Unconditional Love

(E-mail reply to a student)

If you want to know the Truth and be free, read on. If not, delete now.

Sitting very quietly, drop any thought, belief, feeling, idea, concept, or experience of unconditional love...or of anything else, for that matter. Drop it all and let it go. Just for a moment. See what happens and let me know.

Unconditional love arises from the Unborn (as does everything else) but is in the realm of the born (as is everything else). To be free or fully awake we must return to the Unborn without any baggage at all. Clinging to anything, including concepts or experiences of unconditional love, will prevent this. Everyone has their favorite little thing to cling to — god, self-image, love, guru, child, husband, wife, money, job, goldfish. This clinging keeps us in the realm of the apparent and we never know the Real, which is always already present, Presence itself, which is our True Nature.

The Hsin-hsin ming says:
“The Great Way is not difficult
for those not attached to preferences.
When neither love nor hate arises,
all is clear and undisguised.
Separate by the smallest amount, however,
and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth.
If you wish to know the Truth,
then hold to no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind...”
(Richard B. Clarke, translator)

With unconditional love,
Tom

Previous Writing  |  Next Writing