Saturday, March 28, 2009

Growing Love

We think of love like some sweet, deliciously, nutritious fruit for your soul.
We look around for it and when we find it in somebody’s garden, we pluck it and enjoy its sweetness.
We take and take until there is nothing more to take and then we turn around and look for more, for some other garden where the fruit is fresh and inviting.
So we go on consuming love but our hunger is never satisfied.
The more love we get the less we have and the older we get the hungrier we grow.

It is all fun and games when you are in your 20’s and even close to 30’s.
(There is a tendency for the new generation to wait longer and longer to get married.)
But past your 30 something changes; love gets harder and harder to find, and all we find are dilapidated gardens full of sour grapes, bad experiences and memories.
(I call it the psychotic dating scene)

We all look for love but how many know how to grow love?
How many know how to plant the seeds of love, to cultivate and care for the garden?
How many labor, and toil, cherish and protect their garden?

Those who do will always have love.
Because they know in love, the more you give the more you have.
The growers of love will never starve, will never be alone.
They will always have the bounty of their garden, the fruits of their labor.

We all look for love, but we look in all the wrong places.
You will never find love until you stop looking outside and start looking inside.
I know what you think – Buddha is talking about the spiritual thing called love –
I am not. I am talking about romantic love, like between two people in love.

Think the one time you were in love, in real love.
Where was that love?
Was it outside of you, in your partner?
Or was it in the space between you two?
Was your love for your partner inside your heart?
Just close your eyes.
Now you remember

Stop looking for love and start your own garden of love.
And for those of you that already have one, remember that the work is never done.
A garden needs constant tending. The weeds are always popping up and the hungry vagabonds are constantly tempted by your harvest.
Keep up your work and some where in the corner of your garden plant a seed for me, will you?

And if you think I sound like Chance Gardner, is the other way around:
Chance sounds like me!

16 comments:

mickael said...

every habit has to be tended to flourish, indeed. therefore, neglected habits fade.

destroy one habit in favour of another? reasonable. yet, what is the other habit? how compare the harm and peace it brings? why did sakyamuni left this all behind?

good luck.
mickael

Sylvie said...

Hmm... I always thought love was wanting happiness for another more than your own, and doing all you can (whatever that may mean) to make them happy, i.e., love is a verb, it's something you do.

I do like the gardening references, though, incredibly appropriate.

Anonymous said...

Great sentiments. I'm not much of a gardener, but I guess I'd better make a start!

Ted Bagley said...

If the (...)you(...) is positioned between one me and another me then the you can be shared by both me's instead of each me fighting for the whole you.
Otherwise the me's are whole and complete, lacking nothing when the you is the nothing that is lacking the whole time.
Points to generosity, I think. Giving what I don't have to one that isn't there.
Sorry, nonsense is the best way to put my experience of this stuff.

TALON said...

Interesting analogy. Of course, it gets me thinking. Do we end up sharing our gardens? Or cultivating them individually side-by-side...like, I'll come over and visit your garden for a while and you'll come and visit mine? Or do we end up making a garden together? Sorry, I had a late night last night :)

We have to love ourselves first. If we don't love ourselves, how could we possibly know how to love anyone else?

Psiplex said...

Great subject matter Buddha! This mind has processed a lot of wrong information about love and has hoisted its own false reality. Thankfully, by grace a lot of that has dissolved and the parting of the clouds has given much joy and understanding. ALways trying to operate in love and look for the lessons.

One Love

Quantum_Flux said...

love is located in the brain, the hormonal secretion lands, and in the sex organs too.

Unknown said...

@ Mickael – These are very interesting questions we should all ask ourselves.

@ Sylvie – To know love is to experience love.
Everything else is just attempts to capture love in words.

@Aggie – We should all try to be better gardeners!

@ Ted – If you put it that way, but also you should put it the other way; there is no “me” nor “you”

@ Talon – Wow! I’ll have to write many more posts to attempt to answer all that :)

@ Psiplex – All we are is love!

@ Quantum – Is there a difference between love, lust and sex?

Brigit said...

Your post brought tears to my eyes. Maybe because it is almost a year since Alex died, and I sense his love and presence often lately, I'm not sure. Love is gardening, cultivating soil, planting seeds, nurturing, feeding, and weeding. Great analogy.

Ted Bagley said...

There is only me. The one. The I's are the you that is not, then split and shared with other me's.
Ted is a me
BOH is a me
Lydia is a me
Sylvie is a me
Aggie is a me
Talon is a me
Psiplex is a me
Quantum Flux is a me
Brigit is a me.
We're all one. We're each alone. Language gives us the sense of unity because we all use the same I position when we speak. When someone speaks to us, we assume the not I position.
Goes back to my first post of Dogen. Suffering comes from mis-recognizing the I's.

Ted Bagley said...

Further, from each of our I positions, there is no universe that I can see without me.

mickael said...

'what am i?' is an interesting question.

these are rather simple ones :) while one looks at the horizon, one can not step beyond it.

good luck.
mickael

Uku said...

All you need is love and love is all around us! :) Thank you, great post!

Chatty Crone said...

Amen to that!

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