..续本文上一页 before signing the contract, on the whole we do not love them forever, and certainly never unconditionally! Why

　　It is because the love that flows between partners in a relationship is not the same as the love that flows between parents and children.

　　In an article in Time magazine several years ago entitled, "The Chemistry of Love", bio-chemists demonstrated that when boy meets girl over a romantic, candle-lit dinner, hormones are secreted into the bloodstream to produce a chemically induced high. Your partner literally "turns you on". And you love that high, not that person. Or as Time put it, "You love the way they make you feel". Later, when your body builds up a natural tolerance to those chemicals, your partner doesn”t turn you on any more. So it”s not their fault after all. It is just chemistry. So, please, never shout and get angry with your partner, shout and get angry at the chemistry book instead!

　　The love between a parent and a child is substantially different. You love them even though there may be nothing in it for you. You love them irrespective of the way they make you feel. It is selfless love, unconditional love.

　　My father revealed such a love to me when I was only 13, or so. When there was only the two of us sitting in his old car, in a backstreet of West London, he turned round and said to me.

　　"Son, whatever you do in your life, the door of my house will always be open to you." Then he drove back to our home.

　　I was, at the time; too young to understand what he meant, but old enough to know it was something important. I remembered it. Only many years later, long after my father had died, while I was a young monk, did I decipher its real meaning.

　　His house, our home, was a small rented apartment in a poor area of West London. It wasn”t much of a place to open to anyone. We were never afraid of burglars, because we thought that if a burglar came in and saw our place, then he would probably leave us something out of his own pocket from compassion!

　　What my father meant, what he was really trying to say was:

　　"Son, whatever you do in your life, the door to my heart will always be open to you".

　　That is what is meant by unconditional love. That is the type of love often found between parents and children. That is selfless love. No-strings-attached love. Freeing love. "Whatever you do in your life, the door to my heart will always be open to you"

　　~O~

　　Back to relationships, which type of love flows between you and your partner

　　 Here”s a test for you to find out.

　　Imagine your partner. Do you really love them

　　 Do you want them to be happy

　　 Do you truly care about their well being

　　 Is their happiness the most important thing in the world for you

　　Now imagine that you go home from this conference to find that your partner has run off to Paris with your best friend for a steamy affair. How would you feel

　　If you really cared for their well being, then you would be thrilled to hear how happy they both are now. If you really loved your partner, you”d be overjoyed that they are now even happier with your best friend than they were with you. If your loved one”s happiness was that important to you, you would be ecstatic - Oh What Joy! -- to read that they were having such a great time together in the moonlight by the Seine. You always wanted your partner to be happy, now they are. What”s the problem

　　~O~

　　This test makes the point that love in most relationships is selfish love, conditioned love. It is rooted in attachment and branches, sooner or later, into suffering. They say there are three rings in a marriage:

　　The engagement ring

　　The wedding ring

　　And suffer-ring

　　~O~

　　Selfless love is without attachment. It is rooted in giving and branches, inevitably, into freedom. It is the type of love which says, "What…

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