We are a nation of Give to Get Lovers!

Unaccustomed as I am to making sweeping statements (no, really!) I am of the opinion right now, from what I have observed myself and experienced in my consulting room, that the way we love and regard love is like this:

If we give ‘love’ in specific ways, and if we behave towards our partners in certain ‘loving’ ways, then we are entitled to receive love in similar measures back from them. When this doesn’t happen, we get sad, mad or both and fight or flight kicks in.

Virtually all of the upset and pain in relationship is caused by expecting the other to love us back in return for us loving them to the best of our ability.

The problem with this is that it’s ‘Give to Get’ Love.

This weekend I am attending a course at the JamYang Buddha Centre in London. As I have not been to a Buddhist
Centre before, I thought I would do some research to discover what the Buddhist definition of love is.

The definition of Love in Buddhism is: Wanting Others to be Happy and the means to achieve this is that ‘One must love others to the same extent that one wishes to be loved by others’.

There’s nothing that says ‘And then when others are happy, I’d like to get what I want please’.

Not at all. There’s just a simple definition and direction with no guarantee of any payback. And yet if we truly want ‘others’ to be happy, (and that would specifically be our partners), surely their happiness would, without any manipulation on our part, provide us with a warm glow radiating in our direction in which to bask in?

Well, maybe. But the point is that according to Buddhism, real love is simply about the other person’s happiness and loving like you’d like to be love without any attachment to any end result.

If all of this sounds too conceptual then my ‘Buddha within’ would say that it might well be that you are exercising your power of resistance. The question is ‘what are you resisting’? Is it that you cannot get your head round the idea of ‘Give to Give’ Love instead of ‘Give to Get’ Love?

The Buddhist teacher Goenka said:

"Grasping at things can only yield one of two results:
Either the thing you are grasping at disappears, or you yourself disappear.
It is only a matter of which occurs first."

He could be talking about every relationship that ever broke down.

So this is one of those blogs where you say to yourself ‘mmm something to think about’. That’s if you want to of course.

And all of this because I am going to a Non Personal Awareness Course at the JamYang Buddhist Centre on Saturday. I will of course let you know all about it.

Lots of Love

Francine