Both what you're running away from and what you're searching for is inside of you.
It's all there.
If you would face what's going on inside of you,
What you're running away from would disappear.
And what you're searching for would emerge.
So love is not the soothing of our loneliness.
Mostly when people talk about love,
You know what they're talking about?
They're talking about a thing of the market.
It's a bargain.
You be good to me,
I'll be good to you.
You be nice to me,
I'll be nice to you.
You're not nice to me,
Funny.
Those nice feelings I had towards you turned sour.
Is that love?
You could bargain with money,
You could strike a deal with money.
You could strike a deal with all kinds of things.
You're striking a deal with your emotions,
And that's supposed to be love.
Here's another surprise.
Love is not desire.
I desire you with all my heart.
You know,
In as much as I love you,
I do not desire you.
I enjoy you thoroughly,
But I'm too full to need you.
It's like when you come,
You're so enjoyable.
And when you leave,
I'm not at all miserable.
I'll enjoy the next thing and the next person.
I'm full.
And if you are full too,
How marvelous that is.
Centuries ago,
Buddha had these marvelous words to say.
The world is full of sorrow.
The origin of sorrow,
The root of sorrow,
Is desire.
The uprooting of sorrow is desirelessness.
Let's translate that better,
Because by desire he meant a desire on whose fulfillment my happiness depends.
And our societies and cultures are the whole time encouraging us to add to these desires.
So we're more and more programmed unhappiness and to non-love.
The world is full of sorrow.
The root of sorrow,
Craving.
The uprooting of sorrow is cravinglessness.
I desire all kinds of things,
But I don't desperately need anything.
If that desire is not fulfilled,
I'll be quite happy.
Sometimes people say,
If you had no desire,
Would you ever achieve something?
If you had no ambition?
That's one of the things we were brainwashed into.
They told us,
If you don't have an ambition,
You won't do anything.
They forgot that there's so much energy and so much delight in working,
Whereas the ambition brings tension.
Listen to these marvelous words of the great Chinese sage,
Chuang Tzu.
When an archer shoots for nothing,
He has all his skill.
When he shoots for a brass buckle,
He is already nervous.
When he shoots for a prize of gold,
He goes blind.
He is out of his mind.
He sees two targets.
His skill has not changed,
But the prize divides him.
He thinks more of winning than of shooting.
And the need to win drains him of power.
Isn't that marvelous?
It was your ambition that drained you of power.
You were driving with your brakes on.
You were tense.
So,
The world is full of sorrow.
The root of sorrow is craving.
Marriages that are built on craving are so fragile,
So ready to fall apart.
I have expectations of you.
You'd better live up to them,
Or else.
You have expectations of me.
I'd better live up to them,
Or else.
Quarrels.
I need to find my happiness in you.
You need to find your happiness in me.
That's where the struggle begins.
That's where the possessiveness begins.
And you know something?
Wherever there is desire,
In this sense of the word,
There is a threat.
And where there is a threat,
There is fear.
And where there is fear,
There is no love.
Because we always hate what we fear.
And perfect love,
Comes out here.
