How do you teach your children Love?

Lessons of love occur to me this morning while making coffee and talking with Connor. He mentioned the past this morning and talked about people who were in our lives who aren’t anymore. He said he wished it was like it used to be, with the exception of one person. He mentioned how he missed having a basement and a big family. I thought about that a lot this morning. How do you teach your child acceptance? How do you show them what loving someone really means? I hope to instill in my sons an understanding of what it really means to love people. I hope to free them from the illusion of control which limits love in so many ways.

Loving someone means loving who they are, not who you want them to be. Actual love, real love, does not have any reference to any physical reality. There are no if/then's to love. It is unconditional, completely giving, completely accepting and all enveloping.

If you make choices I cannot abide it doesn’t mean I can’t love you anymore. It may mean you’re not directly in my life, but it doesn’t affect the love. Anger may cloud love, obscure it, but it can never defeat it, all it can do is distract us from it if we let it. If we allow it, anger can make us believe love exists in this reality and therefore is as impermanent is this reality is. It can cause us to believe we no longer love that person. This is untrue. In that instance it is only a distraction from ourselves.

When we love someone there are no if/then situations that could end the love. Love is unending. “I love you if you take me out and show me a good time”, “I love you if you’re thin”, “I love you if you’re good”. Those are all examples of our judgment and expectations on love. “I love you if you play with me”. What if I’m sick? Do you love me then? So is your love based on your assessment of my behavior, of my existence? If my sickness was my fault, do you love me? If there was nothing I could do to prevent my sickness, then do you still love me? It is so tricky and so easy to apply our ego and make our love a gift which we bestow. When we give someone something we always seem to require something in return and that isn’t love. It may be affection, but that isn’t love.

If I love you, I love who you are. Who you are is outside of my control so you’re life choices do not affect me or my love for you. If you treat me poorly, that is a situation, a circumstance, not the definition of who you are, of the person I love. It doesn’t change the love, it may change our interaction because I love me too and wish me to be well, but it doesn’t change the love. If you have to leave, I still love you. If the reasons you’re leaving are ones I don’t agree with, I still love you. My love isn’t conditional upon you behaving in ways I approve of. Love is the broadest of perspectives; it is the realization that we are more than this moment, without reaching for the next moment.

Think about your life. Do you believe in reincarnation? Past lives? If you do, do you believe you’ve always been the same sex you are now? What about the same sexual orientation? Unless you’re omniscient of all of your previous incarnations and the future ones we must accept that who we see ourselves as in THIS life isn’t even remotely true in ANY OTHER LIFE. If we love ourselves, truly, we must be open. Loving yourself doesn’t mean loving your physical form, that won’t last even an instant. It is constantly changing and how do you maintain your conditions for that love if it is ever changing? “I love my figure”, “I love my smile”. That can and does change moment to moment. Love isn’t the tight grip of expectations; it’s the open hand of acceptance. I love me, which is to say, I love the spark of life which has existed in every life I have experienced. I loved me when I was a man, I loved me when I was a woman, I loved me when my life ended young, I loved me when I was an old person, I loved me when I was sickly, I loved me when I was healthy, I loved me when I was gay, I loved me when I was heterosexual… because none of it mattered, it was an experience. It had a beginning and an end. It wasn’t always. The only always is the spark of life, the energy of the divine which resides within us all.

How can I have that understanding and still experience you in my life in this reality? How can I love you deeply yet have no attachment to your actions, thoughts, behavior and so forth? By existing in my truest self. When what I believe doesn’t need anything but my belief I am free. When I can exist, as myself, in all instances without conditions, I am free. When what I think, feel, believe doesn’t depend on you answering first, I am free. When I don’t have to ping you, or a group, a political party, a nation, a race, a gender and echo locate myself I am free. When I love me, completely, I am free and when I am free there is no limit on my love. I can actually live in each and every moment filled with unconditional love. Time doesn’t matter. A certain set of circumstances doesn’t matter. People coming, people going, it doesn’t matter.

Love is a constant, fluid and moving energy which is inherent to our existence. Hate, anger, jealousy, etc is ALWAYS affixed to a moment. It is a spoken, an action, a view point, but it will never pass to the next life and so it is impermanent. It is nailing jello to the wall, what is the point?

To my Connor: I love you when you’re happy, I love you when you’re sad, I love you when you’re good and I love you when you break the rules, I love you when you’re here and I love you when you’re not. I love you when you’re with your brother, and I love you when you’re alone. I love you when you’re a baby and I love you when you’re a grown man. I love you always, can you think of a way to do the same? For everyone?

Love Dad.

Where Happiness is Hidden

Happiness is yours, you need only grasp it.

It doesn't come from money, possessions, social status, job or anything else. Those can be taken and true happiness will never be found in anything fleeting. There will always be the nagging fear that it could be taken away, that keeps us from experiencing true happiness. Even if you say you don't fear that, where does the motivation to keep, or gain more of the things in which we find our happiness? Fear of loss, the fear of losing them and with them our happiness.
Happiness is not from people either. They aren't "us" (they aren't me) they don't have all of our opinions, actions, reactions, morals, standards and so on. When we count on them for our happiness, we will always be left wanting and unfulfilled. When we find someone very similar the temptation to change them is far too great. Of course we can’t tell them they must change. “If I stop picking up their laundry and start leaving mine all over, then they’ll see.” We think. We step away from ourselves to “change” them and the head games start. We make ourselves miserable and anyone we share our life with. It might not be a constant misery, but there is always friction and uncertainty, which defeats any happiness we get from it. So many ways we have found to manipulate ourselves and others to bring about when we believe will be happiness, and never is.
The world, life, existence will not bring happiness either. It will never fit my specific standards because it is shared. You can make some of the people happy all of the time and all of the people happy some of the time, right? There will never be happiness through this. Even a concept such as peace cannot be agreed upon by all. We can’t even define what that means in such a way so everyone can agree.


Happiness is an open hand. Happiness is an open heart. Happiness is an open mind. Happiness is nothing. It is no thing.

Happiness is within each of us. It is an alignment with our higher selves. When we trust someone and they let us down repeatedly we learn not to trust them. The same goes with us. I believe low self esteem and low self image are the direct result of not walking in the light of our true selves. I say that instead of saying “speaking our truth” because do we even KNOW our truth anymore? We have chased an external happiness so long that we have become a character of ourselves, a mask, the lead in the movie of our lives which plays on the blank white screen of our minds. We have separated ourselves from everyone else. We have made all those in our lives “supporting cast” and then get frustrated when they don’t stick to the script. When we “think” of what to say we are plotting. However good our intentions are, we are thinking to the future and planning an outcome. That outcome is dependent on another person and will never bring happiness. Being our true selves is not linear, is not plotted against others, or the world. It is a constantly learning and growing standard of behavior for ourselves only. You only have to be better than yourself to grow.

True happiness is when we act as our true selves with no filter and accept all others as our fellow human beings. We all have the same flaws, they are simply expressed through different channels. There is a Buddhist concept I happen to love and try to follow. We are the only flawed person. All others are perfect and if we see them as less than perfect it is only a projection of our consciousness upon them reflecting when we refuse to see in ourselves. I believe we all have our flaws, but when I see past mine reflected in you, deal with them so that I can truly see your spirit, you are perfect. You’re a being within the human experience. I know what that is like, I’m there too. Maybe you’re dealing with your own challenges, but that has nothing to do with me directly and I can find happiness. I can let go of ideals (concepts of future circumstances) when I am no longer plotting my next move, or the next revision to the script and open my hands to accept.
I can open my heart for there is nothing within me to stop me. I am no longer in my own way. When I am not projecting my own flaws onto you, I can see you for who you truly are and love you without limit.
I can open my mind and accept that I might be wrong when I take an honest approach. When I am only trying to be better than myself, being wrong is the only way I grow. My mind can be open to you and your ideas so that I may grow from them, even if that growth is the knowledge that I don’t agree.

When I realize that I am the source of my happiness and make the changes I need to make to walk within the light of my truth, all the pretense fades, all the time I spent plotting and revising is now open, like my arms, to love. Happiness has been there all along, I had piled so much emotional baggage on it that I could no longer see it there shining from the center of myself.

The Metta Prayer:
May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature.
May all beings be free.