What We Learned About Love

This track will explore what we learned about love growing up. Guiding questions like this one supports us to observe and recognize patterns in the mind which ultimately gives us so much choice in the moment. When we can see our motivations in a really relaxed and open way. Aware of our habit patterns but not committed to them, not acting on them, just aware. This is how we grow and change.

Transcript

So recently I was in my Dharma teacher training and we are given writing assignments to reflect on and the writing assignment that we were given was,

What did you personally learn about love growing up?

And this question it struck me.

I remember so vividly how my body tensed and I walked away from the computer but I couldn't get away from the question,

What did I personally learn about love growing up?

And I,

Those that have notebooks,

Write this question down because you won't,

You might not know at this moment but it will come and maybe it was really wholesome and maybe it wasn't.

So this question lingered in me as questions,

Dharma type of questions do and what came up for me with this question is really seeing how much I hid from myself.

You know I think that like more than the story,

Like what I learned growing up was more like what I learned to cover over and hide.

Like what I kind of put away behind a wall of protection.

Clear comprehension,

Like learning to hear this like prompt and then see the unfolding of it.

For me it occurred like the construction that I developed very early on in my life,

Maybe when I was,

I want to say seven and eight,

Like I built a really substantial wall and this question was kind of like an earthquake.

It just kind of shook the foundation of this wall where there was a lot of like protecting myself and hiding from the things that I had learned,

The responses to my life in order to survive.

This question,

It was kind of like broke down delusion.

You know how we talk about delusion in the practice?

We can't see what we can't see like that and we are kind of often swimming in the water of delusion.

This is what we do in life.

Our entire culture is created in a world that is like a dream.

To consume,

To not look deeply at reality,

But rather to keep on wanting.

And so this question,

What did you learn personally about growing up?

It was kind of like the wall started to crumble and then there was seeing,

Then there was seeing and I didn't like what I saw because I didn't like at the time what I learned.

So this question that I asked you to maybe jot down a few take notes,

It may,

The response may come up later in the body,

In the mind.

It comes back as memories.

It did for me.

But right on the surface,

Right on the surface about what I learned was that love was transactional in my family of origin.

It was offered as two types of transaction.

So for my father,

Who is the first transactional love,

It was,

I will love you if you do something for me.

I will love you as long as,

So that kind of as long as was in there,

You do these things.

Then you will get my love.

That was the first type of transaction.

The second type of transaction was for my mother,

Unconsciously offered.

I mean,

This is all unconscious,

Right?

This is all below the line of consciousness.

The second was,

I will love you and and buy for you all the things that you desire.

I will give you the things that you want as long as you show me that you love me.

Keep showing me.

I will give you whatever you want in the material world as long as you show me that you love me.

Keep showing me that you love me.

Now these transactional conditions are certainly not the only messages of love that I got.

I don't think I would be sitting here if I didn't have a healthy relationship to love.

But these are the ones that I didn't see until this question was dropped in.

And I think why it struck me and kind of crumbled my walls is because I'm raising a 14 year old boy.

And I see this transactional love happening in my relationship with my child.

It's operating unconsciously in the background of my own being.

Like,

Oh boy,

Oh boy.

And to see that,

It's like,

How do I do this parenting thing,

Right?

So the Zen Master Suzuki Roshi,

Who I often refer to,

Said,

Once there is seeing,

There must be action.

There must be action.

So the action that I've taken from this seeing is to pay attention,

Is to pay attention.

Pay attention to how often I buy whatever comes into my son's head that he must have,

You know.

See how he offers,

He actually offers love and affection and a sweet smile as part of his manipulative way of getting the thing that he wants,

Right?

And how I suck it up.

I suck it up and take it in.

Like,

Ooh,

Yes,

I'm getting that love and affection that I want.

So I say yes to that thing.

And that love,

That hit,

Lasts a moment.

But I'll take it.

So I get,

I'm starting to see this,

Right?

Paying attention.

Paying attention.

This practice of paying attention is what we do.

It's the,

It's the heart of this practice,

Paying attention to our internal response to the world.

Observing and recognizing patterns in the mind.

And then it does give us choice in the moment.

And I've,

Since seeing,

I've been able to say,

I love how beautiful your love is coming out right now.

And I'm gonna say no.

And it's,

It's tough for him.

Mama,

You know.

But we have choice.

So when we see,

So even though sometimes it's like,

Oh,

At the moment of seeing it kind of feels like,

Oh,

This is the bad news.

Oh,

God.

How,

Like,

What I was taught doesn't feel like good news.

But actually it's not.

It's really good news.

Because then there's choice in that moment.

When we can see what motivates us,

When we can recognize patterns in the mind,

Then we can relax.

Oh,

Look at that.

That's there.

Oh,

Look at that.

Look at that.

Huh.

And in that moment of,

Oh,

Look at that,

We have a choice.

We can choose differently.

We're aware of the habit pattern,

But we're not committed to it.

And we,

And with unconsciousness,

Which we always,

Let's just be honest,

We slip in and out of consciousness all the time.

So cut yourself some slack when you slip into unconsciousness.

But when you do,

It's like,

Okay,

So slipping into it,

Like,

And then you find yourself in the middle of,

Like,

Handing your credit card to somebody.

You're like,

Oh,

I forgot that I had choice in this moment.

I forgot.

And this practice is really coming,

Like,

Remembering,

Forgetting,

Remembering,

Forgetting so much of the practice.

Just like when we sit,

We're like,

Okay,

I'm going to just concentrate on the rhythm of the breath,

That movement,

Until I start thinking about what I'm going to make for lunch.

And then,

Oh,

And what I had for dinner.

And maybe that's why I have a stomachache.

And then you're off.

Like,

The mind is off,

Right?

And so it's sort of like this returning,

Remembering to come back,

Oh,

To the rhythm of the breath,

To the anchor of the body.

So it's so important,

This paying attention,

This mindfulness practice.

Several years ago,

There was a conference,

And the opening speakers were asked,

You know,

The question,

This was a Buddhist conference,

You know,

What will help us discover happiness and freedom?

It's a good question,

Right?

And each speaker was given 10 minutes to talk about that.

And,

You know,

Using sort of the essence of the Buddhist teachings as the guide for this question.

And it was Roshi Richard Baker,

Who was the abbot at Zen Center,

And now is at Crestone Zen Center.

He stood up,

And he was one of Suzuki Roshi's first students.

And he said,

The key to freedom is intention and attention.

And then he bowed,

And he walked off the stage.

Intention and attention.

And that was his whole 10 minute speech.

Like,

That was it.

And so I really remembered that and appreciate it,

Because it's so important,

This paying attention.

And I think most of us,

We set intentions regularly,

And intention is,

You know,

The second of the path factors in the Eightfold Path.

First seeing clearly,

Yeah,

This is suffering.

And then,

And the intention is really to be free from suffering,

Right?

So paying attention to all the ways in which the mind contracts,

In which the body contracts,

In which we suffer.

This is the intention,

To be free from the contraction.

But first we have to see.

First we have to see,

Right?

And as we grow and practice together,

Guiding questions like this one,

What did you learn as a child about love?

It offers an opportunity to really see clearly some aspect of ourselves that we may have hidden.

You know,

Often I ask questions as kind of a way of exploring Dharma,

Because the questions themselves evoke memory,

Habit patterns,

History.

And those questions are so valuable to see,

To look at our inner life.

We hide so much as a way of surviving in this world.

We hide so much.

And just to,

When this came up for me,

This question,

And then the sort of investigation that I did around it,

I was really relieved to understand that this path that we're on is known.

It's actually known as the path of purification.

And I experience it as the path of purification.

And to purify anything,

Imagine like you're trying to purify apple cider vinegar.

You know,

Apple cider vinegar,

If you just take a shot of it for your digestive system,

It's sort of like you drink it.

It's hard to get down,

Right?

But if you dilute it in enough water,

Or with juice or something,

Then that bitterness,

It goes away.

And so the way that this practice works,

In a sense,

Is to purify the apple cider vinegar.

It's with our seeing,

Our seeing of it.

We can't dilute it.

We dilute it with the practice of being with the hardness and the walls.

And we sort of take our little hammer and chip away at the walls so that we can see all the ways in which we've hidden things from ourselves.

So what I've learned about love since becoming and being the beginning of my Buddhist practice is that love is really aligned with simple connection.

That's it.

Love is connection to myself,

To other people,

To the more-than-human world.

And what I keep discovering in this awareness practice is encapsulated in this beautiful poem by Uzumi Shikabu.

It's a Zen poem.

Watching the moon at dawn,

Solitary,

Mid-sky,

I knew myself completely,

No part left out.

Watching the moon at dawn,

Solitary,

Mid-sky,

I knew myself completely,

No part left out.

That's our practice.

No part left out.

And when we can live in that wholeness,

Mmm,

Sometimes it's just for a moment.

It's the sweetest moment though.

So I'm going to turn it over to you now,

In the time that we have left,

For this reflection.

What have you learned about love?

And you don't have to respond actually.

Maybe it just settles in your body.

But if something arises in the same way it arose for me,

And it feels liberating to share,

I invite you to do that.

And as you approach this question,

Meet it with care and kindness.

It's the only way to meet any part of our internal world.

But it takes time,

Because at first we're sort of like,

Ugh.

And then we soften,

And we relax,

And we remember that this is a path of purification.

And the vinegar of our life is diluted in our seeing.

Thank you.

Thank you for your attention.

Reviews

This was eye opening for me. Thank you. I will pay attention to this today. 💗

A wonderful practice ❤️🍎