Healthy Emotions, Healthy Love

Our emotions are a very important part of our everyday life, and they star in a leading role on the stage of relationships. The ability to feel and our freedom to act upon these feelings give us both joy and sorrow, and it is imperative that we maintain our emotional well-being to minimize the potential for suffering within relationships. Emotions are the glue that bind relationships together, and, remember, relationships form the basis of society. In other words, the human experience is comprised of relationships, and relationships are comprised of emotions.

A stable, positive, supportive and healthy community depends upon stable, positive, supportive and healthy emotions.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that the Buddha’s teachings disapprove of emotions. This is far from the truth. Buddhism does not encourage people to shed their emotions, but teaches us how to lead a healthy emotional life by not becoming attached to them or controlled by them.

How do we ensure that our emotional states remain healthy? In this regard, the Buddha teaches us to use compassion to channel our emotions and to use wisdom to guide the unbridled forces of our emotions. While we often think of the Buddha as the fully enlightened one, we should not forget that he was also a most affectionate and loving human being. The Buddha certainly experienced emotions, but he did so without any attachment to them; they had no power to overwhelm him or control his behavior.

None of us can live in an emotional vacuum; all of us participate in a variety of relationships where we experience many different kinds of emotions. In all relationships, love and affection are the common denominator. For this reason, while exploring healthy emotions, we will focus mainly on the emotion of love, examining potential problems that arise from misguided love, as well as the incredible potential of love to liberate all beings.

Love can help us reveal our true potential for living affinity.

Spiritual development deepens and expands our love.

While some kinds of love are “healthy,” others are “unhealthy”; some are “giving,” others are “possessive.” Love has its pluses and minuses. From the perspective of its pluses, love gives us the strength to make sacrifices, to give, to encourage, to connect and to be compassionate. Love is like a roadmap; it gives our lives direction and we can see our destination with clear visibility. Love is like a blanket; it provides us with warmth and security. Love is like a box of chocolates; it is sweet and full of surprises. From the perspective of its minuses, love is like a piece of rope; it can be binding and restrictive. Love is like a lock; it can shackle us and make us restless. Love can be blinding; it can keep us in the dark without any awareness that we have compromised our principles and standards.

Love is like the honey on a sharp blade; it can entice us to lick the blade, even at the risk of cutting our tongues and risking our lives. Love can be like a sea of suffering; its turbulent waves can trap us in its depths. Thus, if we do not know how to love properly, love can bring us many problems and ruin our lives. If we are ordinary and selective about whom we love, instead of embracing all beings, the vast dimensions of love are hardly actualized. How do we love properly? Let me offer the following four guidelines:

  • Love wisely—We should use our wisdom to purify our love.
  • Love compassionately—We should use our compassion to manifest our love.
  • Love in accordance with the Dharma—We should use the Dharma to guide our love.
  • Love morally—We should use morals and ethics to direct our love.

From Living Affinity, written by Venerable Master Hsing Yun.

Image from Pixabay.

More Featured Articles

On the path of life, sometimes we need to go straight ahead, other times we have to make turns in order to reach our goals. If we do not turn around when we need to, we will not “see the other shore.” But when we need to move ahead and we do not, we will miss a prime opportunity. When we have to make a Read more
In fact, what I have enjoyed the most in my reading, and it could be said that a piece of writing that has had an important influence upon my life is the poem “Thoughts on My Fiftieth Birthday,” written by Venerable Master Taixu during his visit to India when the lay Buddhist Tan Yun-shan, Chairperson of the Institute of Chinese Language and Culture at Visva-Bharati Read more
In the practice of meditation, once you have developed meditative concentration it does not matter if you are walking, standing, sitting, lying down, carrying firewood, or bringing water—every single action can suddenly lead to enlightenment and seeing intrinsic nature. For true Chan practitioners meditation is whatever they see in their daily lives; it is everywhere. Read more
Buddhism says we should see friends and enemies as equal. This means we should learn to tolerate unfriendly people, unideal environments, and language that is hard on the ears. Read more
Given that I have become a monk, I have placed demands upon myself. My sense of leaving the secular and focusing on the path must surpass others; my sense of self restraint and doing for others must be strengthened. I must learn to endure disadvantage, and I must let others gain some advantage at my expense; I must learn how to be patient and how Read more
Humans are thinking animals! Since the beginning of time, there have always been people who fantasize, who have delusions, who dream—and many who have ideals. When we lie in our beds at night, we should be free from worry. Yet thoughts about our lives often arise then; thoughts about family, country, or even the world. Everything is within our minds.The average person often tends to Read more
In the past, during the feudal period of Chinese history, men were respected while women were thought of as being rather contemptible. The birth of a son was compared to fashioning an ornament as precious as jade, which not only made everyone happy, but also raised the status of his mother. Read more
Human beings are social animals; we cannot live apart from community. As Buddhists, we are told to seek the Dharma among the people, for the Dharma does not exist in some other world or far away place; the Dharma is here among us, embodied in each and every being. When we understand that human society is nothing other than a web of human relationships, we Read more
In devoting my life to Buddhism, in order to keep Buddhism current with the advances in society, in terms of thoughts, I am always making improvements at every hour and moment; in terms of practice, I am constantly and continuously making adjustments. Even though I know that Buddhism must be reformed, innovation never comes into being in the heat of the moment. My “silent revolution” Read more
Greed narrows our vision as it obscures the wealth of wisdom contained in our inherent Buddha nature. Read more
Equality is a truth of human life within the universe, it is an aim of humanity, and it is also the basis of Buddhism.The Avatamsaka Sutra says:“All sentient beings are equal.”The Great Perfection of Wisdom Treatise says: “From the very highest level of all Buddhas to the low level of animals, all are equal and there are no differences between them.”The Diamond Sutra says: “All dharmas are equal with no Read more
Harmful attachments are often described in Buddhist literature as impediments or hindrances because they block our view of the truth and prevent us from seeing our own Buddha nature. Read more