question by jimbo cannon

Buddhists tend to shoot for unconditional love as one of their goals. There are all sorts of feelings that we refer to as love, but they come with limitations or conditions. Buddhists (again) tend to see a mothers love for her child as being the nearest thing to totally unconditional love that we are generally familiar with. What we tend to mean when we talk about it, is that we love someone warts and all, or that we aspire to unconditional love but I agree that most of us fall short now and again. There’s loads of degrees of love and affection dependant upon who you are, how you express it and what you expect or reject in return. If you love your partner unconditionally, you are probably a very advanced spiritual person, wishing for them to be happy above all things, even if they were to choose another person as a partner, you would still love them and be there for them and wish them well. Whew thats a purrettty tall order! Any advanced spiritual beings who feel this way like to step forward!? I reckon that any of us can have an aspiration to develop this kind of love for the human race, and that when we fall short it can show us our weaknesses and limitations and therefore we can use that aspiration as a route to personal development. When we have a partner we want them to fulfil our wishes and that is the first condition we start with Geshe Kelsang Gyatso has written a number of translations of Buddhist texts that refer to this way of looking at love, as have I am sure a number of Buddhist masters, as these are ancient texts, defining love amongst numerous other mind states and emotions. Some thoughts at least Roland