere – even if it’s between 2 unenlightened people… unless one is already an enlightened master from a previous life! As long as we see enlightened love as an ideal to work towards, even the unenlightened can reach it in good time with practice.
😀
“Our True Happiness actually pivots upon something else – how well we can love as many of the unenlightened as possible, in ways as enlightened as possible, with the least craving for reciprocation. This is when being loving is already its own lovely reward.”
I can understand and agree to some extent. I also have the same doubts as Garbha.
With shi’an answer to those doubts, I think further again: Can love between two unenlightened people definitely lead to enlightened love? Many conditions need to be present. But yet those conditions are too varied and complex to list out and explain. Cos personality, values and habits don’t change so easily.
The only true love that we can be sure of is that of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas.
Any being who has not truly achieved insight realisation of emptiness, theoretically speaking, cannot really be truly loving.
For example, the compassion of Arahants cannot be compared to that of Buddhas. Therefore Buddhahood becomes the most worthy and ultimate goal of any serious practitioner.
Being humans, Buddhists or not, we are bound by the habits of our countless past lives. Towards some people, we may think we have given our best in showing true love, but yet it may not be truly so. Towards some, we continue to motivate ourselves to become truly loving.
There are some who may say there are many countless real-life examples of true love among us. But yet it may not be a reality for every human being.
For example, if you ask those who have beaten or sexually abused by their own biological parents to the point of being emotionally devastated since their birth, they may not find it so easy to accept that true love exists.
The only reality in the human world is that the sun continues to rise in the east and sets in the west. It can be hot, it can also be warm. Any human being cannot deny this reality, no matter where you are, who you are.
If you want true love, wonder very deeply what it is like to be loved by someone who is truly loving, then there’s only one person to look to: the Buddha.
If you are a Buddhist who practices the Pureland Dharma Door, then make the strongest aspiration to be reborn in Amitabha Buddha’s Pureland; where everyone around is truly loving, to you, who has yet to become truly loving.
This wil never become a universal and unchanging reality in this samsara world; hence the 1st Noble Truth states: Life is full of suffering and dissatisfactions.
With enough spiritual practice, love between two people will grow to be love for all beings – ie. enlightened love. There is no other way for unenlightened beings to become Buddhas with enlightened love – other than with adequate practice. Such sustained cultivation might not be easy, but it can be greatly facilitated in Pureland, which provides all the conditions for unconditional love to be cultivated in all worlds.
It is in Pureland that we can bask in and experience the enlightened love of Amituofo and many Bodhisattvas too. Before reach Pureland, we still should simply do the best we can, to cultivate our love to be as boundless and impartial as we can.
For those who have not experienced love remotely similar to true love, one should all the more aspire to be born in Pureland. With adequate practice, the love of Amituofo can be experienced in this lifetime too. Amituofo