I first came to know of this point of view a few years back when I was clearly not ready for it. The philosophy of Rinpoche Dzongsar Jamyang Khyents seemed too blunt and unhopeful to me.
But now, with time I have come to understand his perspective. Because once you have moved on from the initial hurt (when you are told that your romantic love is doomed to fail from the start) you can see the truth and the beauty of his explanation. And through that, you’d be better able to appreciate the truth of your relationships.
One might ask why you would pay attention to what a Buddhist monk thinks of love. But Buddhism is a religion which teaches to love everyone, every life, no matter how small or insignificant. Truly, the teachings of Buddhism do not mention the kind of love we are discussing, but the lama had first-hand experience if being jilted in that love and he has learnt enough from his experience. Before being ordained when he was still contemplating on becoming a monk or marriage, his father told him that both would be equally hard. He made his choice, but what we continuously keep forgetting is that relationships are hard work. And we are not aware of what we are up against. Here are the four things which he describes as the barriers which stop us from attaining love and happiness. They are-
1. Conditioning:
Conditioning is a long process which starts right from our childhood. Our parents, teachers, friends, our neighborhood all condition us to think and react in a certain way. It is very difficult to even realize that you have been conditioned to respond in a certain way when confronted with certain situations. We react without thinking of the consequence of our words and in response to our own conditioning without thinking about the other person. To be free of this we will have to raise our awareness continuously so that we can know what is right from wrong.
2. Insecurities:
Many times when we choose to give commitment to the other person, it might seem from a fear of losing them rather than true love. We are so afraid of ending up alone that we fail to realize that to love someone else we first need to live ourselves fully.
3. Miscommunication:
Another master, Jigme Lingpa, says that no clear communication is ever possible because when. We first think we start creating chaos which just gets worst when the words are uttered out loud. There can be no direct communication and the best you can hope for is a good kind of miscommunication. We are all trying to be understood and to understand each other and it is hard work. When we talk to our partner, the words should come from our heart, which is the seat of our undulated wisdom. When we start talking from the mind, we only create chaos because our mind is conditioned by our surroundings as mentioned before.
4. False expectations and assumptions:
Every person likes to start a new relationship keeping their best foot forward. We go out of our way to make our partner feel special and so do they. But what happens is that both of us make a false image in our head based on these actions which cannot stand the test of time because the true self is different from this one. To overcome this, we need to learn to love without expectations and accepting our partner for who they are.
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