NEWS: Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen: WhatÂ’s Love Got to Do With It?

CULTURE: Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen: What’s Love Got to Do With It?

ValentineÂ’s Day is next week and everyoneÂ’s gearing up to celebrate the life of a Catholic saint (who no one knows much about other than that he was probably beheaded by the Romans) by giving each other candy. In Japan, only chicks give dudes candy on ValentineÂ’s Day. Dudes have to give chocolate back to chicks on White Day, which is March 14th. According to Wikipedia they also give marshmallows. But I never saw a marshmallow in my eleven years in Japan, so thatÂ’s how much you can trust Wikipedia.

I’ve had a couple dozen requests to write about romantic love over the years I’ve been doing the Zen writing thing, and today seems like a good a day to finally do it. But I’ve never really understood why anyone would want my take on the subject. Buddhism doesn’t have a whole lot to say about romance and not much to say about love in general. There’s a trend lately to translate the Sanskrit/Pali word metta as “loving kindness.” But, to me that seems more like marketing aimed at winning ex-Christians into the fold than anything else. The word is more appropriately translated as “benevolence” or “compassion.”

Love is overrated if you ask me. It’s all fluttery butterfly syrupy sweet emotionalism that we’re really better off without. Now I know we can talk about agape love, and eros love and the love of a man for his fellow man (very popular where I live in West Hollywood) and a woman for her fellow woman (there’s some of that available in the Pics section of Suicide Girls). But mainly when the word “love” starts getting thrown around, we’re talking not about compassion or friendship, but about emotion. Buddhism is about transcending your emotions, leaving them behind. Some people worry that means turning into a robot, or at least turning into Mr. Spock. But that’s not what happens. When you transcend emotions, you can actually become sane.

Transcending emotions doesnÂ’t mean you have no feelings. You have them. But you recognize them for what they are and respond appropriately without letting them develop into what we call emotions, which are really just feelings that have been blown way out of proportion.

A typical romance begins with an overload of hormones, which excites the brain and nervous system. In this excited state it becomes difficult to act sensibly. When you mix in alcohol and drugs, as most of us do in the early stages of romance, what you get isnÂ’t much of a recipe for sensible action. Which isnÂ’t to say romance is bad, or relationships are bad, or marriage is bad or any of that. ItÂ’s just that excitement in general is something to be avoided more than chased after, though most of us are prone to chase after it.

The other thing that people like to throw around when they talk about romance to anyone they see as a “spiritual” teacher or whatever is this whole idea of soul mates and all that balderdash. It’s difficult to fit the idea of being someone’s soul mate into Buddhism since Buddha denied the existence of the soul. The idea of a soul is just a feeble and inadequate way of conceptualizing what human beings are. Still, sometimes there are unexplainable attractions between people — romantic and otherwise. But there’s still no great need to try and understand why such things occur. When they do, you just do what needs doing. Easy.

Right now my incredibly annoying upstairs neighbor is banging on his piano and screeching, “What’s love got to do with it?” the old Tina Turner song. Thankfully it is not four a.m., which is the time of day he usually chooses to do stuff like this. But it’s still irritating. In this case, though, it’s kind of appropriate because songs like that express well what romantic love is all about —intense, overblown, shirt-ripping, teary eyed fluff without value or meaning.

WeÂ’re constantly searching for excitement and stimulation, wrenching our bodies and minds this way and that trying to find some delerious high or some delicious low. Then, after weÂ’ve ripped and pulled and stretched and squeezed ourselves till we can barely stand up from the stress we wonder why weÂ’re such a mess. DÂ’uh! The body/mind likes equilibrium. It seeks balance. Whenever you get too high, itÂ’s like stretching a rubber band. ItÂ’s going to snap back or itÂ’s going to break. These are the only two options. Yet we always believe thereÂ’s some high just around the corner thatÂ’s going to pull us way, way, way up and weÂ’ll stay there forever and ever. If our current romance doesnÂ’t do that for us, weÂ’ll look for a new one somewhere else. When the giddy high of the first date wears off, weÂ’re ready for another fix.

ThereÂ’s no problem with loving someone, with coupling up, with enjoying someoneÂ’s company and all the rest. But if you want to enjoy all that stuff to the fullest, the best way to do it is to stop looking for big highs, peak experiences, and sweeping flights of blissful romance. All of that stuff just causes its own counter-reactions. Watch your own body and mind and youÂ’ll see this for yourself.

So Happy ValentineÂ’s Day one and all. Just donÂ’t send me chocolate cuz it gives me headaches. Send those delicious frosted heart shaped cookies instead.

Brad Warner is the author of Hardcore Zen and the forthcoming Sit Down and Shut Up!. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff. If you're in Southern California and you want to try some Zazen for yourself, he has a group that meets every Saturday in Santa Monica.

I love this post. here here!

(whatever that means)

Another excellent post, just the kind of info I needed at this time. Keep up the good work.

I think love and romance are paired together far too often.
Love is very rarely romantic- its hard and difficult and wonderful.
I used to be very synical about love until I felt it, and it was total and opened up pieces of myself which I hadn't even encountered in meditation.
But it was also incredibly destructive and I think thats where people start to misunderstand what love is all about and pair it up with puppydogs and marshmellows to soften it somehow into something which isn't love at all- its just cheese.

You are absolutely right that love is something to experience, appreciate good and bad and accept for what it is, even when it dies.
Like everything else in life, we can only enjoy it if we're mindful of it all the way through.
And from what I rememer Tina Turner is Buddhist and is probably right!

Right on.

It really is a shame when people start caring about other people too much and forget that the point of life is to live with fewest possible tragedies/miracles. Who wouldn't want to trade imprudent hopes and destructive desires for a balanced, sane, drug-free, life of calm and pure mind? Ah, the bliss of observing your serotonin levels while smiling at those who mistake life for something that matters. Fools, why do they torture themselves, with their unhealthy imaginations and silly dreams, when reality is so obvious?

Buddha Shakyamuni was a kshatriya, a general of those to be tamed.

Buddha Maitreya, the next Buddha of the future, who we are all participating in creating today, will be a brahmin, his primary seal will be the mark of love

http://www.fpmt-osel.org/teachings/maitreya.htm

When considering how emotional love operates to influence, or in the extreme, control our behavior, I've found it helpful to process the related emotion of hate at the same time. In most of Brad's sentences, replace the sentiment of love with hate, and an understanding of how emotional "excitement and stimulation" can be a negative force may be clearer.

Many of the tenets of the major organized religions are directed towards some form of rapture, on either the love or hate ends of the emotional spectrum, as the path to redemption, glory, and triumph in one's life. With rapture so heavily promoted as a virtue, it is quite easy to drift into the mindspace where we believe that we really need love to feel complete and alive.

We learned at a young age how easy and pleasurable it is for others to satisfy our physical needs for food and warmth. And, we've carried this concept of 'others' as the primary source of our happiness into adulthood, in a society which mostly encourages us to expect happiness if we amp up our emotions and love: another person, money, real estate, the state, or a god.

So, to all of you who will more than likely feel some disappointment on Valentine's Day: you can hold onto hope and wait for next year, or you can simply decide to stop looking to others to provide a basis for your feelings of happiness. You'll own love forever.

i just read this *click* last night.

The chemical reactions in my brain are telling me that I like this post.

I agree Brad. A lot of people just seem to be looking for something or someone else in a partnership that is more exciting, more attractive, more stimulating, rather than experiencing and exploring what they have already. We live in a world where everything has to be bigger, sexier, better than our neighbours-hence destorying our compassion for others by promoting our ego further.

I found this really interesting since I am of that nature of trying to find that passionate love with the consequence being that the rubber band snaps back and hits me hard in the face in the end. And what do I do? I look for the next passionate love to make me happy. It's not healthy and kind of pathetic, but it's how I've been programmed and what I think I "should" find. I should probably approach it all differently. Oh well, you live and learn.

Great post!

I already told you once, but I have to say it again: I'm waiting for you to write a book. No matter about what.

No, you should be buying Brad's books!

Great quote, words to really chew over. Thanks Brad.