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Has there ever been a Buddha who has fallen in love?

I think that all Buddhas fall in love. But it’s not ‘falling’. We speak about ‘falling’ in love because our way of loving is very often connected with a lot of attachments and greediness and can become suffering. As soon as one loves someone, of course, one is happy, but at the same time one is worried about impermanence. We know it’s unavoidable. ‘It’s good now, but how long will it last?’ ‘May be one of us will end up loving someone else.’ ‘May be one of us will become sick and die.’ – I think that we speak about ‘falling’ in love, because inside of love is that fear of impermanence.

Whereas Buddhas, awakened beings, are fundamentally awakened to impermanence. They have realized that impermanence is the fundamental reality of all existence. They have learned to accept it as something completely natural, not unjust or scandalous.

When we practice Zazen we learn to harmonise completely with impermanence, to realize a mind that dwells on nothing. If one deepens the understanding of impermanence, one realizes that it exists due to the mutual interdependence of all beings. If one phenomena changes that results in a chain reaction influencing all other existences. Impermanence means total interdependence.

To accept interdependence means to accept that one is not enclosed in oneself and to see that one is really oneself if one is open to and in relationship with all beings. To accept this total interdependence is love for all beings. It is realized when we accept to let go our egotism. In that situation we function like a Buddha. We can be in love with all beings without being attached to it. That is not a greedy love that tries to have the other one belong to you as an object. It is a love which is based on compassion and benevolence for the other.

We don’t speak of ‘falling into compassion’ or of ‘falling into benevolence’, because there is no falling. On the contrary, it’s a very positive activity: The person living that compassion and benevolence is as happy as those who benefit from the compassion and benevolence. There is no anxiety.

That’s why the Buddhas can love without falling into suffering.