“Most things break instead of transform because they resist.
“The quiet miracle of love is that without our interference,
it, like water, accepts whatever is tossed or dropped
or placed into it, embracing it completely.
“Of course, we are human and are easily hurt
if not loved back or if loved poorly.
But we waste so much of life’s energy deliberating
who and what shall be worthy of our love
when in the deepest elemental sense,
these choices are not in our province, anymore
than rain can choose what it shall fall upon.
“Certainly we need to make decisions:
Who will I spend my time with?
Who will I learn from?
Who will I live with? Who will I marry?
“But beneath all that, the element of love
doesn’t stop being elemental.
It does not stop covering everything before it.
“And over a lifetime, the pain of withholding
this great and quiet force is more damaging
than the pain of being rejected or loved poorly.
“For love, like water can be dammed,
but toward what end?
“In truth, the more we let love flow through,
the more we have to love.
This is the inner glow that sages and saints
of all ages seem to share:
the wash of their love over everything before them;
not just people, but birds and rocks
and flowers and air.
“Beneath the many choices we have to make,
love, like water, flows back into the world through us.
“It is the one great secret available to all.
“Yet somewhere the misperception has been enshrined
that to withhold love will stop hurt.
“In truth, it is the other way around.
As water soaks scars, love soothes our wounds.
“If opened up to, love will accept the angrily thrown stone,
and our small tears will lose some of their burn
in the great ocean of tears, and
the arrow released to the bottom of the river
will lose its point.”
QHHT Silicon VALLEY 