Getting Over Other People

(It's All in the Dhammapada, Post 1)

Relationships. I don't care what kind of relationship you are talking about... romantic relationships, friendships, relating with your kids, parents or other relatives, coworkers... it doesn't matter... Whenever two or more people are thrust into a situation when they have to interact with each other, there can be great potential for blame.

Maybe they just don't do it right, whatever it is. Maybe they just don't treat you the way you want (even deserve) to be treated. Maybe they hurt you in some way. Maybe a lot of things.

If you hold a grudge, if you blame, if you hold enmity against someone for any reason you lose. There are numerous verses in the Dhammapada that speak to this. I'll highlight two. The first comes from the Twin Verses (all quotes come from The Still Point Dhammapada)...

"He abused me; he beat me; he
defeated me; he robbed me."
If we cling to such thoughts
we live in hate.

We can become addicted to pointing fingers at other people... pointing out their faults and wrongs. We can become addicted to the "moral high ground." It is not a good place to sit in your practice. Because no matter what you are going off about, you have to know that you are living in hate. You are not being compassionate or loving-kind.

It took me a long time to get to a neutral place with my daughter's father. I thought he was robbing her of something so important to young girls as they develop... a relationship with her father. I thought he was robbing me by shirking his responsibility and paying child support. I was angry about it for a very long time. The essence of this next verse allows me to look at this situation (and other relationships) in a different light:

Do not analyze the failings of others.
Instead look at your own failings.
Where have you been responsible?
Where have you been irresponsible?

[...from Chapter 4 Flowers, pg. 24]

Here is an exercise. Do this for a week. Every time you find yourself ready to "analyze the failings of others," make a tally in a notebook, journal, PDA, whatever you carry. Make a little note about what you are thinking or talking about. Let these tally marks be a reminder to just cut it out. At the end of the week, sum up all of your tallies. This is just a small window into how much you judge, how much you point fingers, how much you blame. Don't get all upset with yourself about it, just notice it. At the end of the week, there will be some distance between you and whatever you were about to think or say. Take a fresh look at the situation or person at hand. Ask yourself: Where have I been responsible? Where have I been irresponsible? And leave it there.

It's All in the Dhammapada

A couple of weeks ago, I started this study... I wanted to know what the great masters were teaching on the subject of love and relationships. I found some great stuff out there... great dharma talks, great articles, great discussions. Then I picked up the Dhammapada. Beyond listening to the weekly readings at the temple, I hadn't read it in a while. I have to tell you...

Everything you ever really needed to know about how to navigate the murky waters of relationship is in the Dhammapada. From the first line to the last. I'm going to attempt a weekly post on this. Be back later with the first one.

Sitting Through Disappointment

Every year when the temple is in recess, I delve into some sort of couch dharma... it might be a book, a CD, a DVD...This time last year, it was Natalie Goldberg's The Great Failure. This year, I'm reading (as usual) and listening to Pema Chodron's Getting Unstuck.

It is timely.

For the past couple of weeks I've been sitting through a disappointment I created. So excited about the prospect of a new relationship, I built up this great fantasy about what was to come... I ventured past the present moment into the world of grand speculation, and alas... the fantasy was far better than the reality. In a nutshell, I got my feelings hurt. So then what... I found myself left in a space of uncomfortable disappointment. Life was certainly easier when I was not concerned with dating or forging some special relationship. The cynic that is me called to mind quotes from Sartre... "Hell is other people." Much easier to just be alone, it can be... As I sat through it, the disappointment waned... Hell was no longer other people... maybe hell is just dating... maybe hell is just expectation... maybe hell is just in my mind when it is lost in space.

Then, when listening to Disc One of Getting Unstuck, something struck me. Pema talks about learning to stay. Early in the talk, she delivers a one-line teaching that is so quick and so simple it would be easy to miss how powerful it really is:

Whatever arises is fresh, the essence of realization.

It is such an interesting word there, fresh... No matter what the experience... sweet, sour, neutral, painful, humbling, empowering... whatever it is... it is raw, fresh, organic, new. Whatever it is, it is now. We have to deal with it. To run from it is to run from enlightenment... to run from realization. Another quote from Pema:

Actually what I also notice about the few people in my life that I consider to be completely awake... they learn to stay. And that's what you feel, you feel this sense of eternal present. They don't go off anywhere like we do... they just stay. And that seems to be what enlightenment is. It's the simplest thing and the most profound thing at the same time.

I really couldn't find myself on the other side of my disappointment until I allowed myself to just sit in it, to feel it, and to watch it pass. It was a lesson in learning to stay. The great Buddhas and Bodhisattvas only know how many more times I will sit through something fresh before I could be considered "completely awake," but it is a beginning.

Relationship Dharma

I'm still continuing my study on Dharma for Relationships. Last weekend, I uncovered a couple of interesting posts, threads and articles:

On the Dharma Realm Buddhist Youth (DRBY) website, there is an interesting thread about love and relationships. Some questions are raised: 

Can there be unconditional love in a romantic relationship? Should I have expectations in a romantic relationship? Is sexual desire bad in a romantic relationship? Being single= Being lonely and bored?

 Some cogent points were made:

Honesty is the most fundamental quality to a meaningful relationship...if you are dishonest even once, you will change the nature of this relationship completely...from something totally genuine and true to manipulation.

A meaningful relationship can only come from two truely free people who are willing to give each other the freedom to choose to be with each other at every moment. They are not bound by desire, need, boredom, or self projections (expectations).

A meaningful relationship is very genuine and compassionate. You will always look out for the best interest of your partner instead of yourself.

Having standards does not mean having expectations. Abandon expectations.

It's an interesting conversation. Check it out...

There's also this great Dharma talk out there... Jason mentioned it in a comment to a previous entry. It was deliverd at a wedding presided over by Sensei James Ishmael Ford. Good stuff.

And finally, there's this UrbanDharma.org Newsletter from March 2004 on Love in Buddhism.

I don't have any commentary on these things today... Just thought I'd share.

Hate the Game

I stepped away from relationships, dating, sex, all of it... for a long time. I was tired of the same old same old... Tired of navigating the strange waters that are modern relationships... Tired of all the dishonesty and inauthenticity that's out there... Instead I dove into my practice. I stopped missing the sex so much. But I missed the affection. I missed the friendship of a lover. I missed all the little things you get used to when you have someone special in your life.

I learned these past few weeks as I've ventured back into the dating game that I've been holding on so tightly to the past. I ran into someone that I felt so incomplete about for so long... I had a "the one who got away" fantasy going and I thought there was an opening there for something great. As it turns out, it was all in my head. I was faced with the first line in the Still Point Dhammapada:

Our minds create everything.

Did you ever wake up one morning and realize you were living entirely in your head? Have you ever had a relationship that stopped as quickly as it started? None of this is unusual. Sometimes things just don't work out. Often you meet someone and learn that you are drastically incompatible. I think I'm learning that what's most important is who you are being in the process. Are you clinging to the idea of a relationship so hard that you don't see that what you long for does not exist with this person sitting in front of you? I've been there. I didn't really go there this time.

But I did accomplish some things...

1. I looked at all the ways I was clinging to the past and all the ideas that I had about this person and I let all those illusions go.
2. I took a risk and I opened my heart to a possibility... always reminding myself that a relationship is never really more than that in the beginning. Nothing is set in stone, fixed, cemented... it's all very malleable... likely to change.
3. I noticed it when I was craving... clinging... wanting the phone to ring... wanting a certain outcome. I realized I was caught in a loop and I let it just fall away. I accepted that this "is what it is..." and is not meant to go anywhere... and I went for closure.

There is just one place where I've been stuck. I'm annoyed when people tell me what they think I want to hear. You don't really have to say, "I want to see you tomorrow," if you don't really mean it. Personally, I would prefer to hear, "This is just not working out." But as it stands I've been dealing with a guy who would rather fade silently into the background rather than have that conversation. It took me a couple days of deep judgement before I could get over it. It really doesn't mean as much about this guy as it shows how fearful we can be of honest communication. Nevertheless, I can still look at him with some compassion. It's like that quote that pop culture has given us... Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

Daily Dharma

About a hundred years ago in Korea there was a young woman who was about to be married. In those days marriages were arranged through a go-between. It was the custom that a bride would not know or even see her prospective marriage partner until the day of the ceremony. Hearing that the arrangements had been completed, the woman became quite excited, also very anxious. After all, her marriage would be the most important deciding factor of the rest of her life, and she didn't know exactly what was going to happen. She started thinking: "What will my husband be like? Handsome or ugly? I'd like a handsome man. Will he be kind or will he be inconsiderate? Oh, I so want a kind husband." Then she was also thinking, "I wonder if he'll be stupid or smart? I really would like to have a smart and clever husband. I hate dull men." Then she started to think about her mother-in-law to be.

In Korea at that time the wife went to live with the husband's family. Since life for a woman was bound to family and home, the mother-in-law controlled the new wife's whole life. So she was just as worried about her mother-in-law as about her prospective husband. "What will this women be like? Will she be a tyrant? Will she be mean? Or, will she be kind and generous?" She thought about all this a lot, for months in advance -- thinking and thinking. Then, just the day before the ceremony she had to go to her sister's village for the final fitting of her wedding dress. Korea is quite mountainous; so she had to cross a low pass to get to the village. As she walked, she was thinking about her marriage and since it was close to the wedding day, her mind was reeling. Then, just as she came to the top of the pass and started down towards the village, a tiger jumped out in front of her...... "Grrrrrrrrrhh!!!" That's the end of the story as we know it.

To some, this story is sad because we have expectations. But this woman is not special because we always meet the tiger sooner or later. But to Zen students this story is interesting because one thing appeared very clear. We might say she got "tiger enlightenment." That means "wake up!" At any moment that can happen to us; it doesn't take a tiger. It's very simple.

[...from the Transmission Speech of Zen Master Dae Kwang, published Fall 1996 in Primary Point. a publication of the Kwan Um School of Zen]

The Buddhist Kama Sutras

I'm really interested in Buddhist teachings on love, marriage, relationships and sex. Being in relationship has been an area of life that I've ignored for almost a year now. Now that the possibility of relationship is waking up in my world, I'm thinking about how to apply mindfulness to the journey... how to approach relationships with a healthy balance of wisdom and fun.

I'm reading Everything Yearned For: Manhae's Poems of Love and Longing. What's most interesting to me about this volume is that it was written by a Buddhist Monk. The lines communicate passion and desire... topics one would think are somewhat taboo for a man in his station. Well, no one knows if Manhae became a monk before or after writing these poems, but the poems do have their teaching moments. Like this one, which gives the impression of a man trying to reconcile the Dharma with the love of his life:

Master's Sermon

I heard the Master's sermon:
"Don't be bound to the chains of love and suffer.
Cut the ties and your mind will find joy."

That Master is quite the fool.
To be bound with ties of love is painful, but to cut them
   is more painful than death.
In the tight bind of love's ties lies its unbinding.
Thus great liberation lies in bondage.
My love, I feared that the ties that bind me to you might be weak.
   so I've doubled the strands of my love.

Interesting, isn't it? The line that sticks out for me is this: Thus great liberation lies in bondage. It reminds me of that conversation in the beginning of Plato's Republic. It somewhat contradicts one of the responses... Basically, you have Socrates questioning a group of men about what they think constitutes the good life.  Does it lie in youth with sex, love and merry-making? Sophocles says:

I am only glad to be free of that;
It is like escaping from bondage
to a raging madman

...a sentiment so different from Manhae's poem.

Maybe they aren't really talking about the same thing. I think Sophocles is speaking more on sex than love. Manhae may be speaking more on the emotional, eternal, perhaps even spiritual bonds that love engenders. Who really knows... I think the questions I walk away from after thinking a bit on these things go something like this...

Yes, as Buddhists we are taught to cut out craving. But does that mean we are not allowed to experience desire? Does that wipe the possiblity of passion and physical enjoyment out of the mind or experience of the serious practitioner? Is it better to be a monk? To dedicate oneself wholly to practice outside all of the usual ties and bonds, or can we become enlightened beings that have husbands, boyfriends, or lovers?

This will be the focus of my study for a while... I'll be reading, writing, and Google-searching for sutras, insights, articles, dharma talks, books... anything that speaks to these topics. If you come across something interesting that you want to share, please let me know...