Love and Happiness

It was Thanksgiving Day in Plum Village on November 25, 2004. The sangha gathered in Lower Hamlet, Plum Village during the Fall Retreat and Thay gave a 45-minute dharma talk on the topic of love and happiness. In the Buddhist teaching of love, there are four elements. The first is maitri—friendship, brotherhood, loving-kindness. And the second is karuna—capacity to understand the suffering and help remove and transform it—compassion. Mudita is the third element—joy—your joy is her joy, her joy is our joy. The last element is upeksha—nondiscrimination. This is a higher form of love. The four qualities have no limits—infinite love—these elements arelso called the Four Unlimited Minds. The bodhisattva of love is in you.