Attachment and Love

In yesterdays blog we looked at the notion of attachment. So let's expand upon that - looking at attachment in intimate relationships. We fall in love with a person. But what is that we fall in love with? Is it an ideal of someone? Is it the fantasy of the  perfect person?

In a relationship, can we see the person for who they are as they are at the moment? Can we allow the person to be different as they change from moment to moment; day to day; month to month? Can we accept that the person we are in love with will never be the person we fell in love with?

A healthy relationship requires that we recognize our partner will always be different, evolving and changing but so will we. We must create room for this always changing reality while still respecting and loving the person. It almost seems contradictory.

Otherwise, we require the partner to always be the person we fell in love with. In a sense, we recognize that is not possible but still want it. We resist aging, for example, in ourselves so then also in our partner. Certainly we live in a society where that is encouraged - forever young! But that is not truth - change is inevitable and necessary so accepting change in our partner is essential.

That won't be easy. Remember, that all major religions and spiritualities talk about pain. In Buddhism, the First Noble Truth tells us that there will always be suffering. In a relationship, if we want to offer ongoing love we must adapt and that won't be easy at times. We may not like the person in certain moments. This is where impermanence comes into the equation. Rather than become attached to the behaviour that is occurring, recognize that impermanence means it will change as long as we don't try to hold on.

There is uncertainty in relationships and that too we are required to accept.

An Australian Buddhist monk, Ajahn Brahm, asks us to separate out the person from the behaviours. When we do that, we can see the person as distinct and not the behaviours of the moment. This is not to give permission for disrespectful behaviours such as an affair, as relationships are reciprocal.

Thus, in a loving relationship we seek not to judge but accept and have that work both ways.

A complication arises when we want to judge the person based upon external attributes such as beauty, wealth or other material yard sticks. We do this out of discomfort with ourselves requiring external validation of our value. We project onto our partner expectations that they must support that bolstering of our value by presenting in a way that makes us look good.

This makes relationships very hard work indeed but success comes from within rather than looking to the other for validation.  It also means we cannot "own" or "control" the other person as they are their own being as are we.

In meditation, we reflect upon the relationship we have with ourselves and then offer, moment by moment, the real self. As the character Richard from Texas in the movie Eat, Pray, Love says, "you gotta do the work!"

"Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die" - Buddha

If we walk without attachment we do not know where the path takes us 

© Peter Choate 2016

My friend Joy

There I was searching for pain

And pain you were there

But you were not alone when I found you here

Was I insane

I knew the pain

For I had been making friends with her everywhere

Whenever I looked I knew you would be there

But today you brought a friend or were my thoughts inane

Pain you introduced your friend

I recognized the friend once I saw her there

I knew that I had seen here before somewhere

In this moment she was a godsend

I had come to know her as someone who could transcend

But she had been more than I could bear

I wanted to offer her a prayer

For joy I needed again to befriend

The thing about pain is how easily we spot it, attach to it and keep it in the forefront. Indeed, becoming obsessed with it is not that hard. It underlines addiction to substances and behaviours. It is the very thing we so often seek to escape. Yet, we keep it close to us like our best friend who can't stop hurting us.

If we open up to joy we can also find joy present. It does not take pain away but gives us another place of focus - an alternative to gaze upon. It is the friend we need to invite back. Like the bud in the picture, it may be hidden just waiting to come out.

© Peter Choate 2016

So I bring compassion

My tears bring compassion

You seek to attack me

So I cry

You seek to thrust upon me your trauma

So I cry

You seek to solve your hurt through me

So I cry

You seek to make me responsible for you anger

So I cry

I seek to see your hurt

So I bring compassion

I seek to find why you hurt

So I bring compassion

I seek to see your suffering

So I bring compassion

I seek to see you that you can suffer less

So I bring compassion

But I too can be hurt

But I bring compassion for both of us

There is no choice

So I must open my compassion

(c) Peter Choate, 2016

What is beginning to peek out?

There is a growing body of evidence in the field of epigenetics that is relevant to our day to day experiences. What the research is showing is that the emotive experiences of our parents and grandparents is passed on to us in our DNA. Trauma becomes incorporated into the DNA (as likely do other significant emotional patterns). Thus, we react to events or emotional encounters in ways that are not only rooted in our individual experiences but also in those of prior generations.

We see this in the inter generational trauma of the Canadian Aboriginal Residential School Survivors; in the children of the Holocaust and other major traumas in the world. It is also likely true for individual traumas.

Bruno and Alaya Chikley, in their wonderful work on Heart Centred Therapy, ask the question, what decision did your forebearer make when faced with the trauma and how has that been passed to you? This leads us to ask, through meditation, as we become increasingly aware of our reactions, what are we reacting to? What are we beginning to see peek out from our inter generational history? As we become aware of it, what decisions can we make? Like the moon emerging through the plants in the photo above, when we are patient to see what is emerging, we can use the space of this patience to make decisions about how we will now react.

© Peter Choate, 2016

The threads we build

Life is complicated. No event is without connection to past events nor to future events. There are linkages all over the place. There is an abundance of neuroscience that tells us how experience builds pathways in the brain. One event will trigger emotions, memories and physical sensations from the past. Sometimes we are quite aware of them, but most often we ignore, numb or pretend otherwise. But the links still happen.

In our technological, face paced life, we distract ourselves with all kinds of electronic tools. Sometimes we distract with food, alcohol, drugs, exercise and so on. Distraction distorts our interpretation of what is happening but it does not change the reality that the linkages are there.

So what are we to do if the linkages, or the webs of past experiences, are going off all the time. In essence it is now we respond to the linkages. The Buddhist nun Ani Pema Chodron speaks of the term "Shenpa" - a Tibetan word that means attachment. She offered an explanation of seeing attachment to the trigger from past events which then leads to a series of reactions. Once the trigger happens then "x" will happen which will lead to "y" and then to "z" and so on. Unless we interrupt the pattern.

Doing this requires that we observe the trigger happening and know that it wants to take us through a web of responses. We can play along or we can stay present in the moment and observe the trigger happening along with the desire for the subsequent events.

I know from my own experience, remaining present and not going down the pathway is a struggle - sometimes much more difficult than other times. Sometimes I am pretty successful at being present and observing and other times I am quite the opposite. Each even teaches me and that is the point. What is the shenpa meant to teach us and how can we learn from it? How can we find more presence each time it goes off? Can we be vulnerable in the pain that arises with the trigger?

© Peter Choate, 2016