Category — relationships

click on image to read entire article, which begins like this:

Sadly, and to my horror, I am divorcing. This was a 20-year partnership. My husband is a good man,
though he did travel 20 weeks a year for work. I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to
monogamy, at the very end, came unglued. This turn of events was a surprise.
It pisses me off for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on. Nothing whatsoever to do with ethics or values. Something to do with how a person understands their own heart and the expectations they place on the heart of another.

I just learned that a friend friends of a friend are getting married. Congratulations, Ethan Kirsten and Kyle! This inspired me to look for an article I wrote for the Shambhala Sun. It’s about what we’re really committing to when we get into a relationship.

I Do?

This past summer, I went to a meditation retreat center to practice for several weeks together with my community. At dinner on the first evening, I struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me. He looked to be in his early 60s and I found out that he was a longtime student of Buddhism. We told each other a bit about ourselves, including what we did for work, if either was married, had a family, etc. He was wondering about moving in with his new girlfriend—much younger than he, more enthusiastic about living together than he, hoping, he feared, for what we all eventually discover is impossible—to stabilize a relationship. He was also concerned about giving up his solitude and really didn’t know how long he would want the relationship to continue. Given all this, should they live together, could this work, he asked? I was totally ready with “I have no idea” when a voice popped into my head and said, “Of course it can work. As long as you don’t expect it to make you happy.” So I reported these words and we had a moment.  We were kind of embarrassed—yes, Buddhists are supposed to know that craving creates suffering, but I guess we still secretly hoped that a relationship would make us happy, if only we could get the circumstances just right.

My new pal and I talked about this, how relationships can blind us to the dharma quicker than anything. As we said goodbye and I watched him walk away, I wanted to call out “don’t be afraid to tell yourself the truth about relationships.” And then I wondered, well what is the truth, exactly? Do I really believe they’re not supposed to make you happy? And when we long for a lasting relationship (as most people I know do), why do we forget that craving creates suffering?

When my husband and I began talking about getting married, we covered lots of topics: who would marry us, who to invite, what to wear, whether or not we would be able to convince our favorite Cajun band to learn “Hava Nagila.” (We were. Shout out to Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys.)

Then the most important question came up: what would we say to each other to mark this commitment? What were our intentions and which words expressed them best?

We spent time reading various liturgies, Buddhist and otherwise, and talking about what we liked and disliked at other people’s weddings. As we read the words thousands and millions of other couples had spoken to each other, I became increasingly uncomfortable. Most of them ended with “I do.” I do…what? Marriage is a commitment to share love, have sex, and try to stay together with this one person, right?

Well maybe, but I couldn’t promise to do these things. I knew I couldn’t say, “I do” to love—feelings change and keep changing, and so on. I also knew I couldn’t say yes to wanting to have sex with him for the rest of my life—desire is unpredictable. And ask him to commit to me? Which me? I couldn’t commit to remaining the same me—I wouldn’t. So if you can’t say yes to love, sex, or remaining the one each fell in love with—what are you agreeing to when you commit to a relationship?

It’s just now, eight years later, that I’m finding out what—apparently—I said yes to.

I said yes to the unfolding, impenetrable arc of uncertainty. I guess I thought that finding love was an end point, that some kind of search was over and I would find home.  We would leap over the threshold together into whatever we imagined our ideal cottage to be. But really we stepped through a crazy looking-glass. No matter how hard we tried, how madly in love we were, or how skillfully we planned our life together, there was complete uncertainty about what the connection would feel like from day to day. I could give all the love I had (with great joy) and get back a blank stare. I could wake up as my crankiest, most sullen and narcissistic self, roll over, and greet the face of unconditional acceptance. Or not. It’s like the weather: you can try to read the signs and guess about atmospheric conditions, but really there’s no telling. As far as I can see, this never changes; the relationship never stabilizes, ever. In which case you can’t actually promise each other anything. This is how it works. I have no idea why. But like when I’m listening to a meteorologist explain why it’s going to rain, I think, “Who cares? I’m just trying to figure out what outfit to wear today.”

It seems that I committed to a lifetime of delight and sadness, inseparable from each other. Every time I look into my dear one’s eyes and feel how deeply we’re connected, the moment disappears before I can actually hold it—and I have to watch it do so. It’s excruciating. It’s much easier to do this with your thoughts on a meditation cushion than with the feeling you get from his breath on your shoulder as you fall asleep. But now I get that I have to repeat this until the end of my life and that somehow this is love’s road.

I wish I had known that when you live with someone for a long time, there is continuous, mind-blowing irritation. (Okay I did know this, but I forgot.) Often the irritation arises when you try to replace your actual partner with a projection of a partner instead. They always figure out a way to tell you how unlike your projection they really are, which, once you pick yourself up, gives you yet another opportunity to choose between who this person is and who you sort of hoped he was. No matter how many times I prompt my husband with the correct lines for his role, he does not get into character. This irritates me. We have to throw away the script and just begin to improvise. You’re playing you and I’m playing me. Go.

I didn’t really understand that love does not arise, abide, or dissolve in connection with any particular feeling. It has almost nothing to do with feeling. (Nor does it seem to be a gesture, a commitment to stay, becoming best friends, or anything else I might have thought.) Love has become a container in which we live. Through time and riding mysterious waves of passion, aggression, and ignorance (and boredom), I think we began to live within love itself. At least I did. Each time I opened up, extended myself, accepted what was being offered to me, stepped beyond my comfort zone to embrace him, the structure was reinforced. I no longer have any idea if I love my husband or not. I can’t imagine what the feelings I have for him could be called. I’ve even given up trying to love him. Our relationship is what gives us love, not the other way around. This is how it is.

And of course you’re saying “I do” to goodbye. This bond will end. Hello can only mean goodbye, one way or another. Some relationships are just mistakes. Or people grow and change. Relationships can crater and nobody knows why. And if all else fails, certainly at death we will part. Saul Bellow once called this acknowledgment “the black backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all” and isn’t that just the key to the whole thing. The deeper our connection becomes, the more I know the reality of its ending, the more passionately I’m able to feel his touch. I know this even when I hate him (and he can really be an asshole—I’m not kidding) and when I love him so much that I plead for the opportunity to be married for all our lifetimes.

Each time my love expands by a molecule, it grows a same-sized molecule of sorrow. The more I love, the edgier it all feels, and the more courage is required. Where one gets this courage, I really don’t know. Surprisingly, it just seems to be there. And if you’re looking for a crucible in which to heat compassion, this is a really good one. Someone once told me that compassion is the ability to hold love and pain together in the same moment. So at least we’re learning something, which is what I tell myself. It sort of helps, but not really.

Maybe everything I’ve said is wrong; that’s totally possible. It’s just what I’ve learned. And here’s something else I’ve learned about a relationship: Okay, so it’s not what you think it’s going to be, the feelings are always changing, and you’re going to have to say goodbye someday.  But when you find your true love, there is something inside that simply and inexplicably says hello to him. Yes to him. Of course to him. Certainly. Obviously, it’s you. There is no choice. I do.

Sorry I haven’t posted in so long! Have been toooo busy. I hate being busy. But between consulting work, revising new book, and hair appointments, haven’t had a moment.

A consulting gig has been taking me to the Bay Area every 10 days or so and while last there was on a local ABC show, discussing “The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say ‘I Do.’” Enjoy my awesome outfit.

My friend Sarah ingeniously outlines them this way. Check out her blog for more such Sarah-ness.

Here are the phases as I see it…

1) The Break-up/Emotional Thrombosis/International Freak-out
Whatever, that’s like a month to 6 weeks of hell, panic, devastation. All you have to do is survive and lean on your friends and family as much as possible. I just felt like the world had kicked me out and I was all alone in Queens.  Anyone willing to listen was truly a lifeboat for me.

2) Mourning
So now you’re 2 months in and something has to motivate you to not react so hard to the outside world and what it’s throwing at you.  Instead you do the opposite and drop inside of yourself to look for the answers.  This is around the time I read your blog.  It gave me that bit of altitude I needed to be like “Oh sad?  Ok, I can do sad.  I hate it, but I can do it.”  But the key for me was really investigating the sadness.  I was finally seeing the need to unbundle all of the stories and feelings, take what was valuable and release what wasn’t.  That seemed freaking impossible, but that’s where meditation came in.  I wasn’t doing Metta yet, but I do think I did my own weird versions.  So much of the journaling was just notes to myself to freaking hang in there.  I made a decision that whenever one of my cry-fests was about to come up, I wouldn’t push it down or just start in one of my re-run stories about what happened with us.  I would drop whatever I was doing, get in my bed and cry my face off until it passed.  I even left meetings at work to lay on my office floor for a few minutes and cry it out.  Gosh, you basically have to develop a split personality for a bit to pull yourself through.  Journaling is interesting here and I wonder if you’re right about the writer thing. Although I never consider it “Writing”.  It was basically heart nonsense that needed some air.  But I do know people who are opposed to journaling when a shrink has suggested it.  It’s actually troubling for them.  I think you should definitely recommend it, but make clear that it in no way needs to be valid “writing”.  It should be there purely as a friend.

3) Take your heartbreak on the road. 4-6 months in and ongoing;-)
I think you eventually have to leave the cocoon you built for yourself, while being mindful that you’re in a fragile place.  Your heart is sort of brand new if you’ve done the work right.  I was at meditation classes and getting involved in charities.  I went out on a date, (mehhh), but I went!  Oh, I did your writers retreat.  I started my blog. Got a trainer.  It was a hard time, but this year has been the most in-touch with myself that I have ever been.  I would have preferred to learn the lessons in a far less painful way, but what are you going to do. I’m reading this freaking awesome book, “The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”.  The first line from one of the chapters is so perfect I can’t stand it, “It’s never the changes we want that change everything”  Pfff, word.  Welcome to break-ups;-)

Oh!  remember when you sent me an email months ago about how to deal with my ex-boyfriend flare-ups.  I was feeling so tight and angry, meditating felt impossible.  You recommend that instead of focusing on the in and out, turn my attention to the actual feeling over and over.  Let it burn itself up.  That was soooo helpful Susan.  I used that a lot to move in to my stage 3.

Anyway, this is way too much.  But thank you for support and kind words.  I think “groundless” is the word of choice when it comes to post break-up experiences. Somedays I feel all kinds of freedom and hope. The other days the groundlessness is just scary.  But I really believe there is no other way. If I thought telling him off would work, believe me, I would have done it;-)

Keep the faith!

How Can I Heal a Broken Heart?

For Beliefnet

Photo by Ming

My beautiful friend Dana got married to the excellent Saxon and she asked me to say something during the ceremony. What could be a greater honor? And what can one possible say to mark something as momentously insanse and fabulous as getting married? Here is the poem I wrote:

For you, under an open sky without beginning or end, I rouse a mind of sadness and delight, inseparable from each other.

Ki Ki! So So!

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Article in New Orleans Times-Picayune, in which I was quoted.

An article in the upcoming issue of

“We’re So Close, It’s Lonely”

Click on this nutty illustration of me to read this essay on loneliness in intimate relationships.

In the beginning, I took the teacher as teacher,
In the middle, I took the scriptures as teacher,
In the end, I took my own mind as teacher.

–From Journey to Enlightenment, pictorial biography of Dilgo Khyenste Rinpoche

Relationships are lonely. Even good ones. My relationship with my husband is lonely. My relationship with my guru is lonely. They’re the same kind of lonely—I have no idea what either of them is really talking about. And these are the good relationships. I really love them both, but in both cases the relationship is planted somewhere just outside my capacity for understanding. The only thing I know is that I’m no longer in a relationship with a person (husband or teacher). I’m in a relationship with a relationship. Which doesn’t really care what I have to say, particularly. So I just wait for it to tell me what to do.

The other day, we had a fight. (My husband and me, not my teacher and me) It was a bad one. Super bad. Bad like leaving-the-house-at-1AM-to-go-sleep-on-the-couch-in-my-office bad. It’s so cliché to say I can’t even remember what it was about, but I sort of can’t. Well maybe I can, but just don’t want to believe that something so unbelievably stupid (someone not telling someone else that they bought a new camera, for example; I mean it only cost $200 and I needed it for work) could cause two normally sane people to absolutely lose their minds and jump all up and down yelling at each other. I mean for goodness sake.

I was so depressed by this argument. I drug myself home at 6AM, dreading seeing him, but also hoping I would so he could see that I was still ignoring him. As I let myself in and walked up the stairs to our bedroom, he was exiting the shower, towel around his waist. His hair was wet and smelled like drugstore pineapple. His bare chest looked kind of dewy and sweet, not at all like the chest of someone you’d hate. Although I was still angry, I could see that he no longer was. (When he blows up in anger his emotions metabolize and become digestible—he feels better after a “good” fight. For me, a fight is like getting socked in the head, the kind of punch that at first you can’t even feel how much it hurts and then throbs for days…) He came toward me and held his palms up in an unreadable gesture. My palms spontaneously rose to mirror his, whether to stop him from coming closer or to hold him to me, I also couldn’t tell. Back off. Come here. It didn’t matter which one I did, because in that moment, I realized I was trapped. I couldn’t push him away, nor could I hold him close enough. I couldn’t keep him at bay because our lives are no longer two separate-but-parallel tracks as they were when we began living together. No. We’re living one life together. I don’t know at what moment this happened, but something invisible pushed us into a single life. We must have held each other one too many times. Inhaled each other’s breath while falling asleep one too many times. Had the same fight, kissed the same kiss, exchanged the same glance, eaten off the same plate one too many times. Our bodies and hearts have re-formed into cutouts that can only hold the other. From this realization and from the sight of his bare chest and the scent of his pineapple hair, I wanted to open to him, to hold him close just because for whatever mysterious reason, the mere sight of him touches me so much.

But no embrace will ever really satisfy. I could never hold him close enough for him to actually know me; he would never know what it felt like for me to do this, why I was doing it, or to recognize the sequence of thoughts and feelings that led to this opening. I saw the depth of our connection and the simultaneous inability to know each other. He must feel the same exact way, I thought as I pulled him close. Very lonely. And, I realized, the closer we got, the more shocking and painful it would be to still not really know each other.

***

In my spiritual practice as a Buddhist, I’ve been encouraged to open myself to spiritual wisdom, to the kind of knowing that goes beyond the conventional mind. I’ve made a commitment to this effort and have taken many vows, taken on demanding meditation practices, and even found a guru, something I had always scoffed at as an excuse made by the lily-livered to forego adult responsibility. But when you find your teacher, it isn’t all that different than finding your husband. On one hand, you are bowled over by the extraordinary fact of their very existence and how profoundly and unquestioningly you love them, but on the other, during the first-blush phase, you look at them and go, “that’s it?” Still, as both relationships progress, your beloved becomes both more familiar and more mysterious as time goes on. You question the vows you made. Some days they seem outrageous, impossible (I said I’d always love you?) and on others their true meaning deepens beyond what you had originally imagined.

If the marriage vow is to love, the vow to the guru is to open your self to his instruction and influence. It’s very scary. But here’s the funny part. It’s way more complicated than doing 100 Hail Marys or 100,000 prostrations just because he told you to. At some point, the guru enters your mind. It’s impossible to describe this. It begins with simply recalling his verbal instructions when you sit down to do your meditation practice (“make awareness itself the object of your meditation”), then graduates to unbidden reminders as you go through the day (you’re about to give the finger to the guy who just cut you off in traffic, but suddenly remember your teacher saying, “regard all beings as your mother,” which is a guru-way of saying, please don’t flip people off). But at some point, you stop hearing the teacher speak to you in his voice and you start hearing him speak in yours. I think. It’s very hard to know. But what seems to happen is, because he is your guru, you have somehow always known him. It’s sort of like, as a grownup, still hearing your mother’s voice when you’re about to take the last piece of pie (“haven’t you already had two pieces?”) only he says things like, “regard all dharmas as dreams,” and “the mind is empty and luminous.” The more you relax your mind, the more you practice, the more kinds of wisdom energies begin to manifest themselves in your existence. These energies are variously described as self-existing wisdom, Buddhas of wisdom, bodhisattvas of compassion, and, of course, as Susan Piver, if you happen to be Susan Piver.

But are the Buddhas and bodhisattvas really there? Do they know me? How will I ever know them? Am I inviting them or rejecting them? I have no idea. Sometimes I think I’m in a relationship with them, sometimes I don’t. I can feel that the longer I practice, the more something happens, but I’m not really sure what that something is. I used to simply go to dharma talks and then try to practice what I’d been taught. I still try to do this. But just as often, these days I get my practice instructions from Aerosmith songs or an overheard conversation on the train. There’s nothing mysterious about it—I’m just listening to my iTunes or going to work and suddenly something clicks, like, “it’s really true—I don’t exist.” I don’t know where it comes from. Everything starts to sound like the teacher’s voice and all I know is that my efforts to connect more deeply with him have become much more dreamlike and difficult to differentiate from my own mind. It’s very personal. Intimate. Lonely. Just like my husband stepping out of the shower with pineapple dewdrops in his hair, my teacher steps out of my own mindstream, palms held up in an equally inscrutable gesture. Communications are taking place in a way I no longer understand. These two individuals have taken root within my mind and speak to me in their own curious language, using my mind as their voice. Some days I can make out what they’re saying and on others it sounds like complete gibberish. The last thing I can share with either of them is what it’s like to be with them. It’s just too intimate to describe. Both relationships are teaching me something, but I can no longer understand the instructions. Still, learning occurs.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to friend of mine, also a practitioner, but from a different lineage. He was telling me that nowadays, his meditation practice consists of getting up in the morning, going to his cushion, and just sitting there. He basically tries not to do anything at all. To relate to the teachings, there are no longer any rules to follow such as “place attention on the breath” or “visualize an open sky.” Just like me, he doesn’t really know what to do anymore. He can’t go back to following a set of practice instructions, nor is there a new set to jump forward into. There is only space and the feeling of groundlessness. In his tradition, he says, this stage of spiritual development is called “stupefaction.” This is where no one can tell you what to do anymore, no one but your guru, who somehow can never be found, yet is everywhere. All I can do is listen, without knowing what listening looks like. Some kind of dialogue is taking place beyond my radar. No one will ever know what this is like for me. Not even me.