Growing Together

　　In his introduction to the book, Love”s Garden: A Guide to Mindful Relationships, THICH NHAT HANH shows us how we can use loving relationships to cultivate the seeds of buddhahood inside us.

　　To commit to another person is to embark on a very adventurous journey. You must be very wise and very patient to keep your love alive so it will last for a long time. The first year of a committed relationship can already reveal how difficult it is. When you first commit to someone, you have a beautiful image of them, and you marry that image rather than the person. When you live with each other twenty-four hours a day, you begin to discover the reality of the other person, which doesn”t quite correspond with the image you have of him or of her. Sometimes we”re disappointed.

　　In the beginning you”re very passionate. But that passion for the other person may last only a short time—maybe six months, a year, or two years. Then, if you”re not skillful, if you don”t practice, if you”re not wise, suffering will be born in you and in the other person. When you see someone else, you might think you”d be happier with them. In Vietnamese we have a saying: “Standing on top of one mountain and gazing at the top of another, you think you”d rather be standing on the other mountain.”

　　When we commit to a partner, either in a marriage ceremony or in a private way, usually it is because we believe we can be and want to be faithful to our partner for the whole of our life. In the Five Mindfulness Trainings, the third training is to be faithful to the partner you commit to. That is a challenging practice that requires consistent strong practice. Many of us don”t have a lot of models of loyalty and faithfulness around us. The U.S. porce rate is around fifty percent, and for nonmarried but committed partners the rates are similar or higher.

　　We tend to compare ourselves with others and to wonder if we have enough to offer in a relationship. Many of us feel unworthy. We”re thirsty for truth, goodness, compassion, spiritual beauty, and we”re sure these things don”t exist within us, so we go looking outside. Sometimes we think we”ve found the ideal partner who embodies all that is good, beautiful, and true. That person may be a romantic partner, a friend, or a spiritual teacher. We see all the good in that person and we fall in love. After a time, we usually discover that we”ve had a wrong perception of that person and we become disappointed.

　　Beauty and goodness are always there in each of us. This is the basic teaching of the Buddha. A true teacher, a true spiritual partner, is one who encourages you to look deeply in yourself for the beauty and love you are seeking. The true teacher is someone who helps you discover the teacher in yourself.

　　According to the Buddha, the birth of a human being is not a beginning but a continuation, and when we”re born, all the different kinds of seeds—seeds of goodness, of cruelty, of awakening—are already inside us. Whether the goodness or cruelty in us is revealed depends on what seeds we cultivate, our actions, and our way of life.

　　At the moment of his awakening at the foot of the bodhi tree, the Buddha declared, “How strange—all beings possess the capacity to be awakened, to understand, to love, to be free—yet they allow themselves to be carried away on the ocean of suffering.” He saw that, day and night, we”re seeking what is already there within us. We can call it buddhanature, awakened nature, the true freedom that is the foundation for all peace and happiness. The capacity to be enlightened isn”t something that someone else can offer to you. A teacher can only help you to remove the non-enlightened elements in you so that enlightenment can be revealed. If you have confidence that beauty, goodness, and…

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