We love to love: A Valentine's contemplation for all

The permanent source of joy is our love, not another person.

I'm on retreat. I leave this for you to contemplate. Happy Valentine's Day, loves.

We all love to be in love because deep inside we love caring for others ... We may become confused and think the other person is the source of our delight -- that he is the pill of love and we swallow him. Love not understood becomes clinging tight.  We believe that the object of our love is a permanent source of joy. We keep going back for more. We are confusing love with fixation, which brings suffering, not joy. The permanent source of joy is our love, not another person. ...

True love is not dependent on any one object. True love is the natural energy of our settled mind, an inexhaustible resource.

--Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford