Love, Love, Love.

What if love songs were about genuine love, not perfect you-complete-me love? I edit a love song, here, to make it more Buddhist-y:

Bruno Mars, Guru:

In the Buddhist tradition, romantic love and longing are often talked about as a mistaken symbol for what we all truly want, which is to be present, genuine, fulfilled. For when we’re fully ourselves, friends with ourselves, then we can be happy alone, we can be content even when disappointed: we can be mindful in every moment. In love with the entire world, and our life—and the magic is that it’s reciprocated, unconditional and just as ecstatic.

This video shows the lengths we’ll go to, if symbolically, for love. I’d do this for love. I’d do that for love. I’d pull a piano on the streets and sing my heart out for love. But love has disappointed me. Love has tortured me. So now I’ll kill myself.

Imagine if we put the same effort into our path and practice of spirituality, of becoming a better person; that is, more fully ourselves. Imagine instead that Bruno would do this and that and pull that piano for (depending on your spiritual tradition) God, or meditation, prayer, enlightenment, good deeds:

Well, Bruno Mars, replace love—which is often itself confused with sex and attraction and infatuation…with real happiness. In the Buddhist tradition, the sitting practice of meditation is the tool, the path, the key to training ourselves to become one of those loveable people in love with life, who seem not to think of themselves, but to fully be themselves.

~

In that spirit, I’ve repurposed Bruno’s Grenade Lyrics for what we’re truly wanting when we think we want “other,” romantic love:

“Grenade”

Easy come, easy go
That’s just how you live, oh
Take, take, take it all
But you never give
Should’ve known you was trouble
From the first kiss
Had your eyes wide open
Why were they open?
[all that’s irrelevant, now that we’re no longer looking to an external source for fulfillment, nor disappointed in them when they cease to make us happy]

[Bridge]
Gave you all I had
And you tossed it in the trash
You tossed it in the trash, you did
To give me all your love
Is all I ever asked
Cause what you don’t understand
Is

[Chorus]
I’d catch a grenade for you the present moment (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Throw my hand on a blade for you integrity (yeah, yeah, yeah)
I’d jump in front of a train for you the benefit of others (yeah, yeah, yeah)
You know I’d do anything for you compassion (yeah, yeah, yeah)
…