Kalyana Mitta

This has been a beautiful week, a beautiful weekend. I decided to try something new, and threw my hat into the ring on one of the online buddhist-friendly dating services. After a week of more conversation than sleep, we met Friday over a meal (and Saturday over another meal). I think more than I'm excited about dating again, more than I'm blown away by how unreasonably hot and amazing this man is, I'm bolstered by the fact that I have found someone that I believe will be an excellent Kalyana Mitta... a supportive spiritual friend.

One of the Buddha's disciples once said to him, "It seems, venerable sir, that half the holy life is having good spiritual friends." The Buddha replied: "In fact, the whole of the holy life is having good spiritual friends." Each of us can benefit greatly from having friends who genuinely support our spiritual journey.

[...from pg. 7 of the Workbook in Insight Meditation: A Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein]

A while ago, I read the girl's entry, what makes you beautiful. I read it in the middle of the night, and I was too incoherent to craft a thoughtful, appreciative response... but I was moved by the post. In it, she says:

Anyway, I had somehow attached being shiny and brilliant (as a kind friend recently described me, which for those of you that don’t know is a very Shambhalian thing to say) to being in love, and the conclusion that I came to during Warrior’s Assembly was that being in love had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t the love that helped me to be beautiful. It was the fact that my lover taught me to meditate.

Beauty can be a difficult thing for a woman to see in herself... especially if she is not vain, if she went through an "ugly duckling" phase that included glasses AND braces, if she was taught to see herself as her imperfections, if she's ever passed a magazine rack or watched television or movies. But (though I've been guilty of it, I know...) comparing oneself to conventional standards of beauty is a useless exercise. I think the girl is on to something... beauty can be found in the ways in which we support each other in our spiritual pursuits, in the ways we hold each other up as friends, as lovers... in the ways we act as a stand for someone... a stand for their goals, their dreams, their practice.

It means something to me, that I've been asked to be a stand for his practice. It somehow strengthens me and my resolve. I woke up this morning and I entered my practice effortlessly... yoga, meditation, breath... because keeping my word to him means keeping my word to myself. And that is a beautiful thing.

Comments

[angel]

my goodness, what a beautiful entry and a meditation for me on what love really is. thank you so much for sharing this. i'm at a loss for what it is i really want to say.......

[chalip]

Thanks for the sentiment... It's a really different space to be in. As far as "what love really is" goes... I'm still learining.

[angel]

Chalip: certainly not wholly but, to me, a slice of what Love must be is exactly what you say: "support[ing] each other in our spiritual pursuits, in the ways we hold each other up as friends, as lovers... in the ways we act as a stand for someone... a stand for their goals, their dreams, their practice."

certainly, that must be one angle, one strip of color, one single part of what Love is. at least that's what i need to believe. and that *is* a beautiful thing. :--)

[chalip]

Okay Angel... I give!

Something in that statement just bumped up against everything I've done wrong in relationships... all the stupid mistakes I've made...It bumped up against my thinking that I have SO much to learn about everything. So I will take pause for a moment and realize that I have learned at least something... and accept that I am not "in the past" right now. Funny how the mind tends to take me there.

Thanks for the reality check :)

[angel]

sis: you are alright with me. just to be ABLE and WILLING to do that kind of sound check speaks volumes for where you are.

lovingly,
angel