Initially published in English under the title Teachings on love @https://www.lit.salon/books/OL263661W/teachings-on-love.
Vietnamese Thièn (Zen) master, who settled in France and created a community (Plum Village) still active after his death in 2022. (FYI, I heard the name being pronounced tik-nhat-han by people who have been there).
The man’s intent is marked by war (Indochina, Vietnam) and the long work of repairing the wounds with compassion.
This is a very practical approach to love in its many forms, and it offers an open opportunity to think about it (which is quite rare. More often for the reader, it’s about reveling or gorging themselves with the idea of love).
Love is profoundly intentional. His view of true love relies on four aspects (which also are four different words in Sanskrit and Pali for love):
Maitri/metta: goodwill, meaning love born out of the intent of doing good - implied here is the necessity of understanding: you can’t do something good for someone you don’t understand.
Karuna: compassion, not in the “suffering with others” sense, rather in the understanding of others’ suffering, the way a physician doesn’t suffer with a patient but understands and can help. It’s about not being overwhelmed by suffering, yet being able to empathize.
Mudita: the inherent joy of love, for both sides. It is rooted in the present, in the contentment of what is now, being happy for others and for yourself.
Upeksha/upekka: equanimity, the ability to see the whole landscape, and not be bound nor discriminating (as in: if you’re bound by love, your actions are directed towards the binds and the attachment, rather than the person you love). This is about loving without binding (yourself or the other) and loving without discriminating.
This is a summary of the first pages. He goes on developing these themes and sharing personal anecdotes. Of course, everything keeps coming back to dukkha (suffering), anatta (not self) and anicca (impermanence), the three characteristics of existence in Buddhist theology.
Like often with religion inspired thought on common topics, these are pretty bland truths, yet they are in this book introduced anew and provide new insights.