“Live neither in the entanglements of outer things nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.” ~ from Faith Mind, Seng-Ts’an

“Love is one of the names we give to this recognition. It is simply not to know an other.” ~ Rupert Spira

No self does not mean nothingness, or at least that experience does not stand on its own. The discovery that there is not a separate self also coincides (not always concurrently) with the realization of who you really are. It can be seen from this everythingness that the conditions we place on love, on the “other,” are basically the best we can expect from them. If we perceive an other as untrustworthy, we are holding them to the highest standard they can maintain in our relationship with them. The other is empty save for the perceptions that make them who they are to us. That’s why conditional love fails empirically, as a concept or an experiment. The inverse is equally true. If we see them as the source of our happiness, that is what they will be…until the projection breaks down, as all projections surely must.

All of this, the perceived untrustworthiness, and the expectation that another will make you happy, comes from within, from our own sense of deficiency. The realization that there is not only no self, but no other, frees your projections, or creations, from the conditions you impose upon them. When you trust who you really are, the everything and the nothingness, you can trust another without reservation. Change your perception of the other, and they change. Not just the relationship changes (although it may), but who you are perceiving changes as well. Because there are not two. There is only the One, playing as (projecting) the many faces you see.

The conditions placed on love, loving, and being loved, arise as pointers toward the conditioning that still exists. The other exists as a mirror only as long as that reflection is necessary to see what is being shown. Look for yourself to see if you can find the self that needs to be protected, from anything, and set yourself and the illusory other free from all expectation. This is the experience of love, unconditional love.