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The Path to True Love

Vipassana Meditation Master Acharavadee Wongsakon

When we talk about love, we usually think of two persons who are in love and want to be together. However, once they’re in a relationship, a lot of expectations follow. If the expectation is not fulfilled, relationship will turn sour and eventually may come to an end.

TRUE LOVE IS HARD TO FIND BUT IT EXISTS.

If you want to find true love, start by loving yourself. That means learning to wish yourself happiness. You have to value yourself and others and know how to give, not just take. This will make you happy and then the positive vibes from you will attract people of the same vibes. It’s the law of gravity. You will therefore have a chance to meet someone of similar character who may be your soulmate.  

To develop a happy relationship, each person needs to have compassion – to be able to sacrifice for the happiness of the other. A kind person will always be loved, as the saying “We reap what we sow” goes. 

I’d like to share with you a brief story of love in Buddha’s time. It was about Venerable Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and attendant. One day, he saw a poor young lady carrying a water pot so he asked her for some water because he was very thirsty. The lady recognized that the monk was Ananda.  She immediately fell in love with him due to his good looks and gentle manner. She immediately followed him to the monastery.

Although he taught her about suffering from love and asked her to leave, the woman refused. Shortly after, she decided to be ordained as a bhikkhuni in order to be close to him. But this one-sided love brought her great pain all along. Finally, through the Buddha’s teaching and the meditation practice that she persevered with, she could let go of her passionate love and attachments, reaching the enlightenment.  

Love with passionate desire is indeed poisonous to the mind. It’s the cause of possessiveness in a relationship. But in the Dhamma world, it’s the other way round as we fight with Kilesa or impurities in our mind to let go of attachment in love.

There is a retired married couple who became my Vipassana students. The husband has been resolutely practicing the meditation until he has gained deep Dhamma insight and was ordained to be a Buddhist monk. On the contrary, his wife has no patience in the practice at all. One day, she asked me how she could be more disciplined, I told her to look at the monk, her former husband. Then I asked her whether she would want to follow him on the path to Nirvana.

It seemed that my words were an encouragement for her as she became more determined in her practice the day after.

This is the benefit of love. It brings great courage to move ahead in life. However, there is another side of love. Without loving-kindness and compassion, love will only bring a disaster. If you are in a loving relationship, develop it to be pure love with much more compassion. That’s the meaning of true love. 

You have to look at love from reality, not only from a romantic viewpoint. Love should make you see the truth of suffering; loss and separation will come to you one day. This understanding is the wisdom that will lead you to true happiness.