"Love Needs Wisdom" by John Love
Nick and Nicolle, I stand before you today not to teach you about the importance of love. It has been clear to me from the beginning that the two of you love each other very much and understand the crucial role that love plays – not only in your relationship to one another, but in your relationship to the world. My message today is this: love is not enough. Love is not enough to keep two people together and it is not enough to create peace on this troubled planet of ours. What love needs is wisdom.
You see, love will flower of its own accord. You don't need to force it, or practice it. You simply need to allow it. You do this by tending the garden in which that flower of love grows. Yes, you need to be a gardener, but more than that, you need to be a skillful gardener, a master gardener. Master gardeners understand that the flower they wish to see do well cannot be tended to on its own. That flower is connected to everything else in the garden – to the other plants, the bugs, the worms, the soil. The master gardener understands that everything in that garden needs to be treated with tenderness and care. Only then will all be happy and everything be in balance.
So too must you treat your garden of emotions with tenderness and care. Tend to your anger, your frustrations, your resentments. Don't push them away. Hold them close, because they need your acceptance. They need your nurturing.
Understanding this is wisdom. And wisdom is crucial in relationships and in life. But wisdom is useless unless it is acted upon. It is not enough to see and understand a situation. You must put that understanding into action. This is where skillfulness comes in. Skillfulness is the action – or, depending on the circumstances, the inaction – that comes from wisdom.
Wisdom is seeing that the advice you're thinking to give would not be helpful to the disagreement you're having. Skillfulness is recognizing this before you open your mouth with that advice.
Wisdom is recognizing that your partner is feeling angry. Skillfulness is giving them empathy.
Wisdom is seeing that the root cause of an argument is not really about who cleans the stove, but about something deeper and more profound. Skillfulness is navigating the tricky terrain to find that root cause.
Love can be blissfully blinding, as when two people who are exact opposites are drawn together. Love can also be passionate – leading one to ecstasy, or to the other end: madness.
Where love may tell you to forget about an incident and move on. Wisdom may tell you that it needs to be talked through or else it will simply come back at a different time in a different form.
Where love may yell and scream when your partner gets home an hour later than they said they would. Wisdom reminds you that when the same thing happened last week, you were glad your partner was late, because you were busy talking on the phone with a friend. You see it's not the outer circumstances or your partner that determine your reaction. It's all that stuff inside you – all that messy, wonderful, chaotic stuff within you.
There's a story of two Buddhist monks who have been practicing at a monastery for many years. A young layperson is visiting the monastery and asks for some advice from the monks. The young man goes on to speak about all the anger, jealousy, and lust within him and asks what he should do about it. The two monks listen attentively, but offer no advice. Instead they tell the young man how jealous they are of him – that he is so fortunate to have such rich, beautiful compost within himself to work with. The monks understand that this is where the most beautiful flowers come from.
Our society is littered with discarded relationships where there was real love, but wisdom and skillfulness were neglected. To keep your relationship strong, to ensure that the flower of love is blossoming, I urge you to cultivate these attributes. Skillfulness can be practiced, and wisdom can be learned. As Doug Larson once said, "Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk."
Know that wisdom may sometimes be quiet. Don't think that wisdom has no message for you in such instances, because there is often more truth in silence, than in words. And know, too, that just as you have inherent Buddha-nature, so too do you have inherent wisdom. Learn to trust and honor this wisdom.
While it is love that brings us together, it is wisdom and skillfulness that keep us together to enjoy that love. And when this happens, we will naturally be happy. And when we share that happiness with others, we make the whole world just a little bit happier. As the Buddha said some 2,500 years ago: "Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of that candle will not be shortened. In the same way, happiness never decreases by being shared."
Nick and Nicolle, I stand before you today not to teach you about the importance of love. It has been clear to me from the beginning that the two of you love each other very much and understand the crucial role that love plays – not only in your relationship to one another, but in your relationship to the world. My message today is this: love is not enough. Love is not enough to keep two people together and it is not enough to create peace on this troubled planet of ours. What love needs is wisdom.
You see, love will flower of its own accord. You don't need to force it, or practice it. You simply need to allow it. You do this by tending the garden in which that flower of love grows. Yes, you need to be a gardener, but more than that, you need to be a skillful gardener, a master gardener. Master gardeners understand that the flower they wish to see do well cannot be tended to on its own. That flower is connected to everything else in the garden – to the other plants, the bugs, the worms, the soil. The master gardener understands that everything in that garden needs to be treated with tenderness and care. Only then will all be happy and everything be in balance.
So too must you treat your garden of emotions with tenderness and care. Tend to your anger, your frustrations, your resentments. Don't push them away. Hold them close, because they need your acceptance. They need your nurturing.
Understanding this is wisdom. And wisdom is crucial in relationships and in life. But wisdom is useless unless it is acted upon. It is not enough to see and understand a situation. You must put that understanding into action. This is where skillfulness comes in. Skillfulness is the action – or, depending on the circumstances, the inaction – that comes from wisdom.
Wisdom is seeing that the advice you're thinking to give would not be helpful to the disagreement you're having. Skillfulness is recognizing this before you open your mouth with that advice.
Wisdom is recognizing that your partner is feeling angry. Skillfulness is giving them empathy.
Wisdom is seeing that the root cause of an argument is not really about who cleans the stove, but about something deeper and more profound. Skillfulness is navigating the tricky terrain to find that root cause.
Love can be blissfully blinding, as when two people who are exact opposites are drawn together. Love can also be passionate – leading one to ecstasy, or to the other end: madness.
Where love may tell you to forget about an incident and move on. Wisdom may tell you that it needs to be talked through or else it will simply come back at a different time in a different form.
Where love may yell and scream when your partner gets home an hour later than they said they would. Wisdom reminds you that when the same thing happened last week, you were glad your partner was late, because you were busy talking on the phone with a friend. You see it's not the outer circumstances or your partner that determine your reaction. It's all that stuff inside you – all that messy, wonderful, chaotic stuff within you.
There's a story of two Buddhist monks who have been practicing at a monastery for many years. A young layperson is visiting the monastery and asks for some advice from the monks. The young man goes on to speak about all the anger, jealousy, and lust within him and asks what he should do about it. The two monks listen attentively, but offer no advice. Instead they tell the young man how jealous they are of him – that he is so fortunate to have such rich, beautiful compost within himself to work with. The monks understand that this is where the most beautiful flowers come from.
Our society is littered with discarded relationships where there was real love, but wisdom and skillfulness were neglected. To keep your relationship strong, to ensure that the flower of love is blossoming, I urge you to cultivate these attributes. Skillfulness can be practiced, and wisdom can be learned. As Doug Larson once said, "Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk."
Know that wisdom may sometimes be quiet. Don't think that wisdom has no message for you in such instances, because there is often more truth in silence, than in words. And know, too, that just as you have inherent Buddha-nature, so too do you have inherent wisdom. Learn to trust and honor this wisdom.
While it is love that brings us together, it is wisdom and skillfulness that keep us together to enjoy that love. And when this happens, we will naturally be happy. And when we share that happiness with others, we make the whole world just a little bit happier. As the Buddha said some 2,500 years ago: "Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of that candle will not be shortened. In the same way, happiness never decreases by being shared."
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