![]() ![]() The starting point is to have it for oneself. He invites us to learn how to offer happiness. ![]() He returns to this subject with a detailed exposition in his book How To Love (2014). Thay writes, “Loneliness cannot be alleviated just by the coming together of two bodies, unless there is also good communication, understanding, and loving kindness.” This advice sounds particularly useful for people who compel or guilt their partners into having sex. This, according to him, is not loving it is destroying, since it shows no regard for the beloved’s needs and difficulties. They use the beloved to fulfil all of their own needs, up to a point where this person feels imprisoned. Thay points out how people rob their beloved of freedom. Our beloved is the same.” This insight rings true for me, and I suspect for many others too. He writes, “A summer breeze can be very refreshing but if we try to put it in a tin can so we can have it entirely for ourselves, the breeze will die. It is a Sanskrit word, sometimes translated as equanimity or non-attachment. In a book titled The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (1998), Thay writes about how love can become possessive without upeksha. His intention is simply to foreground how strong the currents of love can be, how they can unsettle us, what they can teach us, and how we can love well. Thay has not written this book to persuade lay practitioners to opt for celibacy, or to depict sexuality as sinful. Would the nun have told the same story differently? Maybe. This story is powerful because it shows a spiritual leader working through a challenging situation – acknowledging the strong pull of his feelings, and also being steadfast with respect to his monastic vows. He writes, “When you are stuck in the notion of a self, a person, a living being, or a life span, you cannot understand the nature of my true love, which is reverence, trust, and faith.” Over time, he was able to transform these feelings through his practice, and expand the love to include all the monastics and lay people that he supported. Thay recited her name when he missed her, and he also wrote letters. The monk and the nun went their separate ways. He notes that what he felt was “sacred”, therefore, “holding her hand or kissing her on the forehead would have been a violation.” It is moving to read about the heavy heart with which they embraced for the first and last time. ![]() He saw her as the embodiment of all that he cherished – compassion, loving kindness, peace, reconciliation. ![]() Thay clarifies that this was not sexual attraction, and that he never felt like holding her hands or even kissing her on the forehead. Its song, alas, is only the song/ of departure.” In one of the poems that came out of this troubled state of mind, he writes, “Spring has come/ to every corner of the ten directions. They were drawn to each other while harbouring “the deepest desire to be a monk and a nun.” They had cherished this spiritual aspiration for a long time, and did not want to veer away from the path, but love had indeed caught them unawares. This was a difficult time for both of them. He writes, “She had tried to resist, but couldn’t, and she finally accepted.” When he was eventually able to communicate clearly, Thay realized that his love “was like a storm” and that she was “being caught and carried away” in it. When he did, she was not sure if she understood what he meant. He struggled to share his feelings with her. Thay recalls that she looked like Quan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion – calm, compassionate and beautiful. Quan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion (Shutterstock) She had been practising in her nunnery in Hue, and she appeared as peaceful as the Buddha sitting on the grass.” He writes, “There was a great peace in her, the fruit of sincere practice, which was not present in others. When Thay saw her for the first time, he felt the freshness of a breeze blowing across his face. Thay met the 20-year-old nun, who is not named for obvious reasons, at the Temple of Complete Awakening in the highlands of Vietnam. But in the Dharma Nectar Hall in Plum Village, I listened to Thich Nhat Hanh, who stood steady in love’s torrential waves, scrutinised it, and grounded it in deep practice.” Often what began with joy becomes a pitfall. In the foreword, poet Natalie Goldberg who participated in the 1992 retreat, writes, “We’ve all been struck by love, but what do we do with it? Most of us tumble willy-nilly into it and lose clear perception, perspective, or common sense. ![]()
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