Four Elements of Buddha's True Love

The Buddha is a teacher of true love.

True love can bring a lot of happiness.

If it is not true love, it will make you suffer, and make the other suffer as well.

In the teaching of the Buddha, true love needs four elements.

First of all, maitri - loving kindness, that is the capacity to offer happiness. If you cannot offer happiness, that's not true love. In romantic love, if you are not able to help the other person be happy, that't not true love. So you should train yourself in other to be able to offer happiness to you and to him or her. Without that, both will suffer.

The second element of true love is Karuna - compassion. Compassion is the kind of energy that can help remove suffering. If you cannot transform and take care of the suffering in you and in the other person, that is not true love.

Romantic and not romantic, that's not important. The important thing is it is true love or not true love.

The third element of true love is joy. If by loving, you make the person cry all the time, and you cry all the time, that is not true love. Romantic or not.

The fourth element is inclusiveness. You do not exclude, his suffering is your suffering, his happiness is your happiness. There is no individual suffering and happiness anymore. In true love, there is this element of inclusiveness, non-discrimination. There's no seperation, no frontier, between you and the other person. In that spirit, you cannot say, "That's your problem". No. Your problem is my problem. My suffering is your suffering.

If romantic love has all these four elements, it can bring a lot of happiness too. And romantic love, if you are successful, you will cultivate a lot of loving kindness and compassion, and very soon, your lvoe will be all-embracing.