February's here, which means the Valentine's-Day-industrial-complex has shifted into high gear. Not that chocolates and heart-shaped sentiments are evil, but if you're seeking a deeper love and stronger relationships that don't involve trips to Venus or Mars, these six books are a good start.
Classic
In How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships [1], His Holiness the Dalai Lama names seven steps you can take towards the experience of limitless love in all human relationships-not just romantic ones. All love, he says, begins and ends with the self. (A true "classic" from the Tibetan spiritual leader would be The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living [2], but both books offer the core lessons of Buddhism.)
The slim, but philosophically dense True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart [3] by Thich Nhat Hanh speaks simply, declaratively, and eloquently about the four aspects of true love in Buddhist tradition: maitri or loving kindness, compassion, joy, and freedom. The Vietnamese Zen monk tells us that love happens when not just the desire, but also the ability, to create these qualities is present. The key is meditation.
Contemporary
In Yoga and the Quest for the True Self [4], author Stephen Cope quotes from the Bhagavad Gita, Shakespeare, and the film Moonstruck, in which Nicholas Cage's character Ronny Cammareri says, "Love don't make things nice. It ruins everything." Enlightened? Cope says yes-Ronny has stripped away layers to reveal his true self. Only at this point can love happen. Cope, a psychotherapist who teaches yoga [4] at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, is both admired and criticized for mixing yoga's ancient principles with Western psychology.
Psychology and spirituality also rub elbows in David Richo's How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving [5], which addresses the topic of romantic love head-on. Richo, a psychotherapist and speaker at the Esalen Institute, offers practical advice on how to be in a healthy relationship with your eyes and heart wide open. Surprise-once again, it's all about creating a healthy self to share with another.
Unconventional
How you react to the title, If the Buddha Dated: A Handbook for Finding Love on a Spiritual Path [6], by Charlotte Kasl, probably says something about you. Does the thought of Buddha doing dinner and a movie offend you? Get over it. Kasl, to her credit, dismisses any superficial expectations that her book will tell readers how to "get" a lover. Also to her credit, she recognizes that humans on similar spiritual paths might have something to share with each other.
If "you're just not that into" self-help books pick up Barbara Kafka's latest culinary love letter, a massive book titled Vegetable Love: A Book for Cooks [7], then consider what non-cooking lessons it might hold within its rapturous 720 pages. No, we're not recommending you shack up with a shallot, but if we all felt even half the intimacy and joy for fellow humans that Kafka evidently feels for edible plants, the world would be a much lovelier place.