In the Buddhist tradition we speak of a person who has the capacity of listening to the people who suffer
and that person is named avalokitesvara
avalokitesvara means the one who is capable of listening
and we call that person the bodhisattva of deep listening of the bodhisattva of compassionate listening
and the capacity to listen deeply with compassion has to be cultivated
If you are a friend you should be able to listen to your friend with compassion and deeply
in order to be really a true friend. If you are a parent
and you should be able to listen with compassion and deeply with your child
and you should transform yourself into a bodhisattva of deep listening
cause without deep listening , without compassionate listening there will be no communication
and in many cases we live, we love we truly love and wish that the other person be happy
but we are not able to listen. Without the capacity to listening deeply we cannot understand and without
understanding love is not real, love is not possible
In the teaching of the Buddha, love is something that is born from the ground of understanding
You cannot love unless you understand, and this is so easy to understand.
a husband that doesn't understand his wife, how could he love her, a wife doesn't understand her husband
if she does not understand the difficulties, the despair, the hope of her husband, how could she love him?
that is why the practice of a wife is to listen deeply with compassion with no prejudices in order to understand her husband
If the father does not understand the son, the daughter, does not know what is
the kind of difficulties his son is undergoing and then how could that father love his son?
That is why it is so clear so simple to see that understanding is the ground of love
You cannot say that you love him or her unless you understand him or her
and understanding is not something that just happens like that
you have to practice looking deeply, you have to practice listening deeply
in order to really understand. You have to be able to let go of your ideas, your prejudices
you may already have an idea of how that person can be happy
and you want to impart the idea on him or her
and by doing so you make him or her suffer, even though you continue to believe that you love him or her
you may be very sincere
you may be, you might have a lot of love within yourself
but that is not love yet, that is the intention to love
that willingness to love and make one person happy is not love yet
In order to truly love you have to understand
and that is why if you love someone you should try to understand him or her deeply
understanding what? the kind of difficulties that that person has
the kind of suffering that that person has
within him self / her self
the kind of deep hope, deep desire, that the person has within himself/ herself
the kind of obstacles that person is encountering in his/her daily life, you have to see all of that
and if you don't see everything, how could you see everything? you can see a lot and not everything
you should ask him or her you should go and say darlin, "Do you think I understand you enough?"
and she will tell you/ he will tell you, if you ask with your, with all your heart
Darlin do you think I understand you enough, you can ask the question to your partner
to your father, to your mother, to your daughter, and if it is a real question
if it is a question that is asked with all your being, then that person will tell you and help you
to understand more and when you understand you will not continue to do or to say things that will
make him/her suffer. you will help him/her to overcome the difficulties and that is true love
true love comes from understanding
the compassionate line cannot be set up by the telephone company alone
you all have to pay something and they will set up a line
but that does not mean that you can communicate
telephone is everywhere, you can pick up one everywhere in your city
and yet with the telephone in your hand you cannot communicate
you have to be free of your views, your opinions your judgments, you have to be free of your prejudices
and then with the absences of prejudices and judgment
you have the opportunity to look deeply and to see reality in its self
the reality of the other person
because you declare that you love him, that you love her but you have not really understood him/her
you have to practice looking deeply by yourself and you can ask that person to help you understand
and that is the practice of love
you might think that it is the other person that you have not understood,
because the fact remains that you have not understood yourself, you do not know enough about yourself
you do not understand the nature of your own suffering, you have not understood the difficulties that you are going through
you do not understand the nature of your difficulties the root of your difficulties
and you desire, you are in a difficult situation and because you don't understand you own situation
and you don't understand yourself you continue to be caught in a situation and you don't even want to get out of that situation
there is a young nun of 19 who wrote to Thay the other day
and she told Thay about her life as a teenager
there is something very true in what she said.
she said Thay, when you are caught in a situation you might think that the situation is normal
and you don't see yourself in that situation and that is why you dont have the desire to get out of the situation
unless someone take you to a far away place and help you look back at your situation
and see that is not the situation you want it to be
and that is a kind of enlightenment. And if you don't have the desire to get out of the situation
you will never get out of it, that is why the first thing you do is have a desire to get out of the situation
you get the desire only by leaving that place and going to a far away place and look back and now you see that this is not a good situation
you and your beloved are caught because both of you suffer deeply every day
first of all there should be a desire to get out
and if you are the first one to get out you will be able to help rescue the other person and help the other person to taste the taste
of freedom and true love,
everyone of us has an idea of what happiness is
we are committed to that idea, and if i can not get this and that then happiness will not be possible
so you describe your happiness you have an idea of your happiness and you are striving to arrive at that
suppose a young person fall inlove with someone else and in her passion, attachment
she could not see more than that person, she said that that person is the only reason why she has to be alive
her reason that if she cannot marry that person then she rather she died because happiness
cannot be possible without that person beside her. and her idea is to get him or to die
for those of us who have not got into that situation we are able to see that happiness can come from every direction
happiness can come from the west, east, north, south, above, and below
and if we are committed to one idea of happiness we block all the other avenues, we drop all the venues
Happiness knocks on your door please open I am happiness, no you are not happiness and you refuse
every every opportunities to be happy
because you are already committed to one idea of happiness
and many young people commit suicide because they cannot marry the person they love
in the history of love there are plenty of things like that and those of use who are free
we see that happiness can come from every where at every moment.
the sunshine, the water can bring happiness. a half hour of walking leisurely can bring happiness, having a cup of tea
with a friend or teacher can bring happiness, happiness can be there every moment of our lives
why do we have to commit ourselves to just one idea of happiness.
this morning we spoke of joy and happiness born from the practice of releasing of letting go
can the first thing we have to let go of is our idea of happiness, if we are able to let go of our idea of happiness
if you are not happy it may be because you are holding very hard to your idea of happiness
happiness will come very easily.
and if your beloved one is not happy because you keep imposing your idea of happiness on him or her it is very clear very simple