Love's Fullness

where mindfulness becomes "lovefulness"

What is love anyway?

All I know is that it is so much deeper and wider than the shallow and narrow ways we have chosen to define and confine it.

If love were an ocean, then romantic love would be no more than a current or wave in its vast expanse. Oceanic love is not a transaction: it’s the fabric of life, the essence of all things. Its movements are mysterious, yet intimately felt and known. Its power is radical. Within the embrace of its luminous warmth, miracles happen. Wounds mend and dissolve, contractions unravel and release, limiting beliefs and behaviours relax.

This much I know: love heals, transforms and liberates.

I recently returned from offering a silent yoga, meditation and embodied dharma retreat in France, and though we anchored and relaxed the mind, stabilised and lengthened the body, opened and softened the heart - what we really did was learn to love and be loved.

Because when the mind is soft and present, it’s more able to perceive the body with kindness. And when the body is strong and supple, it’s more able to offer a safe home to the heart. And when the heart relaxes its armouring, it’s more able to love what is here (however beautiful or painful), and be loved just because it’s here (however imperfect and awkward).

Photos from our recent retreat at the Moulin de Chaves.

The aliveness of the natural world holds us on this journey, alongside practices which cultivate loving presence and the incredible bond which grows through silence. Together we reweave a web of love. The messages I received after the retreat all spoke about a sense of coming home to this web. As one person wrote:

The feeling of being held in love has remained, and it is transformative. It's as if you taught what I had been looking for but hadn't quite realised - I love Dharma teachings but until now have often felt a lack of emphasis on love at the core of the teaching. My experience at the Moulin has completely changed that. Your beautifully chosen words, your calm generous presence and your focus on embodied experience helped me to feel alive and connected to a loving web of life that I sensed as a child but had lost.

Let her words land in you:

We are alive and connected to a loving web of life.

We know this, but we forget.

When we remember, we are more able to relax into love’s fullness, even when life is painful and challenging.

When we forget, we are more likely to suffer, even when life is sweet and gentle.

The journey of remembering happens through the heart, not the mind. Though we train the mind to rest and attend here with curiosity and care, we do this so that we can feel the heart of this moment, which is love. We infuse this moment with love and experience it held in love, so that we can respond to life from love’s fierce, wise, compassionate grace.

We don’t meditate to become good meditators. We meditate to feel, receive and live in love.

If the Pali word sati were translated not as mindfulness but as lovefulness, how would that change our relationship to meditation, I wonder? Would we still practise as if we were observing this moment - as if separate from it? Would it still be lovefulness even when applied to accumulating wealth regardless of impact (Goldman Sachs and others offer mindfulness programmes to their traders) or squeezing the trigger of a rifle (UK and US armies use mindfulness to prepare soldiers for combat)?

Whereas mindfulness can be excised from its relational, devotional context to be implemented devoid of an ethical framework, love cannot be separated from the field of curiosity, care, tenderness, kindness, wonder, awe, compassion and delight which evokes its presence within us, and our presence within it.

Let’s practice lovefulness.

Let’s participate in - and rest within - love’s fullness.

Sunset at the the Moulin de Chaves retreat centre.

Upcoming offerings

November 4th-8th 7-8am: daily meditations, dharma talks and q&a online on Sangha Live. More info here and register here. (We’ll be exploring “Love’s Fullness” in an experiential, embodied way each morning next week: a small sanctuary of loving presence amidst the mental fixation, othering and overwhelm more often associated with US elections.)

December 8th 9.30am-6pm: A day of rejuvenation and joy, which includes Iyengar yoga, guided meditation, silent walking meditation through ancient woodland, wild swimming, wood fired sauna, restorative yoga, connection and friendship. More info here. (Last few spaces available for December and I am also taking bookings for January 25th.)

April 2nd-6th: The next silent yoga and meditation retreat will be at the magical Sharpham House in Devon. More info here. (Last few spaces remaining.)

When we learn the steps to love’s dance, we can participate in the unending play of its expansion and expression. Life becomes a classroom and playground which invites us to live in ever greater intimacy with love. Alive to life, naked in the face of its mystery, and awake to the challenges and opportunities offered to us, we find ourselves living not only in love, but also as love. Let’s do this together friends. It’s time.