Love Dharma. Geri Larkin

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СКАЧАТЬ an openness, almost a vulnerability, about these moments that feeds relationships, because one partner isn’t being needy or judging. Instead, she is simply doing what she is doing and no more. But also no less.

      Buddha’s women followers gave relationships everything they had. They heard him literally and were clearly good students. Their energy never lessened, not when they were hungry or tired, not when they were thirsty or sick. It didn’t let up when they were crowded together in small huts during the rainy season or when they made protocol mistakes.

      This is the energy that feeds relationships. It tells the person we love that he or she matters to us. One of the few pieces of advice I listened to when I was married, and one that served me well, was that I should treat every day like it was the last one we would have together, to pretend that I would never see my husband again. This advice came from one of my dharma brothers, a man who lives in Mexico City, where there is so much person-to-person crime that, too often, couples really don’t see each other again after they kiss good-bye in the morning. It was useful advice. It reminded me to pay attention, told me to take the time to put on clean clothes and wash my hair even when I was only going to see a handful of little kids that day. Virya is the energy that helps us to hear the family stories for the hundredth time with fresh ears and genuine smiles. In my case, virya energy reminded me not to take anything for granted. While other aspects of our marriage eventually deteriorated, energetic effort kept our sexual relationship exciting, spunky, and interesting, without the need for whips and chains.

      Virya paramita means slogging through the valleys that happen in any intimate relationship. If you were raised on Cinderella like me, it may not even occur to you that there will be valleys in a relationship. But there always are. Energetic effort provides the booster shot that keeps us going through the reality of love until we can establish higher ground.

      May I Practice Meditation and Attain Concentration and Oneness to Serve All Beings

      A psychologist once told me that relationships depend far more on who we are than on whom we choose. I’m sure this is true. One of the problems we face in relationships is that we think we know who we are when we don’t. Before I started meditating I thought of myself as calm, kind, patient, and informal. Also humorous. If you had asked me what I brought to my relationship I would have listed those attributes. Then an eye twitch, two actually, drove me to meditation. Sitting in a quiet meditation hall, trying my best to quietly breath in and out, I got the surprise of my life. My thoughts weren’t kind and I wasn’t calm. I fretted, complained, and ranted all the way through my first few years (yup, years) of meditating. To this day I have no idea why I thought I was calm. And intense, thy name is moi.

      One of Buddhism’s most famous Zen masters, Dogen, taught that studying Buddhism means studying ourselves first. That’s what Buddha’s women disciples did. And it is what you and I do when we sit quietly, allowing our minds to show us who we really are, what we’re really like. Happily, having a sense of humor was pretty accurate. But I’ve had to learn to stop worrying so much. If he’s late, it doesn’t mean he’s dead or has run into his ex-wife. And I’m calmer, which means that

      I actually hear the end of sentences. Patience is slowly showing its face, and kindness . . . okay, kindness has always been there.

      The point is that we need to really know what we’re bringing into a relationship or situation and whom we’re bringing into it. As long as I was portraying myself as calm and patient, when I was neither, I was setting up my partner. He expected something that didn’t exist. It must have been like trying to have a relationship with a full-body mask—an impossible undertaking. When I didn’t have a clear picture of myself I shot miscues into the air all day. When I asked a friend, “When will I see you again?” and he answered, “Sometime next week,” he assumed that was a perfectly fine answer, given my calm “Okay.” What he didn’t know was that I had instantly kicked into analysis paralysis trying to figure out all the secret meanings and messages behind his casual response. Happily, meditating caused huge shifts in my behavior—for the better.

      If I’m unsure about a response I ask for clarification, for concrete responses. “Oh, by Friday I’ll hear from you? Perfect.” The difference in my interactions with people is enormous.

      May I Gain Wisdom and Be Able to Give the Benefit of My Wisdom to Others

      Prajna is wisdom, about seeing into the heart of a situation. This is not a wisdom of intelligence but of clarity. When we get rid of some of the murkiness in our brains—the opinions, fears, and melodrama—clarity shows up. And when we bring that clarity or prajna into our relationships, we know intuitively what needs doing. We know what will protect and build a relationship that feeds us and what actions and thinking will create the least harm should we leave a relationship.

      Prajna protects compassion. Master Dogen taught that there are really four wisdoms: generosity, or giving without expecting anything in return; loving words; goodwill; and identifying with whatever the other person is going through. When all four are introduced into a relationship, whatever the situation, things get better. This does not necessarily mean that the relationship survives. It may mean going out on our own because we know that we deserve a relationship that offers a partnership of respected equals.

      When I was first falling in love with meditation, my boyfriend was very patient with my “stinky Zen.” As far as I was concerned, every moment between us was a Zen moment, reflecting the truths of the patriarchs one way or another. The longer I sat, though, the more obvious it became that he and I weren’t going to make it. Our world views were just too far apart. At the time, I was headed (although I didn’t realize it yet) for a three-year seminary, and he was headed for the Michigan Militia.

      He broke up with me.

      But he did it with such wisdom that I love him to this day. For the year we were together he was always generous, even to the point of driving me to the temple at four forty-five on some mornings so I could sit with the temple residents. Even as he told me that he knew we weren’t going to work, he said it with such tenderness that it actually took a couple of minutes for his words to sink in. His reasons for the breakup were completely motivated by goodwill. He honestly cared about what was best for both of us. He wasn’t willing to get in my way and, frankly, wasn’t interested in my being worried about his way. He sat with me for what felt like days, waiting for my response, holding me while I cried. The thing is, I knew he was right. Even if it broke my heart.

      We still run into each other. Each time it’s like seeing an old friend. To this day I am convinced that we are okay with each other because of the deep, compassion-filled wisdom he demonstrated on my couch that night.

      HOLDING ON TO THE FRIENDSHIP

      One of the heartbreaks of a broken relationship is that we so often lose a good friend when it is clear that the romantic relationship no longer works. It needn’t be so. When we leave relationships with our hearts clear, friendships can survive. For most of us (hopefully it isn’t just me!) this means giving up anger, greed, and delusion—Buddhism’s three poisons. We have to give up the righteous anger that pretty much always follows having been wronged—even if we were the ones to call it quits. (I’ve never known a woman to be other than righteously angry at the end of a relationship . . . okay, maybe once, but she was a long-term Zen master.) We have to give up wanting something we can no longer have—a sexual relationship, for example. And we have to give up our deluded hope of reconciliation on our own terms. Freed from these three components, we can stay friends.

      Beth and Doug Stone have been divorced since 1986. Until his recent death Doug lived in New Hampshire, Beth in greater Los Angeles. “It’s always a shock to people that we’re so close, that Doug and I were still friends and went places together when he was here. He was my ex-husband of sixteen years . . . we talked on the phone once a day at least, СКАЧАТЬ