In modern times, managing relationship (personal bonding/commitment/marriage) till your death has almost become another vital objective in your life’s CV. The culture of casual sex, tinder dates and impulsive loyalty is somewhat spiraling down the axioms of consecrating relationship(s). Well, yeah, individual choice and personal volition matters a lot, but why do we see a systematic increment in the divorce cases, separation and disloyalty these days? The answer to this question must be endowed in the basics and fundamentals of the relationship management.
I am not a proponent of any sociological and psychological theory of love and sex, neither a counselor but it amazes my observation that love has almost become a luxury in today’s epoch of conspicuous bonding, public display affection and impatient individualism. This blog is not a normative one so please think more empirically in terms of relationships.
In my view, the goal of relationship should be staying mindful than mindless. Mindfulness is a Buddhist theory that teaches us to: 1) stay conscious, 2) being aware and 3) attaining enlightenment through realization, experience and observation. It is not a stage to reach, but a process to facilitate continuously with the intent to emancipate ourselves from the rat race of suffering, anxiety and other human weaknesses. Thus, one can rise in love (not fall in love) with his/her partner when one is already in self-compassion (not narcissism). Failing which the selfless ‘WE’ would transcend by selfish ‘ME’, if not rotated 180 degree.
The root cause of modern relationships is embodied in HOW we train our mind and conscience (soul or heart) without knowing WHY, for doing bonding and empathy. When one is not in charge of his own neurons, the collective consciousness desired in the relationship is vulnerable to collapse. Thence, we see ‘marginal utilization’ over emotions, sex and commitment. Another root cause in the parallel dimension of the relationship is addiction to ‘attachment’ and ‘expectations’. The “philosophy of taking” supersedes the “philosophy of giving” to such a huge extent that little do we realize that human life is not an infinite phenomenon on this temporary planet.
If your relationship gives you more anxiety, stress, emotional and physical suffering, do not change the partner so easily (unless it affects your modus vivendi) but change the thoughts that strike you down. You know, we do not throw away the toy. We must instead repair it (just like how Japanese Buddhists propounded Kintsugi; a lovely metaphor for human growth and relationship repair i.e. “As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise”). It’s the practice of painting the seams gold to celebrate where it once broke.
I know at times you would feel devalued, disrespected and ‘taken for granted’ but just because your partner is mindless towards you does not give you the right to detach from your objective of achieving mindfulness. If you can recollect the first lesson (4 noble truth) given by Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha) on the issue of ‘suffering’, he ratiocinated that: 1) there is an end to suffering and 2) there is a way to overcome suffering. The right way to end suffering inside yourself, first, starts with acceptance and admission of the fact that is ‘life is suffering’ and with the help of Vipassana technique one can overcome the suffering within oneself (so as to make others’ suffer less) by practicing mindful thoughts, mindful actions, mindful efforts, mindful focus, mindful livelihood and mindful speech.
So, without ship (yourself), the captain’s (you) is incomplete. And, nevertheless, a stable sea has never created an efficient and a smart captain. Invest your time and energy in calming down thyself, not the storm. The storm will anyway pass sooner or later. Most of us ‘focus’ on externalities than ‘working’ on internal dimensions, thus we fail to acknowledge the root cause of our troubles. Everything starts and ends in the mind because “mind is everything” (Buddha’s quote).
