Love is Being Present

~by Thich Nhat Hanh

TO LOVE IS, above all, to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being there is very much an art, the art of meditation, because meditating is bringing your true presence to the here and now. 

The question that arises is:

Do You Have Time To Love?

I know a boy of twelve whose father asked him one day, “Son, what would you like for your birthday present?” The boy did not know how to answer his father, who was a very rich man, able to buy anything for his son. But the boy did not want anything except his father’s presence. Because the role the father played kept him very busy, he did not have time to devote to his wife and children. Being rich is an obstacle to loving. When you are rich, you want to continue to be rich, and so you end up devoting all your time, all your energy in your daily life, to staying rich. If this father were to understand what true love is, he would do whatever was necessary to find time for his son and his wife.

The most precious gift you can give to the one you love is your true presence. What must you do to really be there? Those who have practiced Buddhist meditation know that meditating is, above all, being present—to yourself, to those you love, to life.

So I would propose a very simple practice to you, the practice of mindful breathing: “I breath in—I know that I am breathing in; I breathe out—I know that I am breathing out.” If you do that with a little concentration, then you will be able to really be there, because in daily life our mind and our body are rarely together. Our body might be there, but our mind is somewhere else. Maybe you are lost in regrets about the past, maybe in worries about the future, or else you are preoccupied with your plans, with anger or with jealousy. And so your mind is not really there with your body.

Between the mind and the body, there is something that can serve as a bridge. The moment you begin to practice mindful breathing, your body and your mind begin to come together with one another. It takes only ten to twenty seconds to accomplish this miracle called oneness of body and mind. With mindful breathing, you can bring body and mind together in the present moment, and every one of us can do it, even a child.

If the father I was talking about had known that, he would have begun to breathe in and breathe out mindfully, and then one or two minutes later, he would have approached his son, he would have looked at him with a smile, and he would have said this:

“My dear, I am here for you.”

This is the greatest gift you can give to someone you love.