Switching gears, we’ve often heard the phrase that “practice makes perfect.”

What’s the connection between intimacy and practice?

Not much. Why? We have learned an ironic truth: that the act of physical intimacy doesn’t necessarily lead to, or even involve, intimacy. (Please click here for past webpost entitled Is Sexual Attraction a Cosmic Joke?)

We also want a heart connection with others based on unconditional acceptance.  In this regard, I remember that my father told me as a young child “don’t wear your heart on your sleeve.”

My father often had good advice. But not in this case. For me, wearing my heart on my sleeve is part of basic goodness! (Please click here for definitions of this term.) It requires a great deal of courage because I am vulnerable when I wear my heart on my sleeve. Because it requires that I don’t intellectualize my emotions. Because it requires that I tell the truth. Because it requires that I dissolve the barriers between me and my heart.

The title of this post is “Intimacy – practice makes perfect.” What’s the connection between intimacy based on the heart and practice?

To summarize, this post:

• uses the word “practice,” not in the usual sense of doing something over and over again to get better or increase our skill, but to refer to spiritual practice;
• deals with emotional intimacy; and
  
• deals with the question “What is the relationship between so-called  “spiritual” practice and intimacy?
  

On the path that I travel, called Shambhala Buddhism,  we have a variety of different types of practice.

I’ll deal first with meditation practice, both individual and group.

 Meditation is the practice of facing yourself completely, cultivating intimacy with your breath [click here for song “Every Breath You Take”) and awareness. It is an intimacy that goes far beyond the companionship and gratification we seek from another. Keeping company with yourself can change the expectations you place on a relationship. Through a mindfulness practice, you see firsthand what it means to take responsibility for your own happiness and fulfillment, and you experience love of a different kind—unconditional love, which arises spontaneously as your true nature. <source: from the September 2011 issue of the Shambhala Sun; article by Karen Maezen Miller>

Doing group practice extends this intimacy with ourselves out to others.

When you practice formally with a group, you’ll have the opportunity to sit in silence for a day or more alongside someone you’ve never met. Eventually, your mind will grow quiet and your concentration will deepen. You will share proximity without the judgments and expectations we usually impose on those around us, and be in relationships that are not conditioned by what another person is doing for you or how they are serving you. This is what happens in a silent meditation retreat. At the end of the time together, you might be inclined to do what I do: turn to the stranger sitting nearby, smile, and spontaneously say, “I love you.” The thing is, I really mean it. Is it possible to love in this way? Yes, from the very bottom of your heart and mind, when everything else drops away, it is possible and it is effortless. <source: from the September 2011 issue of the Shambhala Sun; article by Karen Maezen Miller>

Besides meditation practice, there are other kinds of practices called deity practice. Again, what is the relationship between practice and intimacy?

In my perspective, intimacy only arises when one has undercut one’s solid identity. Vajrayana sadhanas create an environment for this to happen:

Your body is made of radiant white light. You have four arms and you are seated in meditation posture. You do not really exist, and this non-existence is marked by profound wisdom and boundless compassion. You are Avalokiteshvara. <source: Eric Holm on “The power of visualization practice to overcome ego and pacify obstacles.” Shambhala Sun, January 2002>

Your mind and the deity become one.

To me, this is an act of intimacy of the most profound kind because it involves surrendering one’s ego, one’s identity based on concepts e.g. “I-am-the-person-who-has-this-kind-of-career” etc. etc. etc. Again, to me, genuine intimacy involves offering one’s body, one’s speech and one’s mind.

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We’re taught that we accumulate karma through volitional action. (Please click here for detailed description of what karma is, is not, and how it works.) That’s what I call the outer level of karma.

My understanding is that it’s not the action per se that creates karma. It’s the intention. The motivation. What the law calls mens res. That’s what I call the inner level of karma.

(Most of us are not necessarily aware of our real intentions. It takes a lot of honesty and conscious awareness and willingness to really explore.)

The purification process can only be successful if we understand that it is the intention we have to purify, not the action per se.

Specifically, two people can carry out the same action. One person accumulates negative karma. The other person does not. For example, if a fully evolved dharma teacher slaps a student, there is no negative karma because there is no anger. Wrath perhaps. But not anger. If we were to do the same thing, we would probably do so in anger and thus accumulate negative karma.

Why then is it taught that we accumulate karma by our volitional action? Because if we just have an intention, but don’t act on it, then we do not accumulate karma.

As my root guru used to say, “Got it, sweetheart?”

When we’re in a serious crisis or have experienced some trauma, well-meaning friends give advice about what we “should do.”  Some suggest “roll up your sleeves,” or “pull your socks up.” Others might suggest that we try to “get motivated” to change our situation, to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Others suggest that we should try to “solve” the crisis.

I myself embrace the following perspective:

How do you know when you don’t need people? When they’re not in your life. How do you know when you do need them? When they are in your life. You can’t control the comings and goings of the people you care for. What you can do is have a good life whether they come or go. You can invite them, and they come or not, and whatever the result is, that’s what you need. Reality is the proof of it.

    How do you know you don’t need to stand up? You’re sitting. Life becomes much simpler this way. How do you know when you need to do something? When you do it. To think that you need to do something when you’re not not doing it is a lie. It puts you in an uncomfortable position, full of shame, guilt, and frustration. Lying in bed, you chide yourself with the thought, “I need to get up,” and you don’t. But the truth is that you don’t need to get up. Not until you do.

    Do you try to motivate yourself with the thought tht you need to do something, and end up doing nothing? That would be an interesting discovery. “I need to do it” is just a thought. Try the effect of the turned-around version: “I don’t need to do it,” and notice that the only time that you need to do something is when you do it. It’s a wonderful experiment. Start small: Just lie in bed in peace, unpestered by yourself, until you notice that you’re getting up.

    You think you need to make a decision. You don’t — not until it’s made. Afterward you may notice that you didn’t actually make the decision: It made itself, right on time, the moment you had all the necessary information. (How do you know you had the information you needed? Because the decision made itself.)

     The direct route leaves you needing and loving [only] what’s going on in front of you.<source: Byron Katie: I Need Your Love – Is That True? paperback edition, page 189>

 ”Making mistake after mistake, I walk the unmistaken path.” Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my lifetime.

But this one “takes the cake.”

Now I am reaping the karma.

The “cake” is no longer pleasing to me. The icing on top has evaporated, exposing the guts of a cake that is no longer whole. Slices have been taken out of it. I cannot find my self anymore.

I obsess over what I see as my mistakes and ask again and again “how could I have been so stupid?” This past week I talk to a fellow practitioner about this constant daily “review” of my “mistakes.”  He quotes the following to me by heart:

……
……

The everyday practice is simply to
develop a complete acceptance and
openness to all situations ane emotions.

And to all people — experiencing
everything totally without reservations
and blockages, so that one never
withdraws or centralises onto oneself.

<source: The Vidyadhara, Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, excerpt from Maha-Ati text>

That phrase “centralises onto oneself” grabs me, shakes me up  — that’s what I am doing. Centralizing into myself. I’m glad for the reminder. While I don’t necessarily “feel better,” without that reminder I will mindlessly continue to deepen the rut, the stuckness, that I am experiencing.

The Good News! I find it strangely helpful to realize that there was absolutely nothing I could do to change the karma that is now ripening in the present. In the past — including past lives — I committed volitional action(s) based on afflictive emotions. Now the karma is coming due. I begin to relax with the truth of the dynamic (how karma works) of karma rather than putting my energy into resisting it by obsessing over and over again what I “could” have done to avoid the situation in the first place.

Another way to put this is that I set up the karmic theater by my past volitional actions and afflictive emotions. Now the “play” is playing out! I say my “lines” (i.e. storyline of how my life came to be this way) every day.  I make my exits and my entrances.  I come in “on cue.” Then the curtain closes after the play every night. I go to sleep. I wake up the next morning. My mind flickers between wakefulfulness and going back to sleep! I arise from my bed, but I have chosen sleep. The cycle starts all over again.

The main point is that the karma was going to ripen whether I had been brilliant or stupid. My stupidity really didn’t have a lot to do with anything.

Actually, there is one thing I can do — well two things.

Notwithstanding the powerlessness I feel, I do have the power to shift my attitude from one of depression and constant self-criticsm,  anxiety, panic and fear to appreciation for the fact that, no matter how stupid I feel I have been, there was nothing that was going to prevent the karma from ripening. The result of this attitudinal change is relief!

The other thing I can do is to make it part of my post-meditation practice to be gracious in the face of what I experience as the karmic #&*! hitting the fan.

Out of this rubble, arise with grace and integrity. <source: poem about Cleopatra and lover by the Sakyong Mipham Rinopche – please click here to read poem. Scroll down to end of page>

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“Passion is not unbridled desire or obsession, but natural playfulness and interest in the world.” – @SakyongMipham

In my last post <please click here to see last post> I described a dream around my relationship with someone I call Alex (“Dream Man”), and the identity crisis that the dream triggered.

Feb 03, 2012 – I and Alex (fictional name) are lying on a king-size bed together. We are in the middle of it. Fully clothed. I am propped up on my left arm facing Alex who is lying flat on his back. Our strong karmic connection with and affection for each other is obvious. Two other couples lie at each end of the bed, again fully clothed. I do not know who they are. They are lying still. But their affection for each other is obvious. Alex asks me “Why aren’t we together?” I reply “because I would never leave you.” He whispers “Oh God.” I lean down and kiss him. He does not move. He says nothing. Then I put my head on his chest and,  simultaneously, I experience a feeling of sadness.

This crisis, not “Alex,” was the focus of that post.

In this post, “Alex” is the focus, or should I say, “Alex” in his incarnation as Cleopatra’s doctor.

Once upon a time there was a queen called Cleopatra  (69 BC to 30 BC)  who ruled over the land of Egypt. She had a doctor called Alexander (“Alex” in this lifetime) Olympus. They had a secret love affair. I don’t think it was secret because there was some edict that forbade a relationship between a doctor and his patient. At any rate, regardless of any “rules,” what queens want, queens get. But Cleopatra was married to Mark Antony! And Rome was presenting her to the Romans as a whore with whom Antony was besotted. She could hardly let another lover surface in public! Cleopatra’s relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony had political elements. But with her doctor, there was no politics. Just heart. And a deep and abiding love and trust. He was her confidant. Alexander Olympus kept a diary which has been used as a source of information about his queen and the times, including my personal favourite by Margaret George. At any rate, this secret affair created karma, both positive and negative\challenging, for both of them.

This post explores that karma.

To me,  Cleopatra and  perfume are inextricably linked. Plutarch’s writing about Cleopatra are the most famous historical record, and of course, he mentions her perfume. So does Shakespeare.

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them,
……

……

<source: Antony and Cleopatra>

In this lifetime, the symbol of their shared karma is perfume!

How to work with this karma so that it is purified? One of the ways could be to consider Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s advice in his poem The SUN, the MOON, the RIVER which I have reproduced at the end of this post.

The energy of his lover Cleopatra is all around Alex. It is affectionate and playful. But as long as he is wrapped up in what Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche calls  “corrupt pride,” male stubborness, rigidity, arrogance and know-it-all attitude to hide his fears — which lead him to be critical, dismissive and subtly repressive of his significant others — he will not be able to work with his karma properly. If he clings to his fears he cannot “move as the winds tell you” (Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche).

It is up to “Alex” to decide in what form he wishes to relate to his version of  Cleopatra that he carries with him from their life together two thousand years ago.

However, he does not have the choice of whether or not  he wants to relate to her at all.  He has to. She is in him. This was demonstrated when the energy of Cleopatra came through in the dream described in the previous post when she says “…I will never leave you.” In other words, her energy is in him. It cannot leave him because he carries it in him.

An analogy might be helpful here: Vajrayogini, a Buddhist deity, a fiery, passionate female, can be seen to be, on the inner level, a manifestation of “Alex’s” own personal Cleopatra. In this way, he can purify the emotions (kleshas) that underlie his karma from that lifetime as Cleopatra’s doctor and secret lover. But if he practices her sadhana without relating to what she exposes in us with integrity, he will simply be Vajrayogini’s Boy-Toy.

ASTROLOGICAL NOTE:

For those of you interested in astrology as a reflection of the karmic package one has brought into this lifetime, I have had a composite chart of “Alex” and Cleopatra, with whom he had a secret affair, drawn up. This composite chart describes their shared karma, both positive and negative.

Some readings for aspects [relationships betwen the planets in their composite chart], taken from the book Planets in Composite by Robert Hand, are offered below.

Composite Pluto Trine Composite Ascendent

The trine of Composite Pluto and Composite Ascendant indicates a very intense but constructive relationship. …Conssequently when things go wrong between you, the energies that are released are also very intense.
……
……

The two of you experience [basic goodness] as a way of [transforming] the everyday world [into enlightened society], which is the reason for your great intensity.

…This aspect [Composite Pluto trine Composite Ascendent] stimulates an interest in the mysteries of life, and you will see your relationship as one of those mysteries that must be comprehended.

Here is the reading for some of the challenges in the relationship between “Alex” and his version of Cleopatra:

The secrecy of the affair between Cleopatra and her doctor is now manifesting as being able to communicate with each other on subtle levels:

Composite Jupiter Opposition Composite Saturn

…As a couple, your desire to go out into the world, to be more positive and assertive, is always at war with your sense of caution and a need to be careful.

Cleopatra’s relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony had political elements. But with her doctor, there was no politics. Just heart. And a deep and abiding love and trust. He was her confidant. They were friends as well as lovers. These aspects now manifest in the following way:

Composite Jupiter Trine Composite Uranus

….you will be friends as well as lovers, which is a very good thing in a love relationship.

Composite Moon in the Ninth House

…Even if your backgrounds are quite different, communication between you will not be difficult.

Composite Moon Trine Composite Mercury

…you can communicate in a postive way about your feelings and opinions…which reinforces yoiur emotional compatibiility…There will be few barriers between you, at least as far as communication is concerned.

The unconventionality of the relationship between the queen and her doctor is now manifesting in the following way:

Composite Sun Conjunct Composite Ascendent

…You are not likely to bow to social pressures…the most important point about this relationship is that it will have considerable integrity. You will be true to yourselves, and that will certianly help to win you the admiration of others……

Composite Jupiter Trine Composite Uranus

…your relationship will not follow any established patterns…This aspect signified new and creative ways of doing things…. A love relationship with this aspect will not follow the established script…

How to purify the karma

How to work with this karma so that it is purified? One of the ways could be to consider Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s advice in his poem.

The SUN, the MOON, the RIVER

The Sakyong, Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche
Wales, June 2002, after seeing Antony & Cleopatra exhibition

A sharp moment is when someone
has told you the truth,
A dull moment is when you try to respond.
Being a lover — or trying to love —
is full of daydreaming.
When Cleopatra oozes her affection,
cuts it with her tempered wisdom,
And exclaims, “You are not worthy of love
and infatuation!”
That is the time that a thousand years of manhood,
A thousand years of history and foundation,
Come crumbling down.

Out of this rubble, arise with grace and integrity.
Don’t be bashful about your secret
and most hidden inhibitions,
For she is a woman and you are a man.
Power is with you — skill with her.
At this moment do not touch your wounded heart
or corrupt pride:
Put forth a face of gaiety and mirth.
Look at her — look at yourself,
For she sees you — now see her.

The Nile may be wide but parts are shallow —
Cross it when you can.
Don’t be foolish and drink this serpentine river,
For she will win, and you will lose.
Because change is her blood,
You must be like the desert and move
as the winds tell you.
This is a perpetual dance of mind and heart,
of soft and hard.
Don’t stand still:
The quicksand of discursive intention
Will make you sink.
……….
……….
Be the sun, brilliant and wise.
Let her be the moon, brilliant and clear.
Between the two, life can be interesting.

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My weblog is an in-depth look into the concept and experience of karma. So when I started to write this Relationship Series, I debated with myself whether to include the dream below.

It is raw. It is intimate. It is sensitive. It is erotic. I then realized that the dream, notwithstanding its appearance, is not primarily about sex. Instead, it illustrates the theme of unresolved issues around romance.

Feb 03, 2012 – I and Alex (fictional name) and are lying on a king-size bed together. We are in the middle of it. Fully clothed. I am propped up on my left arm facing Alex who is lying flat on his back. Our strong karmic connection with and affection for each other is obvious. Two other couples lie at each end of the bed, again fully clothed. I do not know who they are. They are lying still. But their affection for each other is obvious. Alex asks me “Why aren’t we together?” I reply “because I would never leave you.” He whispers “Oh God.” I lean down and kiss him. He doesn’t move. He says nothing. Then I put my head on his chest and simultaneously, I experience a feeling of sadness.

Life had been going along very well. I thought I knew who I was. Until this dream. It haunts me. Why? For the last three decades I have believed that my karmic path does not involve romance. The dream is saying that I have been mistaken. Oh-ooooooooh.

Here’s what the anatomy of one identity crisis looks like:

• Feb 01 — Have eye operations to remove cataracts.
• Feb 03 — Have this dream. Wonder about the timing of the dream. Given my eye operations, am I (figuratively speaking) seeing clearly now?
• Mar 22 — I meet one of my spiritual spouses for supper (please double click here to take you to my Glossary for a definition of  “spiritual spouse”) to discuss my dream. I’ve known him for 34 years. For the first time in our relationship he pins me down in a way he has not done before — “You’re a romantic Maggie.” He goes on to say:
  

Neither Alex nor his identity nor details of the dream are important here. Sex is merely the symbol the dream uses to point to the main message, which is that your long-held view of yourself has crumbled. This long-held view is that “romance-is-not-part-of-my-karmic-path.” There are unresolved issues around romance that you have to resolve now. If you don’t resolve them,  you will maintain your karmic patterns. You have shut off that part of yourself. This dream has administered a shock to you. But you were ready for the shock. That’s why it has been so effective.

• The message of the dream haunts me to the point that

(1) on Mar 21st my crystal mala breaks — this symbolizes to me that my identity (how I think of myself) has fallen apart; and

(2) on Mar 24th I go the wrong way on a one-way street.

• Mar 23 —  I have an appointment with my health practitioner, another of my spiritual spouses.  His suggestions are the same: focus on the main message of the dream, not Alex, not the details of the dream itself.
• Mar 31  — Meet a trusted girlfriend for coffee and muffins – “girltalk” is fun and light, but also serious. Helpful. “Ride the energy and drop the storyline,” she suggests.  My women friends have a different perspective than my spiritual spouses. Both are valuable.
  
• Apr 01 — April Fool’s Day – Cry.
• Apr 02 — Send my health practitioner an e-mail. He gives me an appointment that day. When I arrive, I announce to him that I must be delusional. While I realize that I am being ”thoroughly processed” as it is known in the dharma teachings, I am panicking. Actually, it’s just that I, like Humpty Dumpty, have taken a fall off the apparently solid wall (wall symbolizes who I think I am; my identity) on which I had been sitting for many years. The rug has been pulled out from under my storyline which could be expressed as “romance-is-not-part-of-my-karmic-path.”

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

But this time I do not rush to “recover.” As frightening and painful as what I am experiencing is, I don’t want to re-cover. I want to manifest as who I actually am. (Double click here to review my previous post about Humpty Dumpty.) I don’t want ego to be put back together again.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humtpy Dumpty together again.

Notwithstanding the fact that we do not focus on Alex or any particular detail in the dream, at this appointment my health practitioner and I discuss the detail of my kissing Alex. To me the kiss  (as a symbol)  “seals the deal.” But what deal? It is not clear in the dream, except that it is an acknowlegement of our connectedness. So what kind of relationship would I like with Alex, my health practitioner asks? Given the latent eroticism of the dream, my  reply surprises him:

As long as I can spend time with him I don’t care if he just wants to walk around the city or read the newspaper and drink tea together. Whatever suits him suits me. In other words, for me it’s choiceless in the best sense of that word — heart trumps ego. But I do miss the relationship we had many years ago where we could chat on any topic in a no-holds-barred way. In the dream as soon as I say “I’ll never leave you,” Alex figuratively goes to sleep. In other words, he does not want to relate directly to my answer. He prefers to use the king-size bed to sleep, not make love. In other words, not only is the nature of our relationship not clear in the dream — it is not clear in “real life” either. In the meantime, I have to go on with my life.

Before I leave the appointment, my health practitioner gives me excellent suggestions around practices that deal specifically with intense emotions (kleshas). Another suggestion involves the concept of “offering.”

Don’t resist anything that arises in my mind, he says. Instead, offer it all to the lineage, the three roots, the buddha, dharma and sangha. To others who are not Shambhala Buddhists, they may think of it as offering to the universe. It doesn’t matter. Just offer.

• April 04 — I weigh myself at my fitness club before taking aquafit class. I have lost 15 pounds in three weeks. That evening, I attend the events around the 25th anniversary of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s parinirvana. In one of the film clips we see to honour Rinpoche, he says
  

  Go out and fall in love…..with something.

Never let it be said that I don’t follow the command of my guru!

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“The main point is to have a heart! If you don’t have a heart, you have to build one. If you need further reinforcements, take a piece of my heart. You have it. It is yours.” (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche)

In Part Two of this Relationship Series, we discussed “falling in love.”

Today’s post is about love.

Me: I gather that love comes out of primordial\ultimate basic goodness. But how can we relate to it on the relative plane? The use of the word “love” seems to be so abused at this point [as to render it almost meaningless]. We have “bought into” a lot of the ceremonies that our society has taught us about “love.”

Your most intimate relationship is the one you have with your thoughts. The way you relate to your thoughts determines everything else in your life, and in particular how you relate to other people. If you believe [grasp onto, fixate on] your stressful thoughts, your life is filled with stress. But if you question [examine] your thoughts, you come to love your life and everyone in it. <source: Byron Katie: I Need Your Love — is that true?>

… includes an exercise that allows you to discover what your experience of love really is [beyond the baggage] — an experience that doesn’t disappear and doesn’t depend on anything or anyone outside you.

Throughout the book we’ll be inqiring into some painful and universally held thoughts about relationships, and we’ll be finding out if they are really true.

Some think that dealing with the nitty-gritty of the baggage takes away from the “romantic” or potentially romantic quality of a personal relationship.

There is nothing as delicious as falling in love, and nothing as devastating as falling out of love.  When this happens, we have a unique opportunity to open more fully to our experience and to more complete relationships with others. This requires that we step out of the “pseudo-religion” of romantic love so prevalent in our western culture and engage in the real romance of care for another person. (source: Judith Simmer Brown)

To be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart; without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability, your warriorship is untrustworthy. – Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

But I have been suspicious of “falling in love” because I have at times embraced the negative connotation. This produced a struggle between my genuine nature as a romantic on the one hand and my concept of falling in love on the other.

The Negative Romantic: But it’s also a kind of madness if based on projections and fantasies. We build on the fantasy. It’s not real. We are projecting what we want the other person to be. We are the director and star of our own movie! Passion and aggression work together here — passion fuels the fantasies and aggression pushes away anything that would make the romantic question their fanatasies. We are “in love” with a projection, not the real person.  A heavy dualistic picture emerges that makes the fantasy even more solid. This produces a struggle. The struggle leads to further aggression. <Judith Simmer-Brown>

I should hasten to add that I do not think that choice has anything to do with falling in love. To me, it’s choiceless. Based on karma.

Genuine love on the other hand involves choices. Unlike falling in love (the negative type as described above), it takes courage, bravery and an ability to smile at fear because it involves a conscious intention to go beyond our default position of operation, namely, ego.

Some sources for futher reading:

http://tinyurl.com/y748k5z

http://tinyurl.com/75hbag8

I’m starting a series today about relationships because nothing touches us more deeply. At the same time, nothing gives us a better opportunity to discover and understand our own basic goodness and that of others.

The first realization on the Buddhist path is our own emptiness — we look at the self and find nothing permanent. The next step is the egolessness of other, says Sakyong Mipham, and the way we discover it, interestingly, is through love and compassion.

People sometimes ask me why I’m not in a “relationship.” I’m surprised! I have lots of relationships. So does everyone. It’s choiceless. If you’re a human being, you have relationships.  “Oh, I don’t mean just any relationship,” they say. “I mean a romantic one.”

My reply:

First, when someone whispers sweet nothings in my ear, I don’t feel comfortable saying “I’m sorry. I have a hearing loss in that ear and can’t hear you!” As we all know, sweet nothings are meant to be whispered. Not shouted. I suppose I could put my hearing aid in, but that’s probably not very romantic. And it would take time. Maybe he would forget what he was going to say in the first place, especially if he is as old as I am! (to hear the song Sweet Nothings by Brenda Lee, click here please.)

Second, I’m a light sleeper. I awaken several times during the night and have had to train myself to go back to sleep. I did this by listening to books-on-tape. I fall asleep listening to a story. My ex-husband and I were able to spend some time together before he died at age 61. When we turned out the lights at night, he used to say to me “OK Marg, what bedtime story are we going to listen to tonight?”

On a little more serious note:

I wear the wedding band given to me by my late ex-husband a few years before he died, not because I am clinging to “us,” but because it sends a perspective that I embrace, namely, that I’m not looking for love. I am love. I am basic goodness. So are you.

Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it—that you are it. (Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is)

Relationship “ceremonies” can cover up our own basic goodness like clouds cover the sun:

We engage in ceremonies of all kinds everyday. For example, brushing one’s teeth is a ceremony.

But not all the ceremonies are harmless. We’ve “bought into” a ceremony in our society that involves the categorization-in-stone of personal relationships, for example:

•  friends with sex
• friends without sex (“platonic”)
• spiritual spouses
  
• romantic
• serious
• recreational
• between “exes”
• an affair
• marriage
  

etc. etc. etc.

The thing that all these relationships have in common? They are not solid or self-existing  So we could try to relate to each other in terms of that fact, rather than in terms of iron-clad categories.  I think we would have much more uplifted and healthy lives.

I like to try to see relationships outside categories altogether. In other words, they don’t have to have labels. A relationship, in other words, could be that which goes beyond categories altogether. That is the relationship. As the expression goes “It is what it is.”

There would be many benefits to having relationships-beyond-categories. Just one benefit is that we aren’t under such stress about whether it’s going to “work out.” That implies there is a goal in mind. Perhaps we could have relationships without goals, something like taking a Journey Without Goal.

The Europeans, to me, have a much more mature view of relationships.

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Olympus, a friend of mine since 1969, moves into a rather rough area of his city in the early Autumn of 2011, an area where you do not go out after dark unless you have a car. And even then, you still have to get from your apartment to your car and vice versa.

He walks outside onto the street one day — and sees the same thing the Buddha saw when he took a stroll for the first time outside his palace grounds over 2,500 years ago! Suffering of all kinds. People poorly dressed, without boots and wearing thin clothing [ it's now the middle of winter]. Those who are seriously suffering around mental health issues and addictions. Or, to quote the words of a buddhist chant:

An evil time, when relatives quarrel,
When people dress sloppily in clothes of rags,
Eating bad, cheap food,
…………………

Olympus’ experience of their suffering is raw.  He wants to run back into his apartment.

I think about the practices of wishing health and well-being to others. In other words, he can use his experience of rawness created by the suffering of others to change the default setting from thinking about himself and his own concerns to thinking about others.

If you want to be miserable, think about yourself. If you want to be happy, think about others. <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche>

I write to Olympus about this:

Continuing our discussion of this evening……..

I was thinking on my way home tonight after our discussion about your saying you “try to be open” when you see suffering in its all its rawness in your neighbourhood.

I don’t.

I find it works better to simply be compassionately aware of how closed\fearful I am at any given moment, rather than try to be open. The repeated awareness eventually works its magic.

It helps, at least for me, when I am walking outside, to remember phrases like

• “All sentient beings have been my mothers;”
• “Put that mind of fearfulness in the cradle of lovingkindness;”
• I say to each being I pass “I wish you happiness and all causes of happiness.” and
• “This is what the Buddha saw when he walked outside his palace one day.”

I recommend using [aspiration practice; offering compassion to others] as an on-the-spot practice. …For one thing, there is never any lack of subject matter. When a strong unwanted feeling arises or we see someone hurting, there is nothing theortetical about what we’ll use to practice…Daily-life practice is never abstract. As soon as uncomfortable emotions come up…we extend our thoughts and concern to other people who feel the same discomfort…with the wish that all of us could be free of this… <source: Chapter 9>