Your altruistic motivation in marriage embodies the first (1) of the six perfections—generosity, the practice of which is one of the most excellent ways to accumulate merit and increase virtuous qualities. Through the love and commitment you bring to each other on this occasion and in the future, as you hold your love for one another in your hearts, as you speak your love to one another, as you exchange rings as the physical sign of your bond, you are expressing the quality of generosity. Your commitment, from this time forward, to use your body, speech and mind to make each other happy is a further expression of that generosity. You also bring to marriage the second (2) perfection, moral discipline. This means living together according to higher principles, eliminating habits that are not serving the relationship, behavior that is petty, selfish and disharmonious, and accentuating positive, selfless qualities such as loving kindness that bring greater benefit. Your spiritual path is one of virtue, bringing joy and happiness to others and refraining from careless actions that might cause harm or unhappiness. As practitioners, you should use your body, speech and mind to guard yourselves and your relationship from any potential obstacles or negativity and strive to benefit each other skillfully. If your focus is on your spouse’s needs, you already have found a very powerful means to avert problems. There is no doubt that married life is a challenge. Do not hold onto a fixed idea about how the relationship should work, but rather learn how not to upset each other, how to achieve greater and greater joy and harmony. When things arise that you don’t like, work with the aversion in your own mind in the context of your dharma practice instead of trying to make your partner change. This is also very important if you decide to have children. When you treat each other with respect and love, and try to resolve peacefully whatever problems arise, your children will have a role model for developing their own positive and successful relationships. The third (3) perfection, patience, is one of the most important qualities you can bring to your marriage. Make the commitment always to maintain harmony and remember that regardless of external or emotional changes your partner is going through, he or she is not a buddha. Your spouse is a human being dealing with his or her own problems. Try to relate to that with compassion and with patience, focusing on the bond between you rather than on the problems. Try not to become upset by the difficulties that inevitably arise when people live together. At least don’t fixate on them; instead try immediately to resolve them. Your practice of patience will bring great benefit in the short term, in the context of your marriage, and in the long term. When you practice virtue, especially virtue as powerful as patience, it will infallibly result in great happiness in the future, what might be called the experience of heaven or the pureland. Through anger, hurting your partner’s feelings, through selfish desire, thinking not of what would make your partner happy but only of your own self-centered wishes, and through ignorance, failing to understand what behavior is truly harmful and what is helpful, you will create short- and long-term suffering. For heaven and hell are not places that exist outside of you. Rather, they are the reflections of your own mind’s positivity and negativity. Upholding the commitment you make to each other as husband and wife requires diligence, the fourth (4) perfection. It necessitates an unflagging effort to remain true to your connection, to work both in the world and in the context of your spiritual practice, to help each other meet your goals and bring benefit to yourself and others. All kinds of companionship on the path are crucial to our development as spiritual practitioners, and the qualities of our friends can influence us greatly. That is why it’s important for you to use your marriage as an opportunity to support each other’s dharma practice, never to allow each other’s actions, words or attitudes to become obstacles to your spiritual path. This requires diligent spiritual practice, trying not just once or twice, but throughout your lives together to accomplish these spiritual goals. Always being mindful of your bond, holding it dear in your hearts and never letting it go, involves the fifth (5) perfection of meditative stability. This means focusing one-pointedly on what will bring lasting happiness to yourselves and others. It doesnt matter how young or attractive you are today as you take your vows together. Physical beauty won’t last forever. Don’t focus on it. Remember that everything in this world is subject to decay. Everything that is composite, that comes together, eventually falls apart. But in the time you have together, you can bring joy to one another, you can create virtue and you can support your own and your partner’s spiritual practice. Though this life may be very short, the connection that you establish through your positive and virtuous involvement together and through your spiritual practice will continue in future lifetimes to benefit both of you. Finally, you bring to marriage the sixth (6) perfection of wisdom, or transcendent knowledge. Regardless of the joys and sorrows that you experience, as individuals and as a couple, remember that these passing events are like echoes, illusions that come and go, that nothing you experience has any inherent existence. Our entire life experience is like a night dream filled with joy and sorrow, happiness and sadness. And just as when we awaken in the morning and see that nothing really happened, we can look back on all the experiences of our lives and see that they were illusory. The many moments of happiness or sadness are all gone now. ~HH Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:52:33 +0000
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