Love isn’t just a feeling.
It’s a practice.
It’s a posture.
And most of all, it’s attention.
When Jesus said, “Love your neighbor,” he didn’t mean feel warm fuzzies. He meant show up. Touch the untouchable. Feed the forgotten. See people who’ve been trained to believe they’re invisible.
And you can’t do any of that if you’re distracted.
That’s why Zen changed how I love.
Before mindfulness, my compassion was performative. I meant well, sure, but I was often two steps ahead in my own head. Thinking about what to say next. Thinking about what to post. Thinking about how I was being perceived.
Zen taught me how to stop thinking and start seeing.
Real love begins with real presence.
Not fixing. Not preaching. Not solving.
Just being with.
That’s what Jesus did best. He didn’t walk around spouting abstract ideals, he met people in the moment. The bleeding woman. The man by the pool. The thief on the cross. He didn’t avoid their pain. He entered it. Without judgment. Without rush. Without trying to escape.
That’s Zen. That’s Christ. That’s love.
Christian Zen isn’t about meditating your way out of the world. It’s about meditating your way into it. With a clearer heart. A quieter mind. And a tenderness that actually lands in the bodies of those around you.
The mindful heart doesn’t love in theory.
It loves in action.
Slow. Attuned. Awake.
It says:
“I see you.”
“I’m not afraid of your suffering.”
“I will not look away.”
And the miracle? That same presence you offer to others begins to change you. It starts rewiring your nervous system. Softening your edges. Teaching you to treat yourself with the same compassion you used to only give away.
This is the love the Gospels are made of.
This is the love Zen cultivates.
Not emotional hype. Not performative purity.
But the slow, steady fire of attention that refuses to abandon what hurts.
So if you want to love like Jesus, start by sitting like Buddha.
Not as a rejection, but as a return.
To breath.
To body.
To the neighbor in front of you.
Enlightened Life Fellowship 