Tuesday, January 22, 2008

love, love, love

There are so many ways and types of love I feel. I love my husband (frequently), I love my daughter (fiercely), I love my cat (mostly) , I love my country (wearily), and I love me some gumbo. All different, all good. Then there's the love of all things, the love of the Buddha, which is detached and can barely be called love as the word is commonly used. The banal use of the word love implies so many attachments and expectations, as in, "'But I LOVE you!' he cried, throwing himself at her feet." But when I really think it through, love is just like breathing. If left alone, without added thoughts and stories, love is all that comes out of and goes into me. And everything, I mean EVERYTHING, is easier in that breathing-love state. But with centuries of histories, it's become something to reward, something to return, and something to regard with caution. I really think love is all there is. Perhaps suffering is, simply, the absence of love. The question is, why is it so hard to remember to love? OR, are we all, always, in a state of love in our hearts, but our minds take over and explain it away? Yet another view- maybe all I experience is love, in all its perfection. All of it.