Loving: The Buddhist Way

We all desire to love in several forms.

As human beings, we think that company is the best remedy for suffering, for which we search around for love to the end of our lives.

Some of us are lucky enough to get what they call their ‘true soul mate’, but the rest of us are left squandering in the dust, wondering about the desperate situation we find ourselves in. This occurs because we try too hard to take control of a situation that doesn’t need to be controlled. This is apt because we always try to control the flow of things only for it to be harming us again and again. Similarly, you can’t control when love appears, and when it leaves. The only thing you can do is wait for it to take its sweet time to appear and then embrace you fully in its glory.

What if we stop searching for it? What if we stop rummaging through Pandora’s box, expecting love to jump out of it? What would be the most that could happen?  Nothing. You would wait for a little while longer, and when someone finally appears, you would know that they are here to stay. A person is only attracted to you if you are comfortable in your own skin. That being said, you need to fully acknowledge who you are full, to grasp the entirety of it. Searching on and on for love would render you incapable of individual judgment, for you would always be living your life according to what the person you want to love thinks you should, and that would demolish your individuality.

You can’t fill in your heart with sand just to stop it from being empty.

That never worked. You would only be delaying the inevitable for your fears, your nightmares, your hopelessness and your suffering are just that- yours. You can’t ever expect that outside interference would ever fill in that void. It would merely cover it for a while, and when it leaves, that would is left raw, and red. You can’t expect someone else to make you feel complete. After all, why should they? They don’t have that responsibility to uphold. Also, why would you put your life, your self-esteem in the hands of a veritable stranger? Doesn’t it show an innate lack of strength or courage? Yes, it actually does. You need to know that you are your own person, and nothing, no external influence can change the way you look at the world and look at yourself. The only thing you can do is consider your self, see where it is headed, and then take a step to change it. The only way you can accept this is when you know that you are your own person, and no matter what happens, you would continue to be your own person, fierce, independent and passionate. You wouldn’t be desperate for love, and let it knock on your door, for anything else is just wasting your life.

The Buddhist philosophy reiterates this through the concept of impermanence. This doctrine states that human life is ever-changing, and us being static or stiff in one place, imagining love to be of a particular kind, doesn’t do us favors.

We need to understand that just like life, we as individuals change too. This change is necessary, for we become wiser in our pursuit of company, affection and a stable life with said individual. While that seems like the dream, it is arbitrarily important that one understood how their life would be different if they would realize the importance of their own self: the fact that one’s own self should be the sole reason, rather the sole benefactor to completing oneself. We run after love for years and years, never knowing when it would arrive and in what form. In the end, we are left cursing for the missed opportunities and the passageways that we failed to take. We fail to realize that in our chase for love, we have forgotten the one true reason why we are doing it- our self.

Buddhism teaches us that the only thing which we can depend on us our souls.

Looking for external gratification when our own body is lacking from the unmet needs, would push us towards a path of depression. Take care of yourself first, for that is your main priority. That is when you would realize the futility in chasing something that would change in the blink of an eye.

Being at peace with one’s own self is akin to attaining true wisdom. This can be achieved by the age-old practice of meditation which aims at peace within oneself. Apart from that, it has several other objectives- awareness, focus, attention and eternal calm. As we practice what we know about, the process of being calm and composed under duress, we slowly start accepting the person we are, and we learn to live with ourselves, thereby eliminating the desperation to love someone. This results in our growth as a human and makes us self-aware and self-centered to a point where you learn to accept yourself for who you are, and what you could achieve as a human.

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