As westerners we often discount the simple wisdom offered by eastern cultures, only because we have been programmed to doubt subtle nuances in human relationship, and the crazy, simple wisdom which informs them.<\/p>\n
As Menday Wang<\/a> points out in Eastern vs. Western Culture<\/em>, Eastern people live in time, which means that they follow the natural order of time to do things step by step, not wanting to veer from a set schedule, whereas Western people live in space \u2013 often following their dreams to do what they desire, but sometimes missing some of the important steps along the way which help to define our paths as human beings living an earthly experience.<\/p>\n One of the most important \u2018steps\u2019 along the way is love, but to experience it, we must \u2018dream\u2019 it and this is where East meets West.<\/p>\n Zen teaches, or rather points the way, as D.T. Suzuki would say, so that we may learn to love better. In classic Buddhist teachings \u2013 informed largely by the sentiment of the East, we learn loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and a particular form of equanimity \u2013 all forms of love. In the West, we learn by happenstance. We meet someone, we long for them, we fumble, and fall, and hopefully, through experiencing a bruised heart, and a wounded ego we seek other ways to love another more profoundly.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t know how to love correctly<\/strong>. This is the sentiment expressed by one of the most quoted contemporary Zen Buddhist teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh. The Zen master states that, \u201cTo love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.\u201d <\/strong>What does Hanh mean by this? Essentially, if love is missing one of the four qualities discussed in Buddhism (as well as many other ancient teachings) then it probably isn\u2019t love. It is something we call love, but it is more than likely a projection of our egoic needs. As Zen teacher, D.T. Suzuki<\/a> once argued, \u201cWe are too ego-centered. The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow\u2026 We are, however, given many chances to break through this shell, and the first and greatest of them is when we reach adolescence.\u201d<\/em> Is it not also in this time when we first, as both Westerners and Easterners alike, face our earliest broken hearts and shattered egos?<\/p>