The Path of Love

We have recently been looking at different approaches that we might take to the Buddhist Path. We all have different characters and will naturally feel a stronger attraction to some aspects of the Teaching than to others. Fortunately, the path is broad and there are many ways into the Buddha's teachings.

I reproduce below a copy of a poem we looked at recently in our Thursday drop-in class. This is by a Suffi (mystic Islamic) poet called Rumi. Although the language of "soul" does not fit with the Buddha's teaching I think we take take it's use here as poetic. I feel this poem really captures the spirit of the Buddha's path of universal loving kindness (Metta).

I hope you like it:-

The Path of Love

Our bodies, our minds, and even our souls are the abodes of love, not love itself. Love exists everywhere around us and penetrates everything - it is the treasure of this world, and by its very essence it cannot be kept captive within our own coffers.

True Love exists beyond the people we love. When we understand this the expectations we place upon others diminish: We are loved by existence itself, and so we do not need to feel rejected or hurt when a partner or friend isn’t able to love us the way we wish. When our feelings depend on no one we have attained a high state of realisation - our love is our own, our happiness is our own; we are responsible for the way we feel and there is no longer any need to ask others to provide us with these states.

This is an important step on the path of love: Link your spirit to love itself, open your heart to existence, choose love as your spiritual journey and you will never be disappointed in humans.

Rumi