Expert: Anandapanyo Bhikkhu - 5/23/2010

Question
QUESTION: How does a Buddhist love if they want to free themselves from attachments?  If you fall in love, which could happen to anyone, how do you love without suffering?

ANSWER: Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions.

How does a Buddhist love if they want to free themselves from attachments?

Before I answer this question, I want to clarify something. Most if not all Buddhist are regular unenlightened people who have delusions, make mistakes, and fall in love like all people. The only Buddhist who are immune to the spells of love are enlightened people. For the sake of this answer, I will refer to them as enlightened lovers. Since most Buddhists are just regular people, full of delusion and desire, we love just like anyone else, sometimes with our heart, sometimes with our libido, sometimes with a little bit or a lot of both. We fall in love, we get our hearts broken. We cry, we wail and we have anger just like anyone else. A Buddhist is no different that any other human being.

However, a enlightened lover (Buddhist or otherwise) would (feel) without attachment. How do they do this? They don't do it through meditation, chanting or otherwise, they do it through understanding. Allow me to give a parallel. On a hot day, when you turn on the faucet and run cool water, it feels great! However, we like the feeling, due to the sensation it gives. We do not fall in love with the faucet itself or the water itself. Right? I hope not. Because most people would consider that silly. Why? Because it is silly to fall in love with a faucet or water. Why don't we love the faucet? Cause we understand that the faucet is merely part of the equation and not the actual cause of our love and happiness. Why don't we fall in love with that particular water? We know that it is merely part of the equation and fleeting. We also know that there is no way for us to control, stop or contain the water that made us cool. So, we enjoy the feeling, we cherish the feeling, but we don't attach ownership, beliefs or claim onto the faucet or water. We know that the actual cause of our happiness is US. Because we did something to make us hot, because we couldn't stand the hotness (suffering), we searched for an answer. In our answer (finding a faucet with cool water), we alleviated our hotness, thus resulting in coolness. Thus resulting in happiness and possibly love. We also know that since the love comes from us, it can change at the drop of a dime. As we imagine this scenario, we are imagining that it is a hot day, and we are hot and need cool water to cool us down. But what if something in the situation changed. What if the cool water was filthy (we never think of that) we would not feel happy that we poured dirty cool water all over us (maybe not). What if we were sick and burning up, cool water could make the problem worse. In this case, we would not want the cool water and it would not make us happy. What if we were in front of a lot of people and got all wet and had no way to clean or dry ourselves off. We would not be happy with the water or faucet. If we were smart and aware, we would know that even if we got cooled off, it does not end there, we would still have to dry off, change our clothes, find a place to hang our wet clothes, clean up the mess, pay for the water .....We know the even with our happiness, there are strings attached.


A enlightened lover will understand that love (or what we understand love is) comes from inside us. It comes from within. It can also change at the drop of a dime. It can also come seemingly out of nowhere. The person or thing that we love is usually an unwitting recipient of both our love and our "problems." So when a enlightened lover loves, they love knowing the truth - that they cannot control the object of their love, that their love really starts within us and disappears within us. An enlightened love would know that even with the greatest love, as with all things, it is fleeting, temporary and it unfortunately generates suffering ("clean up duty, strings attached).

An enlightened lover would free themselves from attachment through this understanding. As a human, who is already born into this world, who is already subject to living in this body and subject to its feelings, we cannot help but feel things. We cannot help but see things, taste things, smell things, hear things and think things. But these things are merely internal. They rely on external stimuli, but the actual translation and interpretation occur inside us. Lets say that you are a warm-blooded male who really likes a bossy woman. You can't for the life of you understand why you like bossy woman. In the workplace, if you meet a bossy woman, you will undoubtedly we turned on. Why? Because you love that particular bossy woman? If we search in our own past, we will undoubtedly find that someone along the line, someone we loved was bossy (mother, grandmother, aunt, older sister) and we felt secure and under control. So we associated this good feeling with that trait. Now when we "hear" a person being bossy and "see" the way it looks, we are intoxicated by the it and assume that we are in love with this person. But what is actually happening, is our senses are combining and triggering a positive past association in our mind. An enlightened person would feel this love, feel this gushing of emotion, and understand that the cause is within us, not the actual woman. They would then understand that every thing has a cause, a birth, a genesis. So, this desire, this association would have a genesis. So, the enlightened person will search within their memories to find where this association first took place. Then they will use their thinking powers (intelligence, wisdom, contemplation) to break it down and see the truth hidden behind the desires (you may ask a follow up for more information or examples on how to do this).


If you fall in love, which could happen to anyone, how do you love without suffering?

If you do fall in love, which DOES happen to almost anyone, how do you love without suffering? You must study love, study your situation. Once we fully understand something, we can deal with it properly. Fire is a beautiful yet dangerous thing. If we don't understand it, and play with it, we can have devastating consequences. If we understand it, we can harness its energy for a lot of good. What does it depend on? It depends first on our understanding of ourselves (are we equipped to handle fire, what do we need it for...) and then followed by understanding of fire itself (It is hot, it is entropic, it is changing, it is impossible to be fully controlled or owned). I would like to doubly emphasize the last point:

"it is changing, it is impossible to be fully controlled or owned"

"it is changing, it is impossible to be fully controlled or owned"

If we can realize the truths within ourselves and in the object of our love, we can better deal with it, and therefore loved without getting burned (pun intended).

I hope I have fully answered your questions, but if I have not, please ask a follow up question so that I can give more examples or answer any other questions.

Sincerely,

Phra Anandapanyo

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: What about sex the Buddha had children but that was before he was enlightened what are the Buddhist views on sex is it alright to engage in sex if you have no intention of having children at the present moment?  If you truly love the woman and she loves you back it should be alright to have sex but is that going to hinder your quest for enlightenment?

Answer
Dear Jose,

Thank you for your questions.

"What about sex the Buddha had children but that was before he was enlightened what are the Buddhist views on sex is it alright to engage in sex if you have no intention of having children at the present moment?"

In Buddhism, the third precept is to refrain from sexual misconduct. On a higher level, it means no adultery, rape, or degenerate sexual actions. On a mid level, it means, excessive self-pleasuring, lusting after photos, videos or cultivating lewd and immoral thoughts. On a lower level, it means being healthy and safe.

Yes, Prince Siddhartha did have one child. But after Prince Siddhartha became the Buddha, he never had any sexual relations with anyone ever again. Why not? Because he found that sexual activity only leads to suffering and stress. The temporary bliss is overshadowed by the problems and suffering that comes from it. Also, the penalties for committing sexual misconduct are heavy and extreme. (As we see in real life, it can lead to murder, rape, cutting off of genitalia, stabbing, burning....)

Buddhism has no rule against safe, moral casual sex or having sex without the intention of having children. It only warns again sexual misconduct. However, be careful to stay on the healthy side of the line. Many times, in sex, people tend to venture into the experimental side, the "wild and fun" side and that is where trouble begins.

"If you truly love the woman and she loves you back it should be alright to have sex but is that going to hinder your quest for enlightenment?"

Love and sex are two different topics. It is more important that she fully wants to and you fully want to, then sex is acceptable. However, sometimes she loves you so much she lets you, but does not really want to, that can be problematic and cause suffering.

There are four levels of enlightenment. The lower two deal with greed and the third deals with lust and the fourth (full enlightenment) deals with full destruction of ignorance. So, as you can see, you can become enlightened (lower two) and still have sex, since the lower two only deal with the misconception of self and greed. But you cannot reach the third or fourth levels of enlightenment if you are still having sex.

So, in summary, it is okay to have sex, as long as you refrain from sexual misconduct. But it is risky. It is like playing with fire or a sharp knife. No matter how good you are, you run the risk of hurting yourself and others, badly.

I hope I have answered your questions,

Sincerely,

Phra Anandapanyo