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Non-attachment and love and marriage
msac123
Explorer
Buddhism talks about non-attachment to anything. When it comes to love, realistically, don't you have to be attached when you are in love with someone? I can see how people can be in love and non-attached to each other, but isn't that to some degree? You're still attached to the person you love right?
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Different attachment. The sort that causes us to want to feed children and make sure they stay alive, and work to maintain a loving relationship isn't the same as the clinging and grasping attachment that Buddhism is talking about letting go of. It means not expecting a particular outcome just because right now, things are a certain way. It means being open to change, and not resistant to it, because if marriage is anything, it's constant change.
Ideally, you work on your practice in a way that allows you to see people differently. Instead of seeing your spouse and your children as the ONLY people in the world you love that much, you use your strong feelings for them to build your love and compassion for everyone, attempting to get as close to feeling that strongly for everyone, not just your spouse/children/whatever.
I love my family. But they are not my world. My world is vast, and they are a wonderful part of it. But they aren't all of it. My happiness, my success as a person, my compassion and love are not dependent on them.
I see. That makes more sense. Thank you.
It is a difference I have found in my romantic relationships as I age. I no longer feel pangs of suffering when I am apart from my significant other whereas earlier in my life it was all consuming. Now when I say 'I love you' I don't mean 'you are my whole world'..
And it's all relative. There is a spectrum.
The Buddhist vision of love is a bit different than our romantic love.
It arises from a deep seeing of reality unmediated from concepts. So you see the other person free from any assumptions and expectations. And this offers you in a very vicersal sense to feel into what they are expressing to you. What you find if you have space is suffering and that breaks your heart. And from that depth of feeling suffering you are inspired with warmth to act.
That is the bodhisattvas tender heart.
But its not always suffering and compassionate response in that linear way. Sometimes its joy and kindness in the infinite variety of ways one can given the circumstance.
So its non attachment to the expectations and ideas we have about people and situations be it ourselves or others. This allowing and holding of a tender open heart not as an idea but as a direct meeting with life is the love buddhism offers.
@msac123
Attachments are a function of our identity. Within a meditation practice, as we loosen our ties to our identity, attachments have less and less to attach to.
Love can also evolve to not be so much a reflection of our identity as a love of Buddha nature or the grace of whatever selflessness we can muster.
Finally, as the boundaries between self and other dissipate the selectiveness by which we used to love starts to become a more universal experience..
Romantic love is pair bonding. That means there has to be an attachment.
The attachment is actually to the pleasurable feelings that arise with contact with the object of affection, not the object itself!
"I love you because you make me feel good"
That is why this love can do a 180 degree. as in "Hell hath no fury like ... scorned"
Love in the Buddhist(metta) context is somewhat different. It is similar to agape. This does not mean that love in a marriage cannot be metta.