Thich Nhat Hanh and The Elements of True Love

What is True Love?

Happiness is only possible with true love. True love has the power to heal and transform the situation around us and bring deep meaning to our lives. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhist Teachings on Love

How to Love from Thich Nhat Hanh is a tiny book – only 125 pages. Yet it is filled with snippets of wisdom that can transform your life… if you let it.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the well known Vietnamese Buddhist monk has authored many handfuls of books. Some of his more popular books include:

Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

You Are Here: Discovering The Magic Of the Present Moment

The Heart of The Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm

True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart

Combining traditional Zen teachings and the wisdom from other Buddhist traditions (Mahayana and Theravada) with ideas from Western Psychology, he is able to speak to a contemporary audience.

How to Love (check out the book here) contains simple, yet powerful truths taken from the teachings of the Buddha. Deep down, everyone knows these truths, but day to day life oftentimes gets in the way of actually living them. And this, in turn, gets in the way of our happiness.

So what does it mean to truly love?

There are 4 Elements of True Love:

1. Loving-Kindness

2. Compassion

3. Joy

4. Equanimity

Thich Nhat Hanh says,

True love is made of four elements: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In Sanskrit, these are, maitri, karuna, mudita, and upeksha. If your love contains these elements, it will be healing and transforming, and it will have the element of holiness in it. True love has the power to heal and transform any situation and bring deep meaning to our lives.

1. Loving-Kindness (maitri)

First, there is loving-kindness. Being able to offer happiness to another is the essence of loving-kindness. But more importantly, we must remember that the first person we are to offer loving-kindness is ourself. How can we give happiness to anyone else if we don’t offer it to ourself?

You can be the sunshine for another person. You can’t offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person.

2. Compassion (karuna)

Compassion is the second element of true love. As with loving-kindness, we must first have compassion for ourself. With compassions, we understand the suffering we experience as well as the suffering in another person. The compassionate mind cherishes another (and oneself) and wishes to release them from their suffering.

You can transform your own suffering and help transform the suffering of the other person with the practice of mindfulness and looking deeply.

True compassion has no personal intention or attachment. We may think we are being compassionate when we wish for someone to be free from an illness, but if we are mindful, we may see that we want them to feel better because we miss their company. This is a selfish intention and it is likely that the relationship is based on attachment and not true love.

True compassion comes from cherishing the other and wishing them well without any self involvement.

But again, we cannot hope to be compassionate toward another unless we are first compassionate toward ourself. Thich Nhat Hahn says,

Often, we get crushes on others not because we truly love and understand them, but to distract ourselves from our suffering. When we learn to love and understand ourselves and have true compassion for ourselves, then we can truly love and understand another person.

3. Joy (mudita)

Joy is the third element of true love; that is, the capacity to offer joy.

When you know how to generate joy, it nourishes you and nourishes the other person. Your presence is an offering, like fresh air, or spring flowers, or the bright blue sky.

Simply put, there cannot be true love without joy – joy for ourselves and the one we love.

4. Equanimity (upeksha)

The fourth element of true love is equanimity or upeksha. Upa means ‘over’ while iksha means ‘to look’. This fourth element lets us look over the whole situation – without being bound by attachment, clinging, or discrimination. If your love has any of these qualities, it is not true love.

In a deep relationship, there’s no longer a boundary between you and the other person. You are her and she is you. Your suffering is her suffering. Your understanding of your own suffering helps your loved one to suffer less. Suffering and happiness are no longer individual matters. What happens to your loved one happens to you. What happens to you happens to your loved one.

It is essential to nourish these 4 elements of love. If we do not, any love we have will fade.

Also essential is practicing and directing love toward ourselves first. This is something that many people simply do not do.

The teachings on love given by the Buddha are clear, scientific, and applicable… Love, compassion, joy, and equanimity are the very nature of an enlightened person. They are the four aspects of true love within ourselves and within everyone and everything.