Love

I was walking along the seashore in the hail today… thinking about paradise (Phuket) and wishing I was back there. I had been on the phone to my friend ‘Pi’ back in Thailand earlier and the warmth of the memory was keeping the cold out.

I was thinking what a candle in the dark love can be…
It can be the love of a friend, a brother, a mother – anyone to whom you are special, and who is special to you.
Someone who glows when you are close and makes you glow in return.
If you’re very, very lucky, it might be someone who loves you what ever you do. Who loves you with a warm, unselfish love that you know you can rely on come what may. You can never really be lonely when you have such a love and it saddened me that so many people don’t have it, or at least don’t appreciate it if they do.
It was while I was meditating the joy of love that I had a sudden recollection..

Many years ago I was deeply into Zen Buddhism and would sit out in the countryside of an evening and practice Zazen. One night I found my surroundings fading until for a timeless time there was nothing. It’s difficult to explain what the lack of everything is like because many things that are ever present we take so completely for granted that,
like gravity or air, you can’t really miss them until they aren’t there…
and fortunately that’s very rare.

I’ve forgotten now how I found my way through the emptiness it could have been through sound because I remember all was still black but I was now aware that it was black and that there was an “I” perceiving the blackness. Then the sound resolved itself into a thousand different voices. Very low, bass, voices; intermediate; and high voices singing a melody so fast it would have been impossible to grasp the lyrics had it not been for the fact that all were singing the same, single word “LOVE”.

The high notes seemed to dance around the bass, joining with others to create intricate patterns in the sonic landscape. I felt like I had traveled back though time and witnessed the angels singing the Universe into existence! A strange feeling for a Buddhist I’m sure you’ll agree.

For an eternity I was in a blissful state until I began to feel a slight fading, this triggered an automatic attempt to hold on to bliss and then of course the wanting replaced the very thing it was that I wanted.

I was left with a profound memory of the realization that all the questions I had ever asked were the wrong ones, and, ironically were completely unimportant!
For that timeless time I had realized, like many others before me, that all the things I thought supported me were illusions and it was simply God’s love, the eternal song of joy, that sustained everything.
I wonder if the Beatles had a similar experience which inspired their song "All You Need Is Love"?

The years have passed and it has become almost like a dream to me now.
I have traveled and I have found that some Buddhist countries actually seem much closer to the spirit of universal love than any of those Christian countries I’ve visited in the West… So, maybe I was wrong and it wasn’t God’s angels who were singing.
Maybe it was many different Buddha’s singing who can say?
The important thing to me is the song; I presume the lyric will always be “LOVE” which ever language you hear it in. I’m not sure love is all you need but whether you know it or not you can’t exist without it!

I know what created the Universe and it certainly wasn’t a Big Bang!

With acknowledgement and thanks to God & Buddha.