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

Valentine’s Day is next week and everyone’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 Valentine’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 that’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 doesn’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 isn’t much of a recipe for sensible action. Which isn’t to say romance is bad, or relationships are bad, or marriage is bad or any of that. It’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.

We’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 we’ve ripped and pulled and stretched and squeezed ourselves till we can barely stand up from the stress we wonder why we’re such a mess. D’uh! The body/mind likes equilibrium. It seeks balance. Whenever you get too high, it’s like stretching a rubber band. It’s going to snap back or it’s going to break. These are the only two options. Yet we always believe there’s some high just around the corner that’s going to pull us way, way, way up and we’ll stay there forever and ever. If our current romance doesn’t do that for us, we’ll look for a new one somewhere else. When the giddy high of the first date wears off, we’re ready for another fix.

There’s no problem with loving someone, with coupling up, with enjoying someone’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 you’ll see this for yourself.

So Happy Valentine’s Day one and all. Just don’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.

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