To make this personal, ask yourself "what do I mean by illusion? What qualities make something illusory, in comparison to things I believe to be 'real'?"

This is the most production and instructive way to get along with the sense of what might be meant by Illusion.

Without this careful examination, many people leap from "oh, everything is an illusion" to "that means everything is without value" and from this point, people easily leap to despair.

Also from this point people often jump to the conclusion they can do or say any hurtful, mean or awful thing, since everything is an illusion.

Before we examine what we mean by illusory, it is also helpful to examine what we mean by "real".

For most folks 'real' means permanent, solid, existing on its own with no support, unaffected by whatever else surrounds it.

Think: if that brick over there is 'real' to me that means permanent (it's here for a long time, if not forever) solid (it is composed of material, is dense rather than empty, or full of space) and it stands alone, by itself, no matter what else occurs around it.

Ahh, so. Let's look again. We may believe, or want to believe these qualities to be true of the brick. The brick, however, is clearly not permanent.
The brick according to quantum physics is made up of more space (the distance between the tiniest particles is so vast it is equal to the space between planets in our solar system)and if an earthquake occurs, or if someone arrives with a sledgehammer and a bit of muscle, good-bye brick!

This is how you chase down your sense of the qualities of permanence.

When you have examined many things, turn to ideas.
Surely some ideas are permanent, are solid in their own way and are not affected by whatever else goes on?

Consider: major ideas which were prevalent in medieval times, such as that the sun revolves around the earth, no longer affect us. The idea seems silly with what we now know of science.

This is so true of scientific thought, we might understand science to be the leading edge of what we are growing away from!

In other words, scientific thought describes what we have known, but true science leads us towards and describe for us what we do not know. That makes our ideas of today suspiciously impermanent!

Are the ideas solid? In the west we like to hold ideas up to examination; some remain under serious scrutiny, some fall by the way side. Some ideas seem more solid because they last longer, but it is easy to understand no ideas stay around forever.

So are ideas affected by nothing outside of themselves? We quickly see ideas grow and fall away according to the politics of the day, according to our latest understanding, according to financial markets, even other great ideas, such as religious thought. Ideas are completely subject to whatever other forces exist.

So nothing 'real' so far.

By these ways of understanding and examining what actually is around us, we come to see the illusory nature of all life.

Everything, truly everything, is impermanent.
Everything, truly everything, is without solidity.
Everything, truly everything, is connected with and interacts with and is subject to everything else.

A beautiful Chinese proverb says "if you cut a blade of grass you alter the very stars in their course."

This is a lovely way of saying what in Tibetan Buddhism is called the Law of Interdependence.

Now to the second part of your query: why love?

All is impermanent, including your suffering, your frustration, your ambition, your greed, your delusion, your hatred, your temper, your...
you get it, all impermanent.

If you put your eyes on the impermance, watching how these "bad" states of mind arise and then FALL AWAY, you are less and less subject to feeling badly.

This is a large lesson but you can begin right now by asking yourself "Yesterday (or last week or whenever) I felt badly about such and such. Where is that experience right now?" The experience in the apparent 'reality' is over yet you may be clinging to it like it was permanent!

Every time you turn your mind toward something in the past which hurt you, you are triggering the same chemical and hormonal responses, in a lighter and lighter way but still triggering the response, as the original experience.

Knowing this, and recognizing the original experience is no longer with you, except within your mind, you can chose to change that chemical alteration.

You can say to yourself "That experience is impermanent. That experience is without solid nature since it is truly gone in this moment." When you allow yourself to regard the 'goneness' of a negative event, you become more present.

When you become more and more present in your life you naturally move away from things, events, people, comments from you, ideas from you, beliefs within you, which will cause you to feel badly.

Why? Because as you begin to identity that which causes you to feel badly (a memory from yesterday for example) and as you chose to put your energy of thought into how good today is, without regard for that bad memory, your life begins to feel more and more like joy, love and harmony.

If this seems too simple, try it. Try it honestly. That means allowing yourself to truly understand cynicism and lack of self-worth that arises in such forms as "well, that doesn't work for me!" or "Ah, ha I see that it doesn't work."

As soon as you have a moment like that, recognize it is impermanent and that the thought form is imper-manent. Understand and recognize the impermanence of whatever is arising in your mind.

Once you make progess with the truth, which is clearly evident to see as soon as you turn towards it, which is that everything is impermanent, you naturally remove your energy or change your thoughts and feelings more and more quickly toward what is present right now. You work towards what feels good right now.

You do not cling to the past and you recognize you have power in the present moment to change your life toward more clarity, more joy and more non-clinging awareness.

This is what is meant by Agape, the principle of love. It is living in a state of clear seeing, of understanding what is the truth. Trying to make permanent that which is impermanent is a cause of great suffering.