In Tibet, they believe that it is possible to foresee, at the beginning of a relationship, how it will unfold, what it will accomplish, and how it will end. If two people can consciously examine this at the beginning, the relationship plays out naturally and peacefully, as roles that once served a purpose fade when needs change.
My relationship of six months, which fulfilled a deep purpose when it began, is winding down. I knew in the beginning that our relationship would be temporary and shared this knowledge with my partner. As our paths diverge, our puzzle pieces seem more incongruous every day. Now… the fading. Roles shift, but the love remains.
At the same time, I notice a swelling of love on the horizon, something glowing brightly in the distance. I sense it growing, as if I were riding alone on horseback through empty fields and prairies under cold moonlight, and my journey was taking me towards a vast city of light. I can feel the warmth of it on my skin as I come closer.
Last weekend, I went dancing and bumped into a man (a.k.a., Andrew) who had once given me a glimpse of what a partner could be like. I remember the night I met him, in November of last year. My Buddhist love brought him to my house, and we watched a movie together. The moment he entered my house, a calm elation filled me, a gentleness, a kinship. We spoke all night about love and relationships. I showed him my books and tarot cards, and we sat on my living room floor as I opened the box under my altar, sharing its contents as though we were children examining treasures in a treehouse. My time with him felt so sacred. I had not seen him since that night.
When I returned home from dancing, I was overtaken with the glow on the horizon, as if all the light of that city suddenly swooped into my room and enveloped me. All I could think was, “What is this? What is this?” Imagery, visual and tactile and emotional, entered my being as though I were watching a movie, a love scene unlike anything I had ever imagined. I thought, “My god, this is what it feels like to be passionately loved.”
Can you imagine the love you want? Are you sure?
Like seeing a new color or tasting a new exotic fruit, I realized this flavor of love had never touched my tongue before. We are all so worried about pleasing a romantic partner, about being wanted and accepted, desired and chosen. As if capturing romantic love involves winning a contest. This love did not feel won. This love was unconditional, an intrinsic feature of the heart which gave it, earned only by my willingness to enter it. It contained no fear or worry, tension, struggle, or grief.
Andrew and I made plans to talk on Friday night. I was sitting on the terrace when he called. He rode out on his bicycle, and I drove out to meet him. We met up at a beautiful nature preserve on the west side where I used to meditate when I was still married. On my way over, I was overcome with intense giddy anticipation. I realized it was the same exact feeling I would get if I were on my way to the airport to pick up someone I was deeply in love with, and I hadn’t seen him in months or years, a feeling of approaching a time of enormous joy. I was so buoyant at the thought of seeing him, I couldn’t muster an adequate “what the hell” feeling. When I got out of the car and saw him walking towards me, I was unequivocally in love.
“I am in it now,” I thought. “That city of light.” The realm of the Divine Beloved. The universe itself has become my lover, and in ornament, in inseperable reflection, was this particular face. Andrew.
I felt so at home with him, like dipping my body into a warm bath, so comfortable and pleasurable you don’t notice the transition or the contrast between yourself and the water. Talking to him was like sucking honey from a flower, sweet and nourishing and perfectly natural and familiar. He has a really gentle, loving way of speaking. I could not stop gazing at his face, and he felt so present. I could feel all of his energy, plain as day, and it was glowing and blending with mine. We came within a few feet of a little bunny, watched it for a long while, then walked very gently past it, and it didn’t run away.
Why do we spend so many weeks and months and years dating people who never give us the feeling of being at home? Why do we invest so much time in people who never can put our hearts at ease? I run to the limits of exhaustion with such lovers, then I move to the comfort imparted by being unstirred. Here I was, however, both stirred and deeply at ease. I will never return to those old forms again.
Andrew told me a story. (I wish I could tell it with the same beauty. I will not do it justice.) Most of us regard the mosquito with disgust. However, one day, he said, he saw a documentary on the life cycle of the mosquito. Moquito eggs hatch in water, and the larva create a buoy of wax that floats to the surface and sticks there. They hang from the surface and create a cocoon. When ready, the newly formed adult mosquito carefully emerges from the cocoon through the buoy of wax. Slowly, the mosquito lifts into the air, unfurls its long legs, and plants them on the surface of the water. If even so much as a breeze disturbs the surface during those precious moments, the mosquito will collapse into the water and drown.
“The next time I saw a mosquito on my arm,” said Andrew, “I could not bring myself to brush it away. I just stood there watching it, so in love with this little creature, knowing how it was born.”
This is true grace. To fall in love so deeply with life that even its painful and repulsive aspects are embraced by it. I began to cry.
Andrew put his bike in my trunk, and we drove to the terrace and sat by the water at night. He pointed at a vast glowing light on the horizon on the other side of the lake. “What is that?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, but when I gazed at it, I did not feel uncertainty. I felt reminded of the intuitions about my future. The future that was becoming my present.
Without thinking, I almost put my arm around him to caress him as if it was something I had done a thousand times. Even when I caught myself, I still felt very much like I could do it, and it would be received as if I had done it a thousand times.
I finally dropped him off a few blocks from his house. He reassembled his bike and embraced me. His embrace astounded me. I felt love there, but if I could carbon date it, it would be far older than one night. When I got home, I was reeling. What just happened?
Late that night, Andrew had to leave his home. The situation had grown too intense. By morning, he was living in the apartment of my Buddhist love. Ironically, I had stayed in that apartment when I first left my marriage. I helped him gather his things and offered him company in the painful days that followed.
Forming emotional bonds, experiencing passion and love for another, can lead to enormous grief when the relationship fades. I watched this grief overtake my new friend.
“How do we open to life without suffering?” he asked me. At first, I was not sure how to answer him. Something in me has transformed so radically that I am having greater difficulty describing the path from point A to point B. Initially, all I could think was, well, you just do. Why suffer? But I contemplated his question for days and finally arrived at a more adequate answer.
You open to life… then you stay open. You stay open. You fall in love, and you never fall out. Every form which inspires you to open is yet another face of the Divine Beloved, an endless stream of precious life emerging from the void.
