Different Kinds of Love

[Dharmavidya]

Buddha taught us to live in the "unconditioned". What is the unconditioned? The unconditioned, also called nirvana, is love. It is the love that Buddha talks about when he speaks of love, compassion, sympathy and equanimity. In Buddhism there are different ways of practising love. There is the love of the renunciant who loves all equally but with detachment and there is the love of the bhakti practitioner who loves passionately and devotedly. There is love for the Buddha and love for one another.

The problem for a great many Western practitioners, however, is the question whether the ordinary love of lovers has any place in Buddhism. Does being a Buddhist mean detaching oneself from one's nearest and dearest? Is it a matter of avoiding grief by never caring sufficiently about one person to be vulnerable? Undoubtedly some people do interpret Buddhism that way.

However, intimate relationship can also be a demanding spiritual path. In the midst of a close intimate relationship one is likely to be challenged at a greater psychological depth than in almost any other situation. Issues of power, commitment, willingness, self and selflessness, vulnerability, the management of emotional vicissitudes, the translation of sentiment into action, the challenges of conflicting loyalties - in fact all the stuff of real life, appears here often in magnified form. In an intimate relationship that remains alive one's habitual scripts and old karmic patterns are exposed. One's bluff is called. One goes through a process that changes one deeply and goes on being an ever unfolding mysterious process of discovery.

Sometimes people choose the religious life in order to escape from all this and to do so is a quite understandable life strategy. But the religious life is subject to the same dynamics and dilemmas. There are spiritual "games" that one can play in order to hold onto an ideal that provides apparent stability and fails to grasp the deep meaning of the saying that the bodhisattva has no ground on which to stand. The celibate life can also be deeply challenging or become a rut that one gets stuck in. To practice the path of love, in whatever modality, always means to remain vibrantly alive.

In a spiritual community, too, there will be people on different paths in this respect - this is certainly so at The Buddhist House. Can we all respect each other's different ways? Can we be supportive to one another when, in this respect at least, paths are different? It seems that we can, though one should not ignore the difficulties. In fact, the key to peace in the world is not in the domain of finding common ground or all being the same - it is in finding ways to appreciate and cherish what is other and that too is love. In Pureland this appreciation of the other is assisted by the knowledge that the other is also held in love by Amida just as one is oneself. Sometimes we have difficulty believing that I myself am loved and sometimes we have difficulty believing that others - or a certain other - is lovable, but it is in this area that much of our most penetrating spiritual practice occurs.

[Adrian Philip Debney (Kalyanaka)]

This discussion interests me greatly. As a Buddhist over the years I have struggled personally with the idea that a relationship is somehow a hindrance to the spiritual life and indeed I have met many other Buddhists who are very critical of romantic relationships generally. And indeed there is much written work on the subject suggesting that it is exclusive, confusing, incites power games, clouds ones spiritual judgement, reinforces the ego etc. Some of this is also bound up in the notion that to be in a relationship means that one is a member of the laity and therefore has a life of attachment. And much thought implies that the layperson cannot be as advanced spiritually.
I now think that spiritual practice is wherever one may choose to look for it. This may be in a relationship or not. Buddhist scriptures consider the different merits of the 'householder' and the monk. The Vimalakirti sutra describes at length the ethical achievements and conduct of a layman. I have met many people whom I consider deeply inspiring spiritually but who are married. And I have certainly met at least one Buddhist monk who was deeply flawed.
Parenting and marriage came to me a little later in life than for some. But what I do know is that both have taught me so much that celibacy did not. There is a lesson in surrendering the ego through both of these dynamics. There are real lessons on impermenance to be found - and mortality, sacrifice, compassion, responsibility, ethical behaviour - and certainly in causation. Oh - and there's a certain amount of joy too. And this too is permissable. Commentaries, reasoning, academic thought taught me what I thought I knew. Wordly 'pleasures' taught me more.
But all of this depends upon the individual. Dharmavidya made a recent posting which pointed out, rightly I feel, that we should study the Buddhist teachings and then apply them to our individual situations. Many of the choices may depend upon personality and inclination. You may progress further simply through social relationships. I may do so with a partner. Whatever. Threre's something for everyone. And you can have room in your life for everyone too. It doesn't stop with a partner. Sometimes it only really begins there.
However, I utterly reject the notion that enlightenment, divine realisation or the like is hindered through intimacy. If enlightenment is rising above such things, then keep it. I'm happier where I am.
Peace upon you!

[Mat Osmond]

I chime strongly with "the question whether the ordinary love of lovers has any place in Buddhism" as a dillemma that cricles around my own life and that of many sangha friends
My teacher has always been very supportive and affirmative of my family committments...the language of honouring one's personal mandala is often used. So for me this question is not about considerateness or feling excluded by being deeply engaged in non Buddhist marraige and parenting. Its more that the place of personal love, of living a life in which such personal committments are the defining priority in practical terms, and a central mouldng factor in emotional terms, often seems ambiguous within the Buddhist tradition (as I have encountered it).
Rather like social-political engagement, 'non-dharma' personal committments don't seem discouraged exactly ..just seen as one's worldly or karmic connections - at best an optional and secondary matter to 'practicing dharma', at worst a distracting diversion of attention from the same. An excuse for not prioritising spiritual practice, rather than the true cauldron of practice itself.
I really valued the summary of these complex issues above, thanks.
Namo Amida bu
Mat

[Katrien Sercu]

To accept really this reality of difference, like you describe Dharmavidya, seems to me one of the most difficult things in life....to accept it just as it is for ourself and for the other, without mindtwists about good and better, from jealousy or loneliness or disappointment. To live alone or to live in an intimate relationship, both are sometimes more difficult or more easy. I see that i feel more safe in the difficulties of being alone than in the difficulties from a relationship, with the fear to be hurt or abandoned or overstressed by the presence of an other. But i feel too that i miss a process of deep growth by avoiding the pain (and meaningfulness and the happiness) of a relationship. But it does not matter what i feel: life is as it us, different for all of us and we have to live what comes on our way.
Is it possible that, as Amida calls us when it is time, that a relationship calls us when it is time? We cannot control or decide it. Is this pure Other Power, so the process of selfpower 'must' be diminished?
Living in a community as TBH, shows this differences more clearly; confrontation with being alone or with two is bigger; an opportunity to live in love (and not in fight) with this differences? Namo Amida Bu

[Robert McCarthy]

We only have time to live in an intense sharing dependent relationship with a few others and from that gift we may find heart and grow. Celibacy seems far less important a factor than simply living in an open vulnerable way. From that we can see a bit of the heart that we all need to meet from living.

[Kaspalita]

Thank you for this, Dharmavidya. I think it expresses important concepts very well. When I joined the community and became a postulant three years ago, I honestly thought that I didn't have it in me to make an intimate relationship work - and the thought of celibacy seemed a safe option, away from the trials of love.

Ironically having been though some Buddhist training, I do now feel more equipped to handle - well all human relationships...well a little more, anyway. I have a fantasy in which I am easily able to relate to others in all sorts of intense situations including the paths of ordinary love. One day perhaps ;-)

love bade me enter, but my soul drew back....