All experiences are mysterious; love is no exception. We cannot accurately reconstruct any experience because too many vivacious variables are involved, however attentive or scientific we go about the reconstruction. Bits and pieces and the whole of life are twirling around, inside out and outside in, firing and dying fast, often beyond rhyme or reason. Everthing reflects everything in the diamond of life. Because everything is relational in nature, pinning experiences down is impossible. Even though it is invaluable to our all happiness to approximate the truth with the practice of mindfulness, we can never really know ourselves completely.
It really feels as if we do know ourselves though, doesn’t it? Most of us have a sense of certainty about who we are, who others are, and how the world is really like. When I was young, I thought I had figured out the entire world, especially my boyfriends. I knew what was right with them and I certainly knew what was wrong with them.…. In Eastern philosophies, this sense of certainty is called an illusion (see my book, Chapter 11 (AUnifiedTheoryofHappiness). And Western scientists have caught up with this insight, noting that we often don’t hear and see what is said or what is really happening *, **. Instead we perceive that which we are prepared to perceive. Give me a bit of information, give me a man in a hoody in twilight, and I make a whole scary story out of that. We have categories for everything. It’s difficult to realize that a good man can lie, that a beautiful woman can have ugly thoughts, that a Zen master can be egotistical, and that a criminal can be gentle and kind. Of course, our sense of certainty about the world fosters the tendency to jump to conclusions which makes the “truth” an even greater, often terrible mystery.
Love is so important an experience, almost all of us have looked into that one, deeming it, rightfully, mysterious. Here we can see it. Rarely do we understand why we fall in love with a particular person. What is attractive and intriguing to us is the result of either trillions of beautiful, ugly moments before ever having laid eyes on the chosen one or a few, quantum-leaping, powerful moments that make us do the unthinkable: kiss that frog.
Still, I think most people agree on this: Love is a form of saying “Yes” to one another, the ability to open up, become compassionate, and available to somebody the way we think she or he is, flaws included. This “Yes” needs to be said again and again to pass as real love in the long run. Most know that this becomes harder as we get a better taste of the other’s flaws while simultaneously habituating to the attractive, intriguing parts. There are relatively simple Zen things we can do to keep love going, as I have blogged about previously (ten-zen-things-save-your-marriage). But there is one not so simple Zen thing we must do, or better: be, to invite long-term love .
To read the rest of this blog, please visit www.PsychologyToday.com and type in Andrea Polard or go to the following link:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unified-theory-happiness/201302/the-ultimate-gift-love
Posts
All experiences are mysterious; love is no exception. We cannot accurately reconstruct any experience because too many vivacious variables are involved, however attentive or scientific we go about the reconstruction. Bits and pieces and the whole of life are twirling around, inside out and outside in, firing and dying fast, often beyond rhyme or reason. Everthing reflects everything in the diamond of life. Because everything is relational in nature, pinning experiences down is impossible. Even though it is invaluable to our all happiness to approximate the truth with the practice of mindfulness, we can never really know ourselves completely.
It really feels as if we do know ourselves though, doesn’t it? Most of us have a sense of certainty about who we are, who others are, and how the world is really like. When I was young, I thought I had figured out the entire world, especially my boyfriends. I knew what was right with them and I certainly knew what was wrong with them.…. In Eastern philosophies, this sense of certainty is called an illusion (see my book, Chapter 11 (AUnifiedTheoryofHappiness). And Western scientists have caught up with this insight, noting that we often don’t hear and see what is said or what is really happening *, **. Instead we perceive that which we are prepared to perceive. Give me a bit of information, give me a man in a hoody in twilight, and I make a whole scary story out of that. We have categories for everything. It’s difficult to realize that a good man can lie, that a beautiful woman can have ugly thoughts, that a Zen master can be egotistical, and that a criminal can be gentle and kind. Of course, our sense of certainty about the world fosters the tendency to jump to conclusions which makes the “truth” an even greater, often terrible mystery.
Love is so important an experience, almost all of us have looked into that one, deeming it, rightfully, mysterious. Here we can see it. Rarely do we understand why we fall in love with a particular person. What is attractive and intriguing to us is the result of either trillions of beautiful, ugly moments before ever having laid eyes on the chosen one or a few, quantum-leaping, powerful moments that make us do the unthinkable: kiss that frog.
Still, I think most people agree on this: Love is a form of saying “Yes” to one another, the ability to open up, become compassionate, and available to somebody the way we think she or he is, flaws included. This “Yes” needs to be said again and again to pass as real love in the long run. Most know that this becomes harder as we get a better taste of the other’s flaws while simultaneously habituating to the attractive, intriguing parts. There are relatively simple Zen things we can do to keep love going, as I have blogged about previously (ten-zen-things-save-your-marriage). But there is one not so simple Zen thing we must do, or better: be, to invite long-term love .
To read the rest of this blog, please visit www.PsychologyToday.com and type in Andrea Polard or go to the following link:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unified-theory-happiness/201302/the-ultimate-gift-love
