On Love (Part 6) - Ajahn Jayasāro
Dhamma practice involves looking closely at our mind, its thoughts and emotions. It involves recognizing, for example, the role that desires play in determining our experiences: how we often see what we want to see. Suppose, for example, that we have decided that those whom we can love must have such and such qualities.
But then when we fall in love and it turns out they lack some or all of these qualities, many of us will fool ourselves that this is not so. We do this by projecting the ideals in our minds over the reality of our loved ones until we finally see only what we want to see in them. This is obviously not the best foundation for a healthy relationship. In extreme cases it will turn out that we are hardly relating to the persons themselves at all but to our idea of who they are. It is unsurprising that when they act in ways that conflict with our idea, we can feel an irrationally bitter sense of hurt.
Learning how to recognize the ideals, desires and expectations that we project onto the other is a difficult task but an important one if we are to reduce our suffering. How often do we feel upset about the way a loved one has acted, not so much because of the action itself but because of its implications for certain of our most cherished assumptions?
Learning about ourselves gives US a better understanding of others because, essentially, in looking at our own mind we are studying the nature of the human mind itself. We start to become more empathic and see that good intentions in the absence of wisdom are not always enough. Women who recognize the faults of their partners often decide to make a project out of reforming their loved ones. Although they approach their task with love and sincerity they often act in ways interpreted by their partners as a criticism of who they are, leading them to feel hurt and become stubborn. Loving our partners ought not to mean being obligated to turn a blind eye to their deficiencies or to side with them in every case. But to be able to help them to change we need patience, perseverance, and a respect for and acceptance of the present situation. Starting off from the position that they should be other than the way they are is one extreme to be avoided. Assuming that they will always be the way they are right now is the other extreme. The middle way involves an understanding of causes and conditions, and of the art of the possible.
Giving an exaggerated importance to love has many drawbacks. In extreme cases the deification of love can lead to violence or murder. Crimes of passion are classic tabloid fodder: perhaps a jilted lover kills the one who has rejected him, or kills her new lover, or kills them both, or kills himself, or kills them both and then kills himself. Such tragedies may not occur so often but how many people unhappy in love dream of violence every now and again? A huge number I would imagine. The true culprit is not a person but an identification with love, thinking that a life without loving a particular person is worthless and meaningless. Such thoughts are a sign of low LQ. People with low “love intelligence” are capable of killing; or destroying; anything; except their own Ignorance.
Another distressing situation concerns the huge number of women all over the world who routinely get beaten by their partners (I once saw British police statistics showing almost 500,000 cases of reported domestic violence a year). Women with bruises all over their bodies, broken arms, broken ribs, etc., are being treated in hospitals daily. Some die. And why do so many tormented women agree to go back and live with their abusive lovers? Some tolerate it for the sake of their children, some out of fear, some out of inertia or because they have nowhere to go, but perhaps most often it is because of love. A lover, no longer drunk or enraged, often insists in tears that he loves his partner. He apologizes and asks for the last chance, and she then admits she still loves him and agrees with hope that things will be better from now on. So he’s given one more chance over and over again because the abuser’s regret easily dissolves^ usually in alcohol. So many awful things in the world are justified in the name of love. And domestic violence is not a one-way street. Violent acts perpetrated by women against men are widespread, at least in the West, and hugely under-reported.
In the early stage of love our lover probably looks good in almost every way. Even visible flaws seem adorable or seem at most like a tiny imperfection that true love should ignore. We think it doesn’t matter that there are differences whether generally or in kamma, character, value, viewpoint, and belief. We think it doesn’t matter—we love each other!—everything else will fall into place. But after being married for a while, irritants that used to lurk quietly in the background tend to move to a more prominent position or even take centre stage. A couple wise enough to let go of their viewpoints, adapt and make compromises can survive. But many couples begin to learn a bitter lesson that love is an unreliable vaccine against suffering. When pride and opinions collide, the words “that’s not how it is,” “that’s not how it should be,” “I can’t accept that,” “no way,” “no!” keep coming up. Do we still love each other? Yes, but...
The Buddha taught that the principal condition for a couple to live together happily is a shared standard of conduct, beliefs, and values. Naturally, we are advised to consider this point well before rather than after agreeing to join our life with another’s. We might, through love, be able to put up with fundamental differences of opinion and conduct with our partner, but it won’t be easy, and things become more fraught with children in the picture.
Love may well form part of an emotionally fulfilling and stable life, but it must be founded on morality, accompanied by the cultivation of inner virtues, and above all, governed by wisdom. That wisdom is initially founded on a reflection on the Dhamma principles that all things are impermanent and uncertain. All impermanent things are inherently imperfect. When we want something impermanent to be permanent, and something imperfect to be perfect, we create suffering for ourselves. An interest in learning how to look at our life free from bias is vital if we want to transcend our destructive habits. The fundamental thesis of the Buddha’s teaching is that as long as our hearts and minds are infected with negative qualities we will never experience true happiness. But while love cannot replace the need for spiritual development it can support it. What is needed is for US to help each other overcome our negativities by learning the Dhamma and applying it.
Once we have the “right view” about love through reflecting on its pros and cons we should also try to encourage that same kind of clear-sighted habit in the minds of our children before they become infected by the commercial images that surround them on all sides. Look at Valentine’s Day: an example of a tradition that has not grown organically from our cultural values, but has been manufactured for commercial reasons. Consider what it tries to tell us about the relationship between love, sex and material consumption. After last Valentine’s Day someone told me of seeing a seven- or eight- year-old boy getting out of a car, carrying a beautiful bouquet of red flowers into his school.
They were a present for his “girlfriend.” Is this picture a cute or an alarming one? To me, the parents who bought those flowers for their son were not acting wisely. It is a small thing of course, an innocent gesture, but it is through an accumulation of such small things that a child’s values are moulded.
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