Buddhadhamma and love

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
User avatar
Fede
Posts: 1182
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:33 pm
Location: The Heart of this "Green & Pleasant Land"...
Contact:

Re: Buddhadhamma and love

Post by Fede »

Well, everyone has been most helpful and constructive in a very 'Buddhist' way (and rightly so - see forum!) but if I may, I would add a Program which I know works, and can be implemented to run parallel with your practice.
This is not my program. But it definitely works, and you might like to consider the benefits.....
(for 'Ex', read 'Unrequited Love'.....)

The Concrete Gude to getting over Love: No Contact.

Q. What is no contact?
A. No contact is just that. It's breaking all ties to your ex.

Q. What is no contact for?
A. No contact is meant as the quickest means for you to heal.

Q. If I implement NC will I get my ex back?
A. Probably not, but that's not what NC is meant for. Yes, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but if you're banking on NC as a way to manipulate your ex back into your life you are in for a rude awakening.

Q. What should I be doing to implement NC?
A. Absolutely cutting all ties to your ex. That means no calls, emails, text/sms, IM's - nothing. You need to vanish completely from their life and in the process, make them disappear from yours. In addition, get rid of their phone number, emails and email address, remove all the pictures/photos/memories/gifts. Anything that reminds you of the ex should be boxed up and put in a safe place out of daily view and easy reach.

Q. What should I be doing during NC?
A. First off, allow the grieving process to happen naturally. You need to grieve a loss, but don't dwell on it. Hang out with your friends, immerse yourself in a new hobby and start working out. Working out is especially useful because not only does it release endorphins which help make you feel better but you'll start looking your best which will help you attract someone new. If you need Counseling, by all means go.

Q. I don't want to implement NC because I don't want to lose him/her.
A. Unfortunately you already have. Clinging on to them or the hope you'll get them back will only keep you down longer. Additionally, the natural reaction of any Ex when you cling on to them is for them to literally spring in the other direction. If you do have any chance of a reconciliation, your best bet is to leave them alone and forget about them.

Q. My ex wants to be friends, is this a good idea?
A. No, not if you are still in love with them. For the most part Ex's will keep you as a friend so they have a 'back up plan' in case things fail with the new love of their life. Ask yourself if you're happy being number 2 in someone's life. If so, more power to you. But if you respect yourself and have healthy self-esteem you'll never settle for being left hanging on a string. All it will do is keep you clinging to the false hope of getting back with your ex, keep you down in the dumps much longer than you should be and ruin any chance you have of meeting someone new. So hey, if you want to be miserable, go ahead and be good buddies with your ex.

Q. I can't resist the urge to contact my ex! What should I do??
A. If you've deleted all their contact info yet still remember how to reach them, call a friend instead. Go work out. Take a bike ride. Go for a jog. Do something to occupy your mind. Get out, don't sit around the house pining for your Ex. Rest assured they are not sitting around with their new love wondering why you aren't calling them.

Q. How long should I wait to contact my ex.
A. Never be the first to contact your ex. If you need something back, ask a friend to go and get it for you. If you have children together, NC is almost impossible. The best thing to do is keep whatever contact you must have, to a minimum. Don't argue with them, don't ask for a second chance, don't beg them to take you back. Just be very polite and business-like. You thank yourself later for being the bigger person. Additionally the best way to make someone see they're being an a**hole is to not be one in retaliation. Let them vent and just be quiet. Sooner, rather than later, it'll hit them that they're being absolutely childish and you'll come out smelling like a rose.

Q. I've been on NC for some time and my Ex just contacted me, what do I do?
A. The question is - why are they contacting you? If it's just to get something back, box up their stuff and have a friend give it to them. No need to reply. No matter what, don't contact them back right away. Don't answer if they call. Show them you have a life and you don't need them in it. Yes, it's kind of a game but a necessary evil. I know a lot of people might disagree with me on this, but I'm a skeptic. I want to know why the ex is contacting me. If they are having doubts, they will make it clear. If you respond to them, be sure to take a day or two to do so. This will give you time to think clearly about what you want to say. When you reply, make sure that it's polite and to the point. Don't make any small talk. Don't bring up the past (big no- no!). Don't volunteer any information about yourself. Be the first to end the conversation. Do be happy, do smile inside (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and know that you'll be fine. Trust me, if your ex wants you back nothing will stop them from getting in touch with you. And this is ideally what you want. You want them to initiate the contact because it will be their heart that has changed.

Q. What happens if I break NC?
A. You'll end up right back to square one and have to start all over. Trust me, while you are on NC with them and they are with someone else, you don't want to know how they are doing. You don't want to hear how happy they are. You can't handle what they have to say.

Q. What if I see them in public?
A. Bottom line, avoid contact with them at all cost. If you can't, just be polite and smile and wave if they wave at you. If they want to talk, remember the rule. No small talk, no information. Show them that to all intents and purposes, You're doing just fine without them - even if you aren't.

Q. What if my Ex never contacts me?
A. Then it was never meant to be. Consider yourself lucky and smart enough to realize the sooner you implemented NC and got on with your life the sooner you can meet the right person for you. That's really what this whole 'no contact' deal is all about.

Realize that none of us is immune to heartbreak. Consider each relationship as a lesson life teaches us that we carry on to the next relationship. "What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger." That's what NC does. It allows you to reflect on your past mistakes and grow as a person. Each time you fail in a relationship you gain invaluable knowledge that will aid you in the next.

There will be someone else, I guarantee you that. The sooner you cut ties with the ex, heal yourself up, improve where you can and embed the lessons of your past, the better off you'll be for someone else.

Above all, never tell yourself "I'm not good enough, no one loves me, blah blah blah." That's a self-defeatist attitude and kills your confidence and self-esteem. You are absolutely good enough and someone will love you. You just have to be happy with who you are. Be the best you you can be.

Every step forward you make, is one step closer to meeting the person of your dreams. It will likely happen as soon as you have decided you respect yourself enough to take back your personal power. The power you currently give to your Ex every moment you spend thinking about them, wishing they would call or clinging on to them. Take back control of your life by vowing to move on. To accept what has happened. To let go completely.

To be free to love again.
"Samsara: The human condition's heartbreaking inability to sustain contentment." Elizabeth Gilbert, 'Eat, Pray, Love'.

Simplify: 17 into 1 WILL go: Mindfulness!

Quieta movere magna merces videbatur. (Sallust, c.86-c.35 BC)
Translation: Just to stir things up seemed a good reward in itself. ;)

I am sooooo happy - How on earth could I be otherwise?! :D


http://www.armchairadvice.co.uk/relationships/forum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
User avatar
adosa
Posts: 271
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:08 pm

Re: Buddhadhamma and love

Post by adosa »

Hi Craig,

Hope your doing better today. I've often said I'd rather snap my femur than go through another heartbreak. You've already have some great advice albeit a bit contradictory. Some say get back on that horse, others say stay off that horse. It's up to you what course you want to take. Worldly attachment or not (see Ben's post on MN 87). Personally, I've yet to find a relationship that wasn't wrapped in dukkha.

But at any rate what should you do now? Well as one who is still bouncing around with worldly attachments I have observed recently through my actions, mindfulness, and meditation just how much I have tried to escape from the pain of past failed relationships. I really didn't even know I was doing it.

Until finding the Dhamma I never knew just how much escapism I involved myself in. From the subtle to the not so subtle. But the one thing that I have found that works is not to escape the pain but to face it, as raw as it maybe, through daily meditation and mindfulness. I'm just now wrapping up an on again off again, on again, off again, arrggggggg......... relationship. For years this thing went on and each time we called it quits I thought "no worries, I can handle it, she's no big deal." DENIAL!!! I never really healed from it, or other past relationships.

So, until my recent realization of my escapism I never healed. Now, as a process of healing, I actually try to bathe myself in the pain during meditation. I visualize everything about the relationship that brings up those painful feelings. Maybe this technique isn't listed in meditation guides, I don't know. Maybe some would think it is counter-productive or dangerous. But this visualization goes on all day long when going through heartbreak, so why not stop, sit down, and take a good, close, hard look at it. This process has helped me observe just what it is I have feared to deal with, the actual acute pain of what I perceived as failure, rejection of "self", love lost, and on and on. Until I was able to face it head on and really open up to the feelings going on, deep inside and hugely repressed, I wasn't able to fully heal. I think the best teacher I have heard in this respect is Joseph Goldstein. He has some talks on Dharmaseed about afflictive emotions and is much better at describing how to handle them than I am. If you would like I'll post a link this evening.

When you are in the midst of this state of mind, it is very difficult to see the impermanence of these feelings. They seem omnipresent. But if you sit with them and let them flow out it becomes more and more clear that, yes, these too will pass and sometimes, as I have found, it is our running from them that makes them all the more painful and frequent.

So, from my experience, just sit with this situation and get to know these feelings. Don't worry about thoughts arising, mindfulness of breathing, desire, or whatever. I've found that with intense emotions like these that it is easy to "see" them and to stay with them if we have the courage and the foresight to do so.

I know you probably have heard this all before but sometimes it helps to hear it again. Hope this makes sense and will help you out,



peace

adosa
"To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas" - Dhammapada 183
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22404
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: Buddhadhamma and love

Post by Ceisiwr »

Thank you all for the advice i really appreicate it :smile:
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
User avatar
adosa
Posts: 271
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:08 pm

Re: Buddhadhamma and love

Post by adosa »

Keep after it friend. We're fortunate to have the Dhamma.


adosa (Ron)
"To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas" - Dhammapada 183
User avatar
christopher:::
Posts: 1327
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:56 am

Re: Buddhadhamma and love

Post by christopher::: »

Hi Craig, and everyone,

I was quite fortunate, i think, to have my heart broken in my early twenties by a lovely woman from Korea. I loved her more then anything on earth. She seemed simply perfect, the one i had always hoped and longed for. But she had to work, and care for her family, back in Korea, as her father had passed away and she was the oldest child.

I went to visit her, and saw her circumstances. It was clear, our relationship was impossible, she could not leave Korea and i simply could not live there. I had to go home never to see her again. Fortunately, somehow, i discovered in that relationship the seeds of what i now understand as metta, mudita, upekkha and karuna. She had an innate understanding of these qualities, i think. Perhaps that is what i loved about her?

Anyway, i realized that i could go on, and these essential qualities could still be a part of my life. She would not be there, but what was most deep and wonderful about her was something i could still discover and experience in the world, cultivate in my own life.

Since then, loving has been easier. Still hard sometimes, but much easier. There is suffering in life, but metta and joy can be there as well, if we learn to identify it less with specific individuals. Its something we can share with any and all sentient being we open our hearts to, imo, in a dharmic way...

:heart:
"As Buddhists, we should aim to develop relationships that are not predominated by grasping and clinging. Our relationships should be characterised by the brahmaviharas of metta (loving kindness), mudita (sympathetic joy), karuna (compassion), and upekkha (equanimity)."
~post by Ben, Jul 02, 2009
PeterB
Posts: 3909
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 12:35 pm

Re: Buddhadhamma and love

Post by PeterB »

Fede, i remember your words full of good sense and kindness from Another Forum...
I have to say I have some real reservations about your post above. I dont think it is in keeping with Metta, Karuna, Mudita , and most certainly with Upekkha. I dont think we can practice those things while banning all memory of some one from our lives. I think that is conventional wisdom, not the wisdom of the Buddhadhamma. It is based on suppression not insight imo.
I think that this kind of strategy is also an acceptance of something essentially unreal. The kind of obsessive emotionalism that results in experiencing dukkha when parted from another person is common enough, we have most of us experienced it . I think though that we should not simply see it as a condition that we ban from our lives by force of will, and by removing all trace of the person from our consciousness. Indeed, I think that we need to do the complete opposite. I think we should contemplate the person concerned deeply. I think we should allow ourselves to see what it is that they represent to us that we think we would otherwise lack. I think in short that romantic love is in fact an unhealthy state that we need to understand in ourselves, not respond to by pretending that its object does not exist. Towards the end of your post there is a reference to meeting " the person of your dreams" I think gentle tinkling alarm bells should ring for any Buddhist at the notion that there is a person of their dreams. I think that this goes against all that we know about dukkha, anicca and anatta. Likewise I am not sure that taking back control of our lives is a viable life strategy as Buddhists. I think our goal is more skillfully expressed in terms of understanding and in letting go, than in control.

I apologise if this seems to have hijacked your thread Craig, I dont think it actually has.
Pain passes. :namaste:
User avatar
christopher:::
Posts: 1327
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:56 am

Re: Buddhadhamma and love

Post by christopher::: »

Very insightful, Peter. I think this relates to panna-bhavana-maya, experiential wisdom, as Ben has just mentioned in another thread. By carefully observing our experiences of attachment, we come to understand them, and can then let them go. It's a step on the path to more complete freedom.

:heart:
"As Buddhists, we should aim to develop relationships that are not predominated by grasping and clinging. Our relationships should be characterised by the brahmaviharas of metta (loving kindness), mudita (sympathetic joy), karuna (compassion), and upekkha (equanimity)."
~post by Ben, Jul 02, 2009
Post Reply