02.13.2026 The Path of Love I have a milestone birthday approaching, and as often happens at such moments, the mind and heart turn toward reflection. Lately, I’ve been revisiting the intricate web of family and friends who support me, hold me , and — yes — sometimes challenge me. We connect with others for many reasons: for joy, out of care and concern, and to continue to tend to a dynamic we view as important. There are times we turn toward loved ones knowing they can skillfully hold up a mirror to who we truly are, helping us feel seen and loved. And there are other times when connection is far more complicated. On the Buddhist path, we’re taught that there is room for all of it, that difficult thoughts and emotions are not to be pushed away but worked with. In the past month, two close friends shared with me their tender struggles with family members whose social and political views starkly contradict their own. In each case, they’re wrestling with the pain of holding deep, formative memories with people they no longer feel aligned with in terms of how they move through the world. Conflicted and sometimes confused, many try to draw boundaries while also staying open to the shared history that shaped the connection. As time and experience teach us, love is not always straightforward, generous, or healing. In the March 2026 issue of Lion’s Roar, we explore the four immeasurables — loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — and how these practices can offer a way forward, helping us build connection, and perhaps even heal, in the face of differences that may feel “unhealable.” Below, in “4 Ways to Deepen Your Love,” Susan Kaiser Greenland offers a helpful perspective on loving-kindness as a kind of armor — not something we don to fight, but as a way of meeting even painful emotions with love and openness. Ellen Harada Crane Sensei explores compassion practice, showing how “small compassion” — seeing another’s pain and wishing to relieve it — is supported and expanded by “great compassion,” an aspiration to hold all beings within a vast, unconditional field of care. Koun Franz teaches that through practicing a variation of tonglen meditation, we can strengthen our capacity to offer, celebrate, and see joy as infinitely shareable. And finally, Gullu Singh brings us into the grounding power of equanimity — a steady heart in the midst of life’s shifting terrain. He speaks of the “grace to yield, to bend, to rise again,” reminding us that when we become preoccupied with getting rid of sharp emotions, we risk becoming fixated on escape and resistance rather than allowing the mind to remain steady and clear. You’ll also find two more teachings below on the power of these “divine abodes.” For me, these teachings illuminate a path: When steadiness is present, we can respond rather than react, moving through difficulty with greater clarity, compassion, and skill. May the immeasurables and the practices that support them offer you a meaningful exploration — and a pathway to work with all the complex, beautiful elements of love and connection in your life. —Beth Wallace, associate publisher, Lion’s Roar 4 Ways to Deepen Your Love Loving-kindness, compassion, sympathtic joy, and equanimity are the four immeasurables, the path to an open, grounded heart. In this special section, four Buddhist teachers share practices and insights for bringing these qualities to life. This is the essence of metta practice: repeating simple phrases of goodwill until they take root in our hearts. In Buddhism, love isn’t sentimental or selective. It’s an innate quality of essential goodness, sometimes called buddhanature, already whole within us. Yet in this age of bio-hacks and self-help strategies, even love gets the makeover treatment, as if it were something we could build or optimize. Metta practice reminds us instead to uncover what is already present, by noticing what gets in the way of love. With children, I call metta practice “sending friendly wishes.” Friendliness captures the essence of the Pali word metta, and wishes reminds us these are aspirations, not affirmations. When holding friendly wishes in mind, we’re not declaring something to be true; we’re opening to what’s already within us—an innate human quality that reveals itself more fully the more room we give for it. ADVERTISEMENT The Four Immeasurables Leave Nothing Untouched If you don’t want your happiness to impede that of someone else, says Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, practice the four immeasurables. Ultimately, our actions must not only be based on concentration but also accompanied by wisdom. When we lack wisdom, our concentration can turn cold or harsh. We may be focused and yet unable to truly see who or what it is we’re focusing on. This is one of the most common dangers of intense meditation: without a strong grounding in sila and prajna, our samadhi can become impersonal and detached. In the solitude of our meditation, we may be kind, patient, and understanding. Buffered by stillness and silence, we are able to wish others happiness no matter what’s going on in our lives. Sitting tall and equanimous on the Buddha’s seat, we are not swayed by highs and lows, by our preferences and opinions. Yet, no one lives on a meditation cushion, so the challenge is to carry that kindness and joy, that compassion and equanimity, into our daily lives. The challenge is to practice these four immeasurables even when we don’t feel like it, and to extend them equally in all directions. The Four Highest Emotions Ayya Khema on cultivating loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. True love exists when the heart is so broadly trained that it can embrace all human beings and all living creatures. This requires a learning process that is sometimes hard, above all when someone turns out to be very unfriendly or unpleasant. But this condition can be reached by everyone, because we all have the capacity for love within us. Every moment we spend on the training of our hearts is valuable and brings us a step further along the path of purification. The more often we remember that all our heart has to do is love, the easier it will be to distance ourselves from judgments and condemnations. But that doesn’t mean we can no longer distinguish between good and evil. Naturally we know what is evil, but hatred of evil needn’t forever be stirring in our heart. On the contrary, we have compassion for those who act in a way that does harm.