Limitless Undying Love
suffering and ease held in infinite space
The Sanskrit and Pali words for suffering (dukkha) and ease (sukha) both share the same root (kha), meaning space.
Ease is the expansion of space, and suffering is the contraction or collapse of space. But both arise and dissolve within space itself. It is space which remains.
This matters because we tend to get lost in the movements of contraction and expansion. We miss the space because our attention gets entangled with the contents within it.
Without awareness of space, we often obsess over what we hate. We attempt to destroy, hide or distract from discomfort, even though it hurts still more to go to war. When we collapse into life’s inevitable contractions, we are no longer able to breathe inside them.
And without awareness of space, we also obsess over what we love. We attempt to consume, possess and hold onto things which dissolve regardless, like lamenting the passing of blossoms in Spring even as they explode into bloom. When we contract around life’s effortless expansion, it can no longer sing its song.
When instead we become curious about that which holds and infuses these joys and pains, we are able to experience the great mystery of space itself. Even though it can’t be defined, space is palpable. We can know it directly through the way it feels.
When the mystery of space is felt directly, we refer to it in reverence and wonder, using different words to describe the indescribable. One such word is simply Love.
And so this is the truth we keep forgetting: that everything we believe, think, feel and perceive arises from, is held within, and dissolves back into love. Each time we contract around an experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant, we collapse our capacity to feel the space of love.
In doing so, we feel separate from love. This is the crux of suffering, both our own, and the suffering we inflict on others. Nothing hurts more than feeling separate from love.
Perhaps all existential pain comes from this illusion of being separate and alone? The fear of being banished, of doing something wrong, of not being ok: all founded on the terrifying idea that it’s possible to be separated from love. Like the wave terrified of being not enough, forgetting it’s simply the cresting energy of a vast and benevolent ocean.
And all our violence towards each other comes from this same illusion. How else can we speak of enemies and the necessity to defend ourselves from their violence with still more violence, other than by separating waves from the ocean?
Love can be fierce, it’s true. It acts powerfully and decisively in defence of further harm when necessary. Sometimes it needs to shock us to wake us up. But love always curls back to wonder what caused this wave - that is you and yet also me - to contract in the first place? What was hurting? What was not yet understood? Where were we both contracting around space?
It’s true that love invites us to stand up in defence of violation. But violation runs deep and wide in our world, and most of the time we’re unconsciously complicit in it too. So how do we allow love’s fire to alchemise violence whilst forgiving those who perpetuate it - and whilst recognising that this includes ourselves too?
Because there’s a sea-change arising within and around us, inviting us to see old ways in a new light. Have you noticed? With these new eyes, we’re seeing the horrors of war, oppression, racism and sexism, as if for the first time. At these moments of change, we teeter at the threshold of falling into the same old divides draped in new clothing, or discovering something entirely new.
With a heart waking up to living with integrity, in a world waking up to systemic violence, can we recognise that we are utterly fallible as human beings, whilst still celebrating our capacity and longing for redemption? Can we stand up for what is right, whilst noticing the goodness of this tender heart, too: how deeply we love, how profoundly we care?
Because fear only makes space for the violence of this world, searching for outrage and which side to take. But - really - if we could see energies of fear and love from space, though there would be areas contracted in violence all around, wouldn’t we mostly see a planet radiating with moment-to-moment acts of everyday love?
We tend to highlight - even obsess over - the way fear feels and moves. How it grips us with the compulsion to fight, freeze or flee; how it feels justified by the horrors and threats of this world. Yet these horrors and threats, whilst all very real, are utterly imbalanced beside the truth of our everyday, daily acts of love and care.
If we choose to turn our attention towards the ways love feels and flows, we begin to notice it all around us. We begin to notice that alongside the acts of violence, with which fear is more familiar, there is extraordinary beauty and grace.
We begin to notice, for example, the the way love illuminates the mundane with curiosity, and enlivens the irrelevant with care.
We notice the way it flows into a space of pain to fiercely prevent further harm before resting beside, breathing into and softening around whatever hurts.
We notice the way it expands into beauty with a bubbling of uninhibited delight. The way it widens with infinite space to make room for the whole of life, just as it is.
And we notice love moving in endless flow between giving, receiving and simply being. With the persistent, unfailing invitation for us to step into its sacred dance.
Space isn’t empty, it’s utterly full. In these times of tumult and pain, we need love’s gentle humility and fierce grace to hold and guide us. Let’s remember the space which holds life’s suffering and ease. Let’s remember this space to be love.
Please join me…
March 18th-22nd: we’ll be exploring the way love feels and moves during a week of Daily Meditations, Dharma Teachings and Q&A, online each morning from 7-8am (with recordings available) on Sangha Live.
May 18th: we’ll also be exploring love’s flavours and flow in an embodied way at a Yoga and Meditation Workshop from 1.30-4.30pm at Love Supreme Projects.
April 27th, June 14th, December 8th: I’m continuing to teach Day Retreats at Wasing (above is the full moon which rose to bless the end of our day there in February) which include a long morning of yoga and meditation, followed by silent walking meditation through ancient woodland to a secluded swimming lake, lakeside sauna, firepit and woodland lunch spread, and ending with late afternoon restorative yoga and meditation.
September 30th - October 6th: spaces are filling up for this year’s Week Retreat at the Moulin de Chaves in France. The days are infused with yoga, meditation, swimming in the river, eating delicious food, being held by the blessings of silence and community, reconnecting to what really matters and releasing what no longer serves us. We stabilise and lengthen the body, soften the heart and open the mind in order to taste, touch, breathe and feel the infinite space within and all around us.
A space so very alive with love.
🙏❤️