I have been a student of Buddhism since 1995, and the study and practice of dharma inform my actions, friendships and creative focus. When you become a Buddhist, part of the commitment is to take off the training wheels and do your best to put the dharma into play in all situations. It's no longer theoretical. It is your life. It's a fun, scary, and noble challenge.
When the Buddha became enlightened, the first thing he handed out was the four noble truths and upon becoming a Buddhist, they are your benchmarks.
There have been countless words written on each of these four and you could definitely spend a lifetime in contemplation of just one of them. To apply them to everyday life means to accept that things won't ever quite work out (at least not in any conventional sense); that when you hold on to anything too tightly (even the idea of not holding on to anything too tightly), it backfires; you can definitely figure all this out and, finally, that there is a step-by-step explanation for how to do so, via practices, insights, devotion and so on.
Okay, all very well and good. It's not like I can do any of this, but I am fairly diligent about trying to in every area of my life. Well, every area but one. Work -- check. Money -- check. Family -- check. Society -- check. Romantic relationships -- check NOT.
When it comes to love and partnership, I definitely try to wiggle out of the four noble truths. I can halfway toy with accepting that everything changes, even that I will die and this body will be a corpse. But when it comes to love -- I need that to be permanent. There, I said it. When my husband tells me he loves me, that cannot change or I'm going to be very, very upset. When we make a commitment to share our lives with each other, that too must be rock solid. When he disappoints or angers me, I have every right to expect him to change. And when it comes to acknowledging that one way or another, this relationship will definitely end, well, I just need that not to be true. Otherwise it is simply unbearable.
(I believe that this, by the way, is why most relationships fail, because to come to terms with this last truth is just too painful. It's easier to break up with someone because they don't make you laugh/take you seriously/earn enough money/eat dairy, but really I think it's because, at some point, we become unbearably precious to each other. But I digress.)
Even among deeply practiced and skillful Buddhists, I can't help but notice that it is difficult to apply the dharma to anything that involves love and medically unrelated nakedness. When it comes to relationships, we believe our version of reality is absolutely solid and correct. There is no oxygen when you feel neglected, dismissed, suffocated, or enraged by the one you love. Oddly, it is our intimate relationships that most challenge our ability to be open, non-judgmental, compassionate, and kind.
The hardest people to love are the ones you, well, really love. What is up with that?
Unfortunately, I don't know, but I still think about it all the time. It may be useful to take a look at the four noble truths again and try really, really hard to language them to apply to relationships. I'll go first. Let me know what you think.
1. Relationships are uncomfortable.
Right? Whether you're on a blind date, worrying if you'll like each other or have been married for 20 years, groaning yet again "why are you doing that thing that I've asked you eleventy billion times not to do?" there is a kind of discomfort. Of course, there are also times of sheer delight and deeply gratifying intimacy, but even in the sweet moments, there is the shock of dissolution.
I've come to think that the most deeply loving gesture I can make within my relationship is to tolerate my own discomfort -- to recognize my feelings and leave the story behind; to cease & desist threatening my husband with consequences should he fail to be the person I need him to be rather than the person he is. There are only so many times you can choose your make-believe husband over your real one before he balks. Hard.
Too, there is something magical, yes magical, about this discomfort. You're right there, never quite in your comfort zone. Always a tiny bit on the edge, like you're trying something new for the very first time. Which, when it comes to love, is not such a bad approach. Brilliance and inspiration and everything fresh is discovered on this edge, including how to open your heart beyond what you ever thought possible.
2. Thinking they're supposed to be comfortable is what makes them uncomfortable.
It is pretty hard to get away from the idea that love is supposed to make you happy. No, wait, it is supposed to make you happy -- if happy means alive, open, giving, and touchable. When it's defined as safe and predictable, getting what you want, or finding the perfect man/woman, we might run into a few problems.
When we say we're looking for love, most of us really mean we're looking for safety, a way to get comfortable. We're looking for someone to love us first, and then we will love them back. (99.9 percent of relationship self-help books are about how to get love, not how to give it. That's kind of odd, no?!) "Relationship" is equated with a protective cocoon. It's understandable. Loving is so vulnerable, maybe the most vulnerable thing you can do. Love is not for sissies.
There is nothing less safe than love. Love means opening again and again to your beloved, yourself, and your world, and seeing what happens next. The moment you try to make it safe, it ceases to be love. Believe me, I'm not saying you shouldn't be very smart, practical, and skillful when it comes to your relationships. But relationships and love are two separate things.
3. It is absolutely possible to love and be loved unconditionally.
You know this is true. You know it from experience. You are in the house of unconditional love every time you are touched beyond thought by the beauty of your fellow human beings, and every time one has been touched by you. Even something as simple as the smile a stranger gives you when you hold the door for him or her qualifies. Or when you are moved by the success of someone you love and feel it as your own. When you are touched by someone's sadness and want to help. When you open your eyes, you see that such moments are taking place all the time. These agenda-less instances of opening to another are, IMHO, unconditional love. I mean, they are unconditional, right? You're not putting any conditions on things when you simply feel them spontaneously. I rest my case.
4. There is a path that teaches you how and it really works.
You can practice becoming comfortable with discomfort. The sitting practice of meditation teaches you how, exactly, directly, perfectly.
You can practice letting your dear ones -- and yourself -- off the hook for not being perfect. The traditional practice of Maitri (also known as Metta or Lovingkindness) teaches you how -- exactly, directly, perfectly.
And you can practice letting life in, allowing people, circumstance, your own brilliance and your own foibles to touch you deeply. When you know how to navigate from discomfort back to equilibrium through the practice of meditation and can extend yourself to others fearlessly by cultivating loving kindness, you can stop looking for love. You have made your life into love itself.
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I see so many divorces between 55 -60 because couple get worn down with discomfort and they think it won't happen with a brand new partner..right? Wrong.
http://www.streetwisespirituality.org/
Enjoy!
I have always maintained the attitude that nothing is forever, including relationships - that's not to say that they will not last for the length of your lifetime, but to take it for granted that you will be with your partner until the end threatens complacency and taking them for granted, whereas having the attitude that nothing is forever and life is more like surfing - riding waves and once the wave is finished, paddling back out to catch another one, keeps us on our toes and conscious about how we treat and engage with our loved ones.
Peace and much love
Lara Jane
http://ultimatelifestyleproject.com/the-ultimate-life
Joseph Campbell said: "Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
http://blog.soul-therapy.com/2010/04/love-whispers-4.html
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Soul-Therapy/278635488830
http://www.soul-therapy.com/
But we expect too much from love - we expect it to somehow dissolve the walls that exist between us all. We live lives dominated by our own thoughts, our own dreams, our own beings that we can't and won't express. We're not open, nor are we capable of becoming open. My wife doesn't know what I'm thinking from moment to moment and I don't know what she's thinking either. Love doesn't change that.
We expect love to join us in ways that humans can't be joined; so we become disappointed and frustrated and want to try again with someone else. And of course that just leads us to the same experience with a different person.
I love my wife - but I can't say I KNOW my wife or that she KNOWS me on the most intimate level. If that's what we expect from love, then love will always disappoint us in the end. But if we recognize that a good part of love is mystery, and we accept the mystery as a positive, exciting part of love, then we become more content and more willing to let the future break down walls that we can't breach today.
Susan
PS, You might enjoy this post I wrote some time ago, about loneliness in relationships of all kinds.
http://www.susanpiver.com/wordpress/2007/10/05/singing-sweet-songs-in-darkness/
Being Christian instead of Bhuddist (don't worry, not one of THOSE Christians), I love the little blurb in the book of Revelation that says, "On that day the Lord will present to each person a white stone, and on that stone is a name known only to the person and to God." In my belief system, it says to me that God knows me; in another belief system, maybe it means the Universe knows me. Or maybe we all have the capacity to know each other, and maybe some day we will, when we find a way to chip our way out of these eggs and learn to fly, we'll know and be known.
Like the Zen master said, "We'll see."
Read an interview with HHDL a while ago and he mentioned he really should not allow himself pets because it so distressed him when they died. The interviewer said something like, "So... you don't have pets anymore...?"
I paraphrase, but the Dalai Lama said something very like, "Oh, i have animals that live with me. A three legged cat and a bird with a broken wing."
Point is, Why do you get to pick who loves you?
I'm not sure we do "get" to pick. Oh, we pick, yes, of course we do. In that moment of responsiveness we might well choose to pretend we need those "training wheels", and choose to ignore, and choose to turn away. "Someone else will have pity on that cat, surely." "The bird is bound to die. Anyhow, that's its karma."
I touched on our exquisite rsponsiveness because, if we dare ride w/o training wheels, we're quite capable of riding the moment ... without the obsessive need to express identity by picking /this/ and ignoring /that/, in homage to our holy of holies: partiality and preference.
it's kinda fun to ask people: so right now "in the space, in this instant" is anything going on, judgments, decisions etc.? the blank stare starts and then off to the races we go.. descriptions, feelings, judgments..i just smile waiting...waiting..waiting..they stop... smile forms..BOOM! spontaneity on crack! there has never been an operator error only errors that think they operate. he-he.
A few random thoughts - Regarding the first noble truth, I've heard this alternative description:
"Life is dissatisfaction". IMO, the replacement of "suffering" with "dissatisfaction" makes the concept easier to grasp. Dissatisfaction is something we as humans must grapple with until our death.
Like the author, I've read many books on Buddhism and Buddhist thought, but see incompatibility with the practice, specifically in regards to love. To some extent, it is the essence of love in it's most vulnerable state, to need that bond once it's established. To yes - attach. Now, I don't mean this in an all consuming, obsessive, dysfunctional way. Rather, to love deeply, is to want permanence out of the relationship, regardless of the divorce rate. How is the Buddhist practice of avoiding attachment compatible with our human nature to "attach" to love once we have found it?
in every single instance ones attachments are a perfect gift and nothing to be fought with or denied. in no instance was love not present. some teachings want you to separate this from that so the differences can be seen. eventually this and that are dropped off.
during satsang (which is all the time..he-he)..it's fun to watch people jump on the practice wheel and do a few loop de loops.
i'll often ask "so where'd you go when you weren't practicing?" >;-)... if practice brings about a conditional state then maybe a closer look de look is needed. this, of course, does not devalue it in the least. the conventional world is a much better place because people have focused on a higher path and face the arriving pitfalls with courage. INCOMING!!!
(in my egoic opinion and who cares what my opinion is but me!)
1-3 excellent
4 is what your working on next.
(i can't wait until we get past the numbers!)
5) shift happens... get over it!
*sigh*
----
"... part of the commitment is to take off the training wheels and do your best to ..." No doubt about it, you really are a writer! :-) What I'm pondering at the moment (as I summon up the spirit of what I wrote and had blown away) is that ... something about "playing for keeps". Karma isn't an empty concept; when I drop something, it falls. It never /ever/ floats up to the ceiling. My actions have consequences. And (how's this for the nut/heart/core of human anxiety) I can never ahead of time know more than the slightest part of those consequences. (Important: there's nothing like eternal doom on my horizon; dharma teaches about heavens and hells but neither is a space where we end up stuck for ever.) Life happens. Actions aren't provisional. Actually and in truth the training wheels were never on!
(FWIW when the you.know.what hits the fan I usually chime in with something along the lines of, "If everyone just does what they can, that'll be a big deal." You know? Sorta like the folk who get magnificent medals for deeds of astonishingly courageous heroism and say, "I just did what anybody would have done.")
You wrote, "When the Buddha became enlightened, the first thing he handed out was ..." and I suppose that's accurate, "the first things he handed out." But what I find really juicy as human drama is, what did he do first?
IMNSHO he said something like, "Oh man nobody's going to understand what I'm going on about. If I'm lucky they'll just say I'm eccentric and tripping, but just as likely they'll think I've lost my mind." (NB: look into ancient attitudes towards what we now call "mental illness"!)
With anything like poverty-mentality that would have been the end of that, so to speak. But he was "gone beyond" that sort of sefl-propagating trap; he greeted that existential challenge as he greeted the whole of phenomenal world and existence: with unfettered bodhicitta. So a bowl of milk became as though a text of wisdom, and a boatman's advice to his musician son of "Not too tight, not too loose" likewise.
So maybe that's the point? Since the training wheels are "off" then it just makes sense to be flexible, responsive, open, generous, __list here__. *grin*
Mangalam!
p.s. "purifying the klesa with the klesa": instead of "Oh, now, don't sulk because Huff blew your comment away" I took a moment to tune in to the sulk. Ah-lah, 56 and still twinging from childhood sorrows!