“you must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Freedom, Free, we all want that, but what does it really mean? I recently came in contact with the topic of attachment … “your freedom, your happiness is important to me”

I think when it come to attachment and freedom, we have a lot of confusion in what its actually mean, specially when it comes to relationships. So let explore the word “free” above in Thich Nhat Hanh quote/ teaching.

Love in a way the person you love feels free. How do we do that? We all have a hope to find the perfect person, the ideal partner, but once we have it, we still want more maybe because it’s not what we “expected.” It’s not that we are greedy, but sometimes we get confused between the wants and needs. Which I think deserves a whole separate topic. For now I just want to focus on the “freedom” in love. To me it doesn’t mean the lack of commitment, responsibility and caring for the relationship or the person you love. I remember someone once told me “why would I stick to a tree when there a whole forest out there.” That brings us to the difference in commitment vs attachment. While Buddhism encourages independence through non attachment and there is no formal teaching on relationships/marriage because it’s a choice. Non attachment doesn’t mean a lack commitment or devotion to the one person but rather a detachment from the idea of a perfect person/ partner. Buddha doesn’t have any negative on true love. But every relationships are different and it’s up to us to understand and have different arrangements. Monogamy doesn’t mean lack of freedom or vice versa. It doesn’t mean I could do whatever I want, you do whatever you want. Free here to me is the understanding, respecting of the other person needs, happiness and suffering. That meaning we don’t assume what the other person want or needs based on what we want or need. We don’t impose our ideals of what happiness is on the other person. We need to remove the “expectation” of a perfect relationship, holding one’s partner to an impossible standard.

There are 4 elements to true love: loving kindness, compassion, joy, inclusiveness. We must be able to offer happiness, understanding the other person suffering and help remove the suffering bringing joy. Love is not 50% – 50% but rather 100% – 100% … your problem is my problem, your suffering is my suffering, your happiness is my happiness. So we can’t say “ that’s your problem” … “I cannot help you,” etc. And we also must not be confused what we want for our happiness “ I’m happy so why aren’t you happy” without understanding the other person suffering. Sometimes we only focus on the “I” and forget that in love whether it’s romantic or not, it’s “we.” It’s only when we could remove the I, the attachment/expectation from the other person that we will feel free and make the person we love free.