Love Dharma. Geri Larkin

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      LAURA KIPNIS IS A PROFESSOR at Northwestern University. She thinks a lot about love. She is very smart and she is very funny and she can wax poetic with the best of them about how screwed up our thinking is when we expect to find lifelong happiness in a relationship with one partner, how deluded we are to continue to believe that we can be sexually attracted to the same person for fifty years. May Buddha bless those few and far between couples capable of doing the psychic and psychological work needed to pull off such a feat. I know I couldn’t do it.

      Even ten years is tough for this Dharma puppy. The rules are just too suffocating: “You can’t leave the house without saying where you’re going. You can’t not say what time you’ll return. You can’t go out when the other person feels like staying at home. You can’t be a slob. . . . You can’t gain weight . . . and so on. The specifics don’t matter. What matters is that the operative word is ‘can’t.’ Thus is love obtained.” 1

      It need not be so. Real partnerships are possible—relationships where “can” and “how can I help?” are the operative phrases.

      LOVING PARTNERSHIPS

      Ambapali was blessed with beauty, grace, and charm. Men loved her. They fought over her, vied for her hand, until she was finally appointed the city’s chief courtesan. Only then did she find peace—mostly, anyway. Apparently, Ambapali became a courtesan in the original sense of the word, as a woman offering and accepting culture and pleasure to more than one person.

      She was so popular that it is said that the city of Vesali became prosperous solely because of her work and relationships. In turn, Ambapali was generous with her charitable donations, becoming known as the uncrowned queen of the kingdom. She was known for her independence, her sureness about herself, and her view of sexual relationships as partnerships.

      One of Ambapali’s most frequent patrons was King Bimbisara of Magadha, one of Buddha’s earliest followers. As the story goes, Buddha and his retinue were resting in a forest southwest of Rajagaha when Bimbisara, then thirty-one years old, appeared, complete with his own retinue of Brahmins, householders, courtiers, orderlies, and guards. 2 Overhearing a teaching about how peace comes from living a life free from the cravings of sensual pleasures, Bimbisara realized that Buddha was no ordinary teacher and invited him and his followers to a meal the next day.

      At that meal the king served the monk and his disciples with his own hands—something that was never done. Following the meal he gave Buddha a huge bamboo wood grove near the northern gate of the city of Rajagaha so Buddha and his entourage would always have a quiet refuge to return to in the rainy season.

      The king also asked to become Buddha’s disciple. When he was accepted he brought with him followers by the thousands, including Ambapali, who had heard about Buddha from her lover. She was completely struck by the teaching about desire and how grasping and craving for pleasure only leads to trouble. She had seen the consequences of such cravings among the princes who loved her, who were willing to kill each other over her even when she clearly had no interest in a monogamous relationship. Even when she was pregnant with Bimbisara’s son, Ambapali held that her independence was too important to settle down with one partner. No asking for permission, no wrestling over how clean a room needed to be, no staying awake because Bimbisara was snoring and she was obligated to stay in his bed. In this way the courtesan kept her charm and beauty fresh for years.

      Ambapali was clearly her own woman. And she was deeply respected for her independence. There is a wonderful story about how the Buddha, many years after they had first met, was traveling through Vesali, where Ambapali lived, and stopped at her mango grove to rest. When she heard that he was there, Ambapali quickly went to visit him, to see if she could offer him and his followers food or if there were any other ways she could help them to be more comfortable. In response, Buddha offered her a one-on-one teaching on the four noble truths and eightfold path. Inspired, Ambapali invited him and all his monks to her living quarters for a feast the next day.

      As she was leaving, rushing a little because she had so much work ahead of her, a couple of princes from the area stopped her to ask if she was okay. This wasn’t the calm courtesan they knew. When Ambapali told them about her encounter with Buddha they begged her to let them host him instead.

      Nope.

      Figuring that if they go to Buddha themselves he would override Ambapali, the princes tracked him down and invited him to a meal the next day—at their palaces. While it was true that Ambapali was an independent woman, she was still just a woman. They were certain Buddha would accept their offer.

      Nope.

      Buddha had already accepted Ambapali’s invitation. Frustrated, they exclaimed, “We have been defeated by that mango girl! We have been tricked by that mango girl!” 3 Ambapali didn’t budge.

      Even in the face of the potential wrath and rejection by several of her lovers, the courtesan hosted a wonderfully successful meal. At the end of it she gave the monks her mango grove so that they would have more choices for refuges during the rainy season.

      Ambapali followed Buddha for years. When her son by Bimbisara, Vimala Kondanna, grew up, he also became a monk and achieved enlightenment. One day, hearing a sermon from her son, Ambapali decided it was time to do her spiritual work full-time, quickly falling into her own awakeness.

      The courtesan’s verses of enlightenment reflect a deep understanding of how silly it is to depend on fleeting things for happiness, and her take on physical beauty is particularly powerful:

      My hair was black, the color of bees,

      Each hair ending in a curl.

      Now on account of old age

      It has become like fibers of hemp:

      Not otherwise is the word

      Of the Speaker of Truth.

      Covered with flowers my head was fragrant

      Like a casket of delicate scent. Now on account of old age

      It smells like the fur of a dog. Not otherwise is the word

      Of the Speaker of Truth . . .

      Brilliant and beautiful like jewels,

      My eyes were dark blue and long in shape.

      Now, hit hard by old age,

      Their beauty has utterly vanished.

      Not СКАЧАТЬ