Alter-Native: True Love versus Attachment

-Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo-

So, I've just watched an YouTube video that made me think about why most of my relationships (both romantic and friendship-based relationships) failed.

In that video, the Buddhist nun Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo talked about what is love by attachment, the one that hurts, and true, genuine love. Here are her words, or you could just skip to the bottom of the page and just watch the video.

"The problem is that always we mistake the idea of love for attachment. We imagine that the grasping and clinging that we have for in our relationships shows that we love, where as actually it is just attachment, which causes pain. Because the more we grasp, the more we are afraid to lose, then if we do lose, of course we are going to suffer.

Attachment says: you know I love you, therefore I want you to make me happy.

Genuine love says: I love you, therefore I want you to be happy. If that includes me, great. If it doesn't include me, I just want your happiness.

Attachment is like holding very tight, but genuine love is like holding very gently, nurturing, but allowing things to flow, not to be held tightly.

The more tight we hold on to others the more we will suffer, but it's very hard for people to understand that, because they think that the more they hold on to someone, the more it shows that they care about them, but it's not.

Its really just that they're holding and grasping so tightly because they are afraid that they themselves will be hurt.

Any kind of relationship that imagines that we can fulfill ourselves through another, is bound to be tricky.

Ideally people should come together already feeling fulfilled within themselves, and thus just appreciating that in the other, rather that expecting the other to supply that well-being, which they don't (but should) feel on their own..."

- Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

Most people (as I did too) don't even know what love is, they just think of it as owning and controlling someone, and no happiness could come from that.

True love doesn't mean total attachment!

Thank you so much for this teaching, Jetsunma!