Today's Daily Dharma is a very useful look at the ways we can mistake attachment for love -- this has been a struggle for me in recent months, but one that seems to be coming more clear. Learning how to love fully and honestly without attachment is hard, but it makes the difference between a healthy relationship and an unhealthy one.
Love, but only if...
The near-enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, "I will love you if you will love me back." It is a kind of "businessman's" love. So we think, "I will love this person as long as he doesn't change. I will love that thing if it will be the way I want it." But this isn't love at all--it is attachment. There is a big difference between love, which allows and honors and appreciates, and attachment, which grasps and demands and aims to possess. When attachment becomes confused with love, it actually separates us from another person. We feel we need this other person in order to be happy. This quality of attachment also leads us to offer love only toward certain people, excluding others.
~ Joseph Goldstein, in Seeking the Heart of Wisdom
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Can one love and feel attachment toward the same person at the same time? I ask because it seems as though I have felt a combination of the two toward others. And it seemed to me, if you don't mind my saying so, that your feelings toward the woman with whom you were most recently involved may have combined (and may still combine) both.
Furthermore, if Goldstein is right and when we truly love, we love everyone whereas we are attached only to one or a few, is the quality of our unattached love the same for our significant other or spouse as it is for everyone else, or, if not, why not? That is, how can true love devoid of attachment for one's significant other or spouse be or feel different than unattached love for others?
Hey Steve,
Most people confuse attachment for love, as Goldstein is suggesting. So, yes, it is possible to love and be attached to someone at the same time. But only the love is healthy -- the attachment is one of our "parts" clinging to something that the other person represents. The Self experiences love purely without attachment.
Yes, my last relationship had a great deal of attachment, which I have only recently seen and dissolved. But I am much more clear on that now.
The difference between loving everyone and loving our partner is that we have intimacy with our partner that we can never have with a generalized love for all people. The affectionate nature of intimacy, someone we are sharing our lives with on a daily basis, makes all the difference. It feels different because of the shared history and intimacy.
Does that answer your question?
Peace,
Bill
Does it answer my question? It's a beautifully worded answer, and I guess I kind of understand what you're saying. However, I have this sense that when we experience this "shared history and intimacy" with our partner, it is virtually impossible to experience purely unattached love for our partner. It seems to me that with this "shared history" inevitably comes some degree of attachment that colors our overall feelings for her (or him).
If this is so, the question for me is whether we should strive to be completely non-attached to our partner and to purely love her (or him), or should we want to maintain some level of attachment that is an inevitable part of why our feelings toward our partner are different from what they are toward everyone else?
Steve,
I agree -- it's incredibly hard to love someone we share our lives with without feeling attachment. It's something I surely haven't mastered.
However, when we experience attachment, we want (unconsciously or not) that person to be what we want them to be. So, in essence, our attachments put limits on who the other person can be.
In pure love, without attachments, the theory is that the person is free to be whoever or whatever s/he wants to be -- and we will still love them just as fully.
For example, my last relationship didn't work out for a variety of reasons. In the past weeks, though, I have released my attachments to how I wanted things to be, and I can now experience a love for her that only wants her happiness -- whatever that may be. Sure, many parts of me wish we were together, but my Self is clear that I love her anyway, even if I never saw her again.
I think that is the kind of love that Goldstein is getting at -- no conditions. Whenever there are conditions, there are attachments.
Another issue here is that many of the teachings in this area are directed at renunciates rather than householders. Householders are expected to have a raise a family and then move on to contemplative life, so it's a new challenge to practice nonattachment while still living in the world.
In reality, few among us can be free of attachments, especially in relationships. But the fewer we can hold, the healthier the relationship will be.
Peace,
Bill
Thanks, Bill. I think over the years, I've developed pretty much the non-attached love you speak of for someone from my past. And I think it will last unless and until I were to see her again. :-)If I were to see her again, all bets are off. :-)
Chiming in here -- new to this blog. I'm a long-time student of the Dharma, as studied and practiced and discussed in the West, and also as lived in Buddhist societies (I've lived and studied in Southeast Asia for many years).
One thing I have noticed is that in the West, there is a tendency to use Buddhist teaching as a way to distance ourselves from our emotions, whereas in Buddhist societies there is much more recognition of the inevitability of attachment and, of course, suffering. There is an understanding that that is the essence of life in the phenomenal (i.e. unenlightened) realm where in fact most of us live.
I am wary of Buddhists in the West -- and frankly, it is mostly (but not exclusively) men -- who think that they can somehow rise above attachment. In my experience, it is often a way to avoid engaging in love and life to its fullest. I note that in the postings, most of you have said you experience "non-attached love" AFTER a relationship is over. Somehow, I think that is missing the point.
I do understand Goldstein's distinction. I do see attachment as ego-driven and problematic, and practicing love is the best way to reduce ego needs and create harmony. But, it seems to me the first, most important teaching in Buddhism for us struggling, stumbling humans is: GET REAL. Which means, in part, acknowledging the very human need for attachment, and all the complexity and messiness and sometimes pain that that entails.
As you can probably gather from my tone that I have recently broken up with a man whom I loved and wanted to be with. In our break-up, he has assumed a spiritually-superior tone that I find quite off-putting. I am contributing here to this discussion as a way to deal with my pain and frustration. That's my full disclosure -- in other words, I realize my thinking is clouded by events of the moment. Comments appreciated.
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