Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
Last month’s essay on love (which was supposed to have the parenthetical title “Love”) lacked a crucial statement: A Buddhist goes into love knowing it can be a primary source of suffering, or changes her feelings of love towards an individual into compassion for all. A tall order, in either case. A middle way might be to love an individual knowing it might lead to suffering and also to be compassionate to all, including oneself. Again, very difficult. In all cases, a glimpse, at least, into Amida’s mirror of wisdom and compassion is in order.
I went to Tower Records the other day, and as I was looking through the Broadway musicals section I saw a CD titled, “I love you; you’re perfect. Now change!” That reminded me of Mark Twain’s observation on marriage to the effect that men get married thinking or hoping that their wives will not change, while women get married thinking they will change their husbands. We can use the musical’s title for both situations; husbands saying, “I love you; you’re perfect (don’t change);” wives, “I love you; you’re perfect. Now change!” Of course, from the Buddhist point of view, both are living in delusion. The husbands are unwilling to accept the fact that everything changes, including their wives. So when she puts on a little more weight with every passing year, a few more wrinkles, more white hair, he might become dissatisfied, obviously not seeing that the same thing is happening to himself, maybe worse. Wives, on the other hand, want their husbands to change to fit their own images of what a good husband should be like. When he doesn’t change in the way she would have him, she might become dissatisfied, not seeing that maybe she is the one who should change. Both, then, are, as stated above, living in delusion. Love is not a simple thing, is it?
When we think about it, we might think, How in the world is it possible to love someone? I might be mistaken but I think it was Erich Fromm who said something to the effect that we can love someone only to the extent we can love ourselves. Whoever said it, it makes sense. To put it into a broader sense, we might say, we can accept another only to the extent we are able to accept ourselves. In the Jodo Shinshu way of seeing, we can accept ourselves – love ourselves – only insofar as we know ourselves through Amida’s wisdom and compassion. It is Shinjin that enables us to know ourselves without delusion and, hence, to accept ourselves as we are, and, finally, to love ourselves – and others – as we are, which is not to say we might not change. That would be up to our karma.
Gassho,
Donkon Jaan, Rev. John Doami
