Desire, Love and Addiction According to Buddhism
The obsessive desire that often accompanies passionate love distorts affection, tenderness, and the joy of enjoying and sharing life with someone.
Desire, Love and Addiction According to Buddhism – How to Distinguish Between True Love and Possessive Attachment
This precious life is our opportunity.
We are not the millions and millions of other things that are not human.
Tenzin Palmo
Selfless love can be compared to the pure sound that comes from a crystal glass, and the attachment to the finger that, when touching the rim of the glass, drowns out that sound.
We recognized from the beginning that the idea of foreign to a relatively Western sensibility. Being detached does not mean that we love the person less, but that we are not centered on the love for ourselves or hiding in the love we say we feel for the other.
Selfless love is the joy of sharing the lives of those around us – our family, our friends, our companions, our wife, or our husband – and contributing to their happiness.
We love the other for who they are, and not through the distorted lens of self-centeredness. Instead of being attached to the other, we must keep their happiness in mind; instead of waiting for them to bring us some gratification, we can receive their mutual love with joy.
The precious teaching of Buddhist teacher Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo in her book entitled “Into the Heart of Life” elucidates issues of relationships such as marriage, dating, etc. She sums up this issue, saying that we constantly mistake attachment for love.
“The problem is that we always confuse the idea of love with attachment. You know, we imagine that the attachment and jealousy we have in our relationships shows that we love. When it is really just attachment. And it causes us pain. Because the more we hold on to something, the more we are afraid of losing it.” “And it causes us pain ”
And then, if we lose, we will suffer. What I mean is that genuine love is … Well, attachment says, ‘I love you, so I want you to make me happy’. Genuine love says: ‘I love you, so I want you to be happy. And if that includes me, great. If you don’t include me, I just want your happiness. ‘ And they are two totally different feelings.
Attachment is like holding on too tightly. But genuine love is like holding it very gently, feeding it, but allowing things to flow. It is not getting stuck with strings attached. The more we tie the other, the more we suffer.
In any type of relationship in which we think we can be fulfilled by the other, it is bound to be complicated. The ideal would be for people to come together already having this feeling of self-fulfillment, and to come together to enjoy each other’s company instead of waiting for the other to meet the need for fulfillment that they don’t feel alone.
Through this sentence, we can understand what it means when we think we love someone. Love is a much deeper bond in our lives that influences someone else’s life. Or others, in some cases. The practice of attachment is much more common, as we believe that we should be reciprocated by feeling affection for someone, so believing that it is love.
And she concludes: “When we start to know gold, we recognize that it may not be Prince Charming or Cinderella. It is just an ordinary person, who is also struggling. And unless we are able to see them, to like them and to feel desire for them, and also to have compassion and tenderness, it will be a difficult relationship. ”
Therefore, let us practice love in its essence and purity, seeing the person as he deserves. In the best possible way, without imposing or inducing anyone.
From Desire to Obsession
The obsessive desire that often accompanies passionate love distorts affection, tenderness, and the joy of enjoying and sharing life with someone. It is the opposite of selfless love. It arises from an unhealthy egocentrism that cherishes itself in the other or, even worse, seeks to build its own happiness at the expense of the other. This type of desire only wants to appropriate people, objects and situations that attract you to have control. He considers attraction as an inherent characteristic of that person, whose qualities he magnifies while underestimating defects. “Desire beautifies the objects on which its wings of fire rest,” said Anatole France.
Obsessive desire is a reflection of the intensity and frequency of the mental images that trigger it. Like a scratched disc, it keeps repeating the same leitmotif. It is a polarization of the mental universe, a loss of fluidity, which impairs inner freedom.
Alain wrote: “This despised lover, who squirms on the bed instead of sleeping and who meditates on terrible revenge. What would be left of his wound if he no longer thought about the past and the future? This ambitious one, wounded in the heart by a failure, where will he look for his pain, if not in a past that resurrects and in a future that he invents? ”
You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.
Anatole France
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