What is love ? - A message to someone to blossom in a Buddhist way

Thangjam Sanjoo Singh *

A Buddha statue at Ayuthaya, Thailand :: Pix - Bobo Meitei

Mother's real love and tragic incident

A mother and her infant child were visitors at a zoo. Whilst on their rounds, they came to a deep enclosure where lions were confined below.

As the mother and child had already spent a considerable time on their rounds at the zoo, the child became tired, agitated and restless. This resulted in the mother inadvertently losing her hold on the struggling baby. The child fell off from the mother into the deep enclosure of the lions.

Remorse stricken, the alarmed mother, with only the thought of the child uppermost on her mind, plunged herself down, without any hesitation, into the depths of the enclosure. Needless to say, both mother and child were savagely mauled by the marauding lions (MANI).

This incident shows the intrinsic and affectionate love of a mother that she is willing to sacrifice even her life for the sake of the child.
(The above story is a part of a message that I wish to deliver to that someone in Blossom)

So what is love then according to the Buddhist way

Love, universal love, is the remedy for all the ills that afflicts mankind. One of the most beautiful sayings about virtue of Matri mentions mother-love, the foundations of all love in the world, in Metta Sutta:-

"As a mother at the risk of her life protect her own child. So also let everyone cultivate good towards all beings."

The late Dr. Ian D Suttie, in his deep interesting and thought-provoking book, The Origin of Love And Hate, expressed the conclusions to which his psychological researches had brought that the energy of human personality is a will-to-love or a will-to-fellowship. Dr. Sutte saw his energy revealed in its simplest and purest form in a baby at its mother's breast.

There, said Dr. Suttie, was the freedom of perfect reciprocity; he mother and the child, both participating in an activity wherein neither felt exalted and neither debased, neither conferring a favour nor accepting an obligation; but both alike in the blessedness of mutual love. It is a spiritual truth that evil may only be overcome by its opposite – goodness, according to Dhammapada.

Love is the antidote for hatred, goodwill for anger; the presence of one implies the absence of other. Anger, on the other hand, is defined as an attitude, which wants to generate violence, an agitation against something either animate or inanimate.

If we look at a person, a situation or some object and do not like it and we want to express some violence and agitation towards it, to make it change in a violent way, this is a state of intolerance and a lack of patience combined with a wish to harm whatever it is that we cannot endure. Its opposite on the one hand is patience, which repels intolerance, and on the other it is love, and because love is the opposite of wishing to harm someone else.

Usually, we get angry at situations in which a thing happens to us which we do not like, and because they do not come up to our expectations, we get very angry with them.

1. LOVE MAKES HOME
A house is built of brick and stone.
A home is made of love alone!

2. LOVE SHOULD COMPLEMENT PRIDE
Pride makes us do things well.
But it is love that makes us do them perfectly.

3. WHAT OVERCOMES BY LOVE – HATRED
Darkness cannot be dispel by darkness
But by brightness
Hatred cannot overcome by hatred
But by loving kindness.

4. LOVE THEIR MOTHER
The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

5. LOVE IS LIFE
Scientists tell us that without the presence
Of the cohesive force amongst atoms
That comprises this globe of ours,
It would crumble to pieces and
we will cease to exist;
And, even, as there is a cohesive force
in blind matter,
So must there be in all things animate:
And the name for the that cohesive force
Among animate things is Love
Where there is Love…
There is life;
Hatred leads to destruction.

6. LOVE IS UNSTABLE
In spite of love being blind,
most men prefer to propose in the dark.

Thus, the Buddha once said, virtues beautify the body. He said physical unattractiveness does not prevent one from developing a charming personality. If an ugly person cultivates the virtues of compassionate love, that love will show in so many ways-
– Serenity
– Radiance
– Kindliness and
– Gentleness

That kind of attractiveness will easily compensate in appearance. Similarly, if a handsome person cultivates hatred, he transforms himself into ugliness.