Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
No
It’s not because I’m now too old,
More wizened than you guess…
If I say no, it’s only
Because I fear that yes
Would bring me nothing, in the end,
But a fiercer loneliness.
Lady Ki no Washika
8th Century
Translated from the Japanese by Graeme Wilson
Love is a strange kind of thing. Usually, if not always - no, usually - love is a positive thing, a positive feeling. But if you’ve ever thought about it, you’ll know that there seem to be many different kinds of love: romantic love, parental love, puppy love, brotherly love (and, I suppose, sisterly love, although I can’t recall that usage), the closely related love for one’s fellow beings, and that old, old one, true love. I guess there’s also a false love, since there’s a true love; otherwise, why call it “true” love? There are probably several other kinds of love, but you get the idea.
Valentine’s Day, I assume, is THE day for “true” love, which is why this is being written. Maybe it’s the day only for romantic, not necessarily true, love. The two are similar, but it seems to me that romantic love is often of shorter duration than what is called true love. It’s probably how most marriages begin. If the marriage lasts, that romantic love changes either into a deeper love for each other or, unfortunately, either indifference or hatred. Too many marriages continue more because of inertia and, maybe, fear, than because of love. What a cynic, huh? Or should that be pessimist?
The poem quoted above, by Lady Ki no Washika, is, in some senses, an enlightened way of seeing love; at the very least, it is a way of seeing that only someone who has gone through it can understand. It is a way of seeing of one who has loved and lost. This is why the Buddha taught that love can be a source of suffering.
It is not necessary that you lose, either to another person or to death, the one you love. Think about it. If the person whom you love changes in a way that is alien to you, you have lost that person. If either you or the other person grows in maturity and one of you cannot keep up in that growth, you have lost that person; or that person has lost you. Knowing that any one of these situations, and many others as well, might occur and still “taking a chance on love,” as the song goes, is probably the only way one can continue to love. Actually, it is probably the case that we cannot help “falling” in love. The question, perhaps, is whether we should pursue that love, knowing it might cause suffering.
Much of living is making choices, which is the essence of karma. Whether we choose to do something which is likely to cause suffering, whether our own or of others, we can think of the act of choosing as at the center of Buddhist ethics. However, we need to understand from the very beginning that this is not an easy task. Even if we were able always to decide to do the right thing, not only decide but indeed do the right thing, it might not bring us any closer to enlightenment. The first problem, of course, is how do we know what is right? Shinran confessed that he was unable to discern what was right or wrong. It is simply not as easy as we might think.
Think about it.
Gassho,
Donkon Jaan, Rev. John Doami
