When we are in the depths of our loneliness, what comforts us – what could possibly take us away? What, indeed? So often, it feels like there is no solace; like we are running from our own shadow. And it is true, in a way. There is no escape from being alone. We are always alone. But there is a way out of loneliness.

All our efforts at escaping loneliness are fundamentally flawed, for we don’t understand the nature of what we are running from. There is something beautiful about your loneliness. And when you see that, when you acknowledge it, learn to delight in it, that’s when something shifts inside you. When your loneliness becomes aloneness - that is freedom! That is when you can truly begin to Love!

Gautama Buddha once said: ” I teach one thing and one only: that is, suffering and the end of suffering.”

And what causes this suffering? He answers this question in his four Noble Truths: “The origin of suffering is attachment.”

How do we overcome attachment, then? The strangest thing of all - the one thing that we think causes attachment.

This is one of the most painful things I can admit. I don’t know if I have ever known Love. Lust, yes. Attachment, Passion, yes. Compassion – perhaps. And the most hurtful thing I can say is – how many have?

What is Love? Who has ever known Love?

This is my own take on a Buddhist meditation named Tonglen. It literally means “giving and taking”. It transforms your pain, as well as others’, into love. It softens the heart, brings forgiveness for yourself and others, and after a while (for me at least) makes you feel completely blissed out.