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Love! ...and attachment...
Hello again!
I have been learning a little bit about 'love' and 'attachment'. And how they're separate.
Any Help???
I (believe) I am deeply in love with my partner, and how would i know, generally, if it's attachment rather than love...?
I have been learning a little bit about 'love' and 'attachment'. And how they're separate.
Any Help???
I (believe) I am deeply in love with my partner, and how would i know, generally, if it's attachment rather than love...?
0
Comments
Attachment and love are very different, though some love can be well tied to clinging, making them look similar.
Priyajiivana,
A good way to unthread any attachments that might darken your love for your partner would be to sit and look directly at the impermanence of your time together. They might get tired of you. You might grow in different directions. They might get sick and die. They might cheat on you. You might get sick and die. The union you have will, for certain, cease.
If, when you look directly at these truths, you can say that it is fine, then the love you have will be an unattached expression. Letting yourself sit and look upon this kind of thing is good to unlock all attachments.
Samahita has a post about it called 'Bag of Bones' at http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4998&page=2 (second post down)
It has a nice picture of it
With warmth,
Matt
Would you be sad if they told you they were leaving because they had fallen in love with someone else?
Would you be sad if they told you they were leaving because they had an opportunity to live their most-cherished dream?
Would you miss them after they left?
Who would you be sad for? Not them. This is attachment, and I think it is part-and-parcel of the nature of intimate relationships.
This is pedantry... That was my point, when I said Yes, I said that too.....
so basically, you're agreeing with me....
Refining somewhat. Did it sound as though I was being contrary?
With warmth,
Matt
*namaste*
Devotional love, the kind for marriages, is not at all about clinging although any relationship can tempt attachments.
"Real love" is entirely about giving up oneself to the relationship. The people involved in a real marriage have given up being individuals so as to unite as one in marriage. This is established by the desire within either for the joy and health of the other even at the expense of oneself. Real love is a gift, not a barter - no strings attached.
You can know if you are in real love by contemplating how you would respond if the other person could never know that you existed but you could still see and do things for that person, perhaps as a ghost. If the other person could never acknowledge you or "return the love", would you still strongly desire to work at helping them enjoy their life?
Real love is NOT about how someone else makes you feel. Real love is about how much joy you want to make them feel. Real love is NOT about you at all and thus, in a sense is very Buddhistic because you must entirely let go of you and live entirely for the other.
The snare is infatuation wherein a person senses that they are entirely willing to give up themselves for sake of the other, yet do not really know the other person yet. This is a type of lust, blinding the mind and heart to the real situation. Getting past the infatuation is critical to long term relationships. It can be gotten past by contemplating the negatives, "What will I do if the other person does this...?". Accept that the other person really IS going to do some negative things and let your heart decide how serious it really is.
"let go of you" is good advice to everyone.
but if you live entirely for the other, what will happen if you separate?
I believe, when in a relationship, that you must always keep in mind that everything is impermanent. Everything will end. Sooner or later.
You might get a big fight tomorrow and it might end. Today, one of you might get hit by a car while crossing the street.
You must always feel like you will be fine, no matter what happen.
Then you can enjoy every moments.
When you feel like you will not be fine if it end, it is a good indication that you are not doing it right.
Would it be more... reasonable and healthy to simply live together, loving each other, enjoying whatever we do together etc...
both individual growing, supporting each other.
About the original question, i'm a big fan of simplicity.
So here it is:
When you are in love, you usually have both. Love and attachment.
The part of you that want this other person to be happy, with or without you, this is the love.
The part of you that says: "he's mine, I'll kill him if he ever leave me for someone else."
That is the attachment part.
If you live entirely for yourself, what will happen when you separate either by death or giving your self up?
If you lived for love and are to be reborn, wouldn't it be likely that you would be reborn as a loving person because that is to what you gave your heart. - Good Karma.
So what is the difference in to whom you give yourself up?
Then you didn't give yourself up. In love, one only fights for fun.
Exactly and is why you must not go half way and merely develop attachment, but give in entirely so that no matter what happens, you know that you gave it all you had and it did not die because of your fear.
If your loved one is taken from you and you had given yourself entirely, then you are given a chance to do it again. If you do the same for merely nihilism, you have to believe in an after life and or a second birth in order to have hope for the future.
On the other hand, by giving totally to the one you truly love, you have the hope that what you gave will live on beyond merely directly you or the one you loved, by children raised surrounded by extreme love, by other associations witnessing the severe love, by anything and everything the two of you supported and loved together. As the combined harmony of two, you create far more momentum for the spirit you leave behind.
The life that extends from true love is a real and everlasting life (past the persons involved anyway). The speculation that the persons will be reborn at some unknown future time or the speculation that they will live in an afterlife of heaven or hell is very weak in comparison to the reality of what is supported and produced on Earth and continues from generation to generation.
You propose the wisdom of giving yourself up to nothingness. By such an act, something absorbs what you were and what you become no matter what you had preferred. I was proposing that you choose to whom you give yourself rather than leaving it up to unknown predators.
If you were business partners, sure. Isn't that what you do with business partners and friends in general, even neighbors?
What happens to the children that come from mere business partners or "loving friends"? :-/
What happens to the business when partners "grow apart"? Devoted love does not grow apart. Although if not true, can easily be insidiously pried apart. :hrm:
Agreed.
But ""something"" compelled you to stick with your first idea.
(Maybe this was on purpose, hence all of the smilies?)
Case in point: This make no sense. Nobody suggested "living only for yourself".
This is a strange statement. This sounds like black magic... What religion is this from?
Who is proposing to give yourself up to nothingness?
Not giving anyone up in Buddhism, just lifting the veil of the illusion of the self. Ending ignorance.
For what/whom does a person live? I was referring to living for someone else, what other options are there?
1) A chosen loved one (Love)
2) Yourself (egotism)
3) Unknown Predator (socialism)
4) Nothingness (nihilism)
Buddhism. "Let go", "get you out of the way", "remove the self"
The effort to remove the illusion requires, in Buddhism, that the ego, the "you" is given up with the hopes that a clear light might come. It is obvious by history that such a light very seldom really comes, but the giving up of the self is required anyway. What that yields is a giving up of the self to the unknown predator in 99.9% of the cases, by default.
Whether you consider that good or bad is up to you.
You don't lose anything. In fact, you gain much.
If you wanted to, you could create and use other egos...
Choice, freedom. Nothing is lost, only the illusion that was keeping you in a mental prison.
the clear light is you. it is here right now with you. it is not some external force or whatever. Simply it is you, free from the prison of the illusion of the self.
Like i just explain you don't give up the ego to nothing.
It just doesn't work like this Drop.
Most may not free themselves from all of the illusions, may not become fully enlighten.
But the vast majority will make progress on the path, every progress brings a degree of freedom. Everyone benefit greatly from these degrees of freedom.
And it can be very important. if you believe the second, it leads to wrong reasonning/assumptions, like you were showing.
Some wrong fundamental understanding can potentially lead someone far away from the path, or block progress.
I think patbb's words make sense, where the Bodhisattva does not give up their self to serve anyone or anything. They give up their identification with self. Period. In the absence of identification with self, it becomes clear that enduring pain is simple, and that the only possible compassionate path is to continue pain in order to help free the masses from the muck. It isn't about servitude. You don't breathe because you are a servant to the air, you breathe because the air is part of your body.
In the same light, if you live for someone you love then you're just trying to trade your solid-self for solidifying their self. Ridiculous of course. If you can just look at both of you as impermanent, then love will do the rest.
With warmth,
Matt
Sexual intercourse is generally considered fine for lay people and generally considered not fine for those who choose the path of ordination.
It's not wrong, but it poses challenges. Challenges that some choose to avoid in order to make faster progress on the path and other do not choose to avoid. There is no right or wrong involved.
As a parent, I disagree. I believe we all need to live our lives in service to those countless sentient beings who have been our kind mothers and fathers and now suffer without knowing how to put an end to it. It isn't something cerebral. After all, there is no self to give up in the first place!
All that there is is the tremendous heartbreak of seeing all those that you care about suffering and wanting to do something about it. Whether one takes a bhakti approach to relationships or not, the end result is the same. Our own imperatives are quite insignificant and the needs of others great.