Monshin Nannette Overley: The Diligence of Profound Love

Taking a cue from Bonnie Myotai Treace’s essay Will You Sit with Me?, Sensei Monshin Overley explores the matter of diligence in love. What does it mean to love diligently? Is it even possible to love without diligence? While our popular culture often represents love as a passive feeling, Monshin suggests that we consider love as a caring activity that we show up for even when we may not feel like it. Monshin insists that diligent love must include self-love, not practiced out of a  fearful protection against the difficulties of relationship, but rather out of an acknowledgment of the non-separation of self and other—that just as to care for others is to care for oneself, to genuinely care for oneself is to care for others. It is often said in Zen that the path and the goal are one; that when we sit on the cushion we are practicing awakening itself, not practicing in order to eventually be awakened at a later date. In the same way, when we love, actively, diligently, we keep both eyes on the beloved, thinking neither of reward nor reciprocation—thinking of nothing, really, but only attending to the one right in front of us.