Integral Love

A Zen master I’m fond of said, "Love takes no prisoners".  This is designed to stop the mind as quickly as the “sound of one hand clapping”.

But it makes a great contemplation too.  One way to think about it is as an insult to the possessive style of egoic love.  “Honey I love you, do you love me?”  Mama. Dada.

Another way to look at it is that everything that touches Love is undone.  “Take no prisoners” informs us that a massacre is about to happen. Our self-centeredness is destroyed by Love as we are dissolved by It, within It, maybe sometimes even as It. No one gets out alive.

I've been awash these days in an exploration we might call Integral Love.  In this case, we recognize an intelligence to Love that knows how to love each particularity or nuance within us uniquely.  

Far from a massacre of everything at once, Integral Love is a slow, repeated love affair which develops over time.

There is not just one self that is dissolved and destroyed by Love.  We are a multiplicity of selves. So we have many prisoners.

One subtle way we “take prisoners” is by hoping they will change, heal, or grow. 

Integral Love is so feathery and refined that it sees prisoners just as they are from inside their own worlds.  It is fearless and clear and does not belong to you or me.

Integral Love allows surrender straight into the world of our prisoners.  We give up our terms, our demands for conciliation, even our false humility and good intentions.

We come to see that prisoners are the teachers, pouring their particular wisdoms into us, not the other way around.

It makes for a pretty good day.