When we truly love, the issues of self do not
arise. The gap between the self and the beloved
disappears. Therefore self-ishness is impossible.
If the beloved is cold; we shelter her. If she is
hungry, we feed her. If she is lonely, we caress
her until her pain is gone. The great acts of
sacrifice are inspired by love. Children are
brought into the world through the sacrifice of
the mother who through love bears that pain that
allows them to live. Being in love we experience
the disappearance of the boundaries between
ourselves and that which we love. But being in
love can be a transient phenomenon. The human
idea of love is often very different from what I
have just described. Tsia Tung:
In what way?
Fu Hsiang: Human love is very
often founded on the idea of self. We are unhappy
and we want someone to put it right. We carry an
image of the ideal person, man or woman. In fact
we are carrying a script, as for an actor. It
contains the lines we want to hear. We then find
a man or woman who seems right and we give them
the script. "Please read this to me" we
say "and be the person I want". Maybe
the person does this.
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