How to Be an Adult in Love: Letting Love in Safely and Showing It Recklessly

We sometimes confuse making assessments and being judgmental. To assess is to critique, or to comment on the value of something in an objective and disinterested way, such as reviewing a movie. We evaluate its acting, script, and direction. This is not personal but informational. Mindfulness shows the legitimacy of assessing; it requires constant a

We simply notice it with bare attention and keep returning to the present moment by focusing on our breath, what is real right now. In mindfulness, we are so attentive to our thoughts and reactions that we see precisely where they lead and how they do or do not produce suffering for ourselves and others.

We will be there for others as we are now here for ourselves, fully present, calmly witnessing, not rushing in to fix or control.

Practice is about surrendering to the way things are inside us. Our success is in noticing how our mind works and in coming back to our breath whenever we become aware of our distractions. Our success is in continuing to show up, not in being utterly free of distracting mind-sets.

“When you believe there is no love in you, put acts of love out there, and then you will find the love in yourself.”

We are touched by what Virgil, in The Aeneid, called “the tears in things.” We appreciate that built into all existence is a grief about impermanence; a vulnerability to disappointment, hurt, and loss; a resignation to suffering. That touches us both as participants in the givens of the human story and as loving witnesses to it.

A Buddhist teaching is that being caught in attachment is a cause of suffering for us. Yet it is also a form of suffering for others who become obsessed by their attachment to us.

Bodhicitta is the awakening of agape within us, since it arises from caring about the spiritual welfare of others. Our yearning in bodhicitta is to free others from the suffering of being caught in fear and ignorance. It is unconditional, unrestricted, and universal, so it actually represents a commitment to love fully.

Even in our infatuated state, we may realize that this is not the right relationship for us, that it has no future. Yet we often can’t let go. We may refer to this inability as our heart speaking, when it is actually our adrenals. We are under the influence of our own adrenaline, the hormone that keeps us attached whether or not our feelings are re