Mind Meld 67 | Cast Out the Demon of Doubt with Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg is a Buddhist teacher and best selling author. Her latest work, Real Love explores how to redefine our limited definitions of “love” in order to connect more deeply with ourselves, others and life itself.

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In his infinite wisdom, the great philosopher Haddaway once exclaimed, “What is love!?” Who can blame him? It seems to morph- it’s a verb, it’s a noun, it’s a platitude. Really, I can’t think of any concept as vague, manipulated, contorted and commodified.

Though it would be presumptuous to try to slap some sort of label on it, we intuitively know that in love’s true form, it’s something cosmically vast. So how then has that oceanic thing been relegated to products, greeting cards, romance and all of its other infinitely cheapened modern forms?

As murky and robbed of its true power as it sometimes feels, we know when we don’t have it. When love is lacking, the human condition is all sorts of awful. Life just tastes bitter. And, for some reason, that sour emotional place is becoming rather crowded. 

I’m tempted to use my scalpel of speculation to cut into how and why that lack of love is manifesting, but that’s where Sharon Salzberg and our conversation in this mind meld come in.

Musings in this mind meld include – 

• Depression loneliness and disconnection are all exploding, why?
• Personifying and identifying your self-critical chatter
• The relationship between mindfulness and love
• How to love yourself with past narcissistic self-adoration
• What is the true nature of love?
• Is love only part of human nature or a cosmic law?
• Different cultural ideas of love
• Interstellar and Anne Hathaway’s fantastic love rant