Let’s talk about love. Unconditional love.
A few years ago I had the pleasure to read “Be Love Now”, a book written by Ram Dass, an American spiritual teacher, a guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author.
It gave me a true sense of how life should be lived: with unconditional love for everyone, for everything. I’ve learned that unconditional love starts from love for ourselves and basically never ends. That we should love without expecting anything in return, just for the simple act of love, of BEING love.
One of the main generative practices in the Buddhist tradition is unconditional loving-kindness meditation. Unconditional love refers to both a mental and emotional state of unconditional kindness toward all beings. Consequently, unconditional love meditation attempts to develop an affective state of unconditional kindness toward all people, by generating a genuine wish for all beings to be happy and to have access to the causes of true happiness.
“I have a practice in which I say to myself, I am loving awareness.” To begin, I focus my attention in the middle of my chest, on the heart-mind. I may take a few deep breaths into my diaphragm to help me identify with it. I breathe in love and breathe out love. I watch all of the thoughts that create the stuff of my mind, and I love everything, love everything I can be aware of. I just love, just love, just love.” – Ram Dass
Follow the link below to practice 10 minutes of loving awareness meditation with Ram Dass
The hardest part is, for sure, not expecting anything in return for our love.
Struggling the most when we have feelings for someone. Being mindful with our partner is complicated. Our thinking mind simply goes on and on, studying possible scenarios.
We are tempted to think that if we love, we should have love in return, just because of that.
And it’s right at this point in which mindfulness can help us and also where starts the beautiful relationship between mindfulness, love, and feelings: living in the present moment, enjoying every minute of it.
Mindfulness applied to love
Give your full presence when you are together, i.e. avoid looking at your phone and avoid the usual day-to-day complaints that lead nowhere and are nothing more than mere automatisms.
Truly listen to your partner. Give them your interested attention, listen to what they say, the words they use, their tone of voice, and observe their body language. This attention can be difficult because, the general rule of our mind is to get lost while others are talking, to think about what they are going to say or answer.
Appreciate and be grateful for the things, even the smallest and most subtle, that your partner does for you.
Understand and relate to their experience.
Enjoy this gift without expecting anything in return from your partner, because you know what, being in the present is a gift you are also giving yourself.