For a period of time in my life, I didn’t believe in love. This feeling can’t be attributed to a lack of people who professed love for me because, to my memory, there have always existed plenty. Neither was it the bitter consequence of a failed relationship. No, this feeling came about after my own careful thought and analysis of love concluded that free love didn’t exist. All the love I had ever received had been earned. Some people loved me because I possessed a certain number of positive attributes: sweet, funny, caring, thoughtful, smart, endearing, etc. Love from others developed because of proximity. Had I instead been born in India to a different family, it isn’t likely the current family that I have would currently love me.

I don’t know why this upset me--to find out that human love is usually circumstantial. We like people who are nice, beautiful, witty, make us feel good about ourselves etc or who just happen to interact with us more often than others. It makes sense but, it disturbed me because it made love seem so shallow.

I don’t remember how or why I stopped being upset by this. Was it some new insight? Did I simply write it off as one of the things I would never be able to figure out? Or did I say to myself that even if human love was circumstantial, God’s love wasn’t? I really don’t remember but last week, this inner struggle about the true nature of love came rushing back into my mind.

We stayed at the Black Sea for six hours one day and for a portion of that time, I lay on my towel and practiced one of the meditations from my book (How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships by: HH Dalai Lama). I’ve tried several times to write what the book saying and I can’t do it justice. But basically it talks about relationships and that you like people who earn your love by making you feel good and you dislike people who don’t (basically the love struggle I had) and you feel nothing for neutral people whom you’ve never interacted. Through meditation and practice though, the idea is that what you feel for your best friend can be extended to people you aren’t as close friends with. The extension can be taken even further to include people you feel nothing for and also people you even dislike a lot! I love this idea. It brings such harmony to my soul, like finding a puzzle piece I’ve been looking for an hour. It’s okay, normal and even a beautiful thing to love people when they haven’t done anything to earn it!

The next part of the book is very different than the cookie-cutter Christian beliefs I used to have. It talks about having lived endless many lifetimes as different people and how everyone, at one time or another, has been your mother. There was a meditation reflecting on the kindnesses shown to you by all your different mothers: how she carried you in the womb, all the pains she experienced, the fullness of her joy at your growth, the many sacrifices she made (not just for a few months but for years), the care she gave freely when you could not care for yourself and the depth of her love and endearment towards you. When you recognize these kindnesses, “…there is no way to be unimpressed.”

For the meditation, you consider different people and all the unknown kindnesses you’ve received from them. Not just people who are your friends, but neutral people and enemies as well. Again, I love this idea! I loved thinking about the different people in my life and feeling grateful to them for things I could never specifically name. I also began to feel a closeness with the people around me.

Cross-legged on my towel, I sat and looked around at the people who filled the beach and sea. I saw a boy throwing a fit and his mother speaking sternly to him. I heard peels of laughter exploding from a small child who was bouncing in the waves holding her grandmother’s hands. I noticed a couple in their 50’s, asleep and spooning close together on a blanket under the shade of their small umbrella. A very frail old man walked by slowly, two teenage girls giggled and whispered, a woman squeezed her way through the throngs of people while carrying a bucket of sunflower seeds and calling out her prices—the beautiful human experience was surrounding me on every side. I tried to generate feelings of gratitude towards each person I saw and it felt so beautiful, natural, and good. My heart flooded with love! I saw all the people around me as my brothers, grandmothers, lovers, best friends, aunts, fathers…and I saw them as myself. I can’t express the beauty of this moment. It just made me cry thinking about it.

And if I could sit on your lap,

with your arms wrapped around me

and tell you about this experience myself…

my tears would express more than these words ever could.