I blogged last year on Democracy, under the heading ‘Miracles of life’.

No. 2 is love, love beyond even altruism, love that’s simply an attitude of mind. Read on to see what I mean.

I don’t have in mind as yet a third, though …  what about dance, which took over science and art in my last blog?

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Love beyond altruism, beyond the love of partner, family or friends, though they are all miracles in themselves.

Love that’s simply an attitude of mind. In Buddhism there are the four brahmaviharas – lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. Sympathetic joy – joy in the good fortune of another simply for their sake and not your own. Compassion – experienced as taking the part of another, not as an outsider, offering good works.

If love is woven into your life, then joy is its natural concomitant. Not a short-term ecstatic joy, but one which ties into peace of mind, and which blends into equanimity. Equanimity – it can sound too bland a word, but in the sense of balance and harmony it lies at the core of any fulfilled, contented and compassionate life.

Love in this sense is our ‘Buddha nature’, our original self.

It’s all to easy to make anything you write on love sound like a mini-lecture, or just a little bit, or a whole lot, pompous!

But for 2500 years that link between love, joy and equanimity has been tried and tested, and it works.

There lies the miracle.