There’s an ancient Zen text that opens this way:
“The Great Way isn’t difficult for those don’t pick and choose. Cast aside your preferences and there’s the Way, clear and unhidden. But make even slight judgments and earth and heaven are torn apart.”
Both this text and the poem are pointing to the “Way” of non-separation. There’s Life, and then there’s our preferences for how life ought to be. You can cling to those preferences and try to make life conform to your agenda, but in doing that you separate yourself from life as it is. Earth and heaven are far apart. You become angry, full of regrets, weary of fighting the current, discontent. It’s like the kid who leaves the table mad and hungry because the plate of food in front of him isn’t pizza.
Love isn’t a picking and choosing proposition. As soon as you parse life into what you like and don’t like according to your list of personal preferences, you’ve effectively set yourself apart from life. You may “love” this or that, but it’s not Life that you love. Life serves up bitter greens at times (like the loss of children). That’s the way it is.
Do you know the folk tale of the salt doll? It’s about the same matter:
“There was once a salt doll. After a pilgrimage through arid lands, he came to discover the sea which he had never seen before and therefore could not understand. The salt doll asked, “Who are you?” And the sea answered, “I am the sea.” The salt doll asked again: “But what is the sea?” And the sea answered, “I am me.” “I don’t understand,” said the salt doll, “but I would like very much to understand you. What can I do?” The sea simply said: “Touch me.” Then the salt doll timidly touched the sea with the tips of his toes and noticed that it began to be understandable, but then he realized that the tips of his toes had disappeared. “Oops, sea, look what you did to me!” And the sea answered, “You gave me something of yourself and I gave you understanding. You have to give yourself completely to understand everything.” And the salt doll slowly began to enter into the deep sea, slowly and solemnly, like someone doing the most important thing in his life. As he entered, he was also becoming diluted and understanding the sea more and more. The salt doll kept asking: “What is the sea?” Until a wave covered him entirely. At the last moment, before becoming diluted in the sea, he could still say, “I am me.”