Love Is Not a Game
Lu Yin

A Buddhist monk without having experienced ups and downs in the seaof mortals will have no claim to real wisdom.

Likewise, one who has never gone through the baptism of romanticlove will have little genuine knowledge of life.

Buddhist monks exert every effort to renounce this life in favor offuture nirvana. But, without a full knowledge of this life, how could they seethrough the vanity of human society and make a clean break with this mortalworld?

Romantic love is the core of human life. Mencius says, ‘The desirefor food and sex is nature.” In other words, love is innate. If one remains alifelong stranger to love, how can he thoroughly understand life?

Man becomes capable through learning. But love is an exception. Boyand girl, when they are of age and meet at an opportune moment, will becomemysteriously attached to each other.

Though people love by instinct, yet all cannot understand itcorrectly. More often than not, love is but carnal desire and is treated as amere game. That is why we so often hear tragic stories of love.

True love is not a game. Nor can its true value be appreciated bythe morally degenerate. True love spurs one on to higher attainment. It embodiesthe supreme quality of selflessness, and is, above all, symbolic of beauty.

When a man and woman are deeply immersed in true love, they are fullof amazing inner strength. Their souls are freed from all bondage. They areunyielding before threats and incorruptible before any promise of materialgain. They transcend the reality to create an ideal paradise of their own.

Unfortunately, in this present world overflowing with materialdesires, this kind of true love is as rare as the feeble light of fireflies.What's more, “love” sometimes even leads to moral degeneration on the part ofignorant men and women. Over this, Venus cannot help lamenting with a deepsigh, “Love has become a mere game ever since humanity set out on its way toextinction. What a sad story!”