Sapna,

You make some hearty assumptions about what he is going through. What came to heart is that perhaps there are some associations between Brahm as a loving guide and your ex… and they don’t really belong. Spiritual development isn’t about knowing, its about many other things. Said differently, just because Brahm says “your suffering arises in the mind” and the ex said “your suffering is in your head” do not make them similar.

For instance, when I was married to my first wife, I wielded insight like a weapon. If she was agitating me, I would say “you need to figure out your own difficulties.” While I still say that to people, because it is sort of true, it is not used as a weapon to “get them off my back”. Rather, it is introduced gently, warmly and lovingly to help people find their path.

This is not what your ex did, and as I remember back to the way he treated you, I doubt he has broken through and experiencing blissful joy now. Said differently, it is one thing to be able to see another’s difficulties and patterns, and it is quite another to grow through our own. However, without his input, there is only so far I choose to dive in, because it is unnecessary.

Another thing that came to heart was the rosey quality that arises after the pain settles. Often after a breakup, we heal the chaos and painful hurts, and begin to think the relationship and partner were better than they were. As we begin to heal the pain, it can become louder. I remember one ex I had where after a month of being broken up, we met for a meal and hit it off again. I thought to myself “why did I ever end the relationship… we sparkle so much together.” Then when the waitress forgot to bring her another drink, she got pissed and started judging the waitress. Then the memories started coming back, and the illusion of “WOW, she’s awesome” faded.

That whole “enlightened person being charitable” thing is garbage, throw it out. That is just more of the “sapna is at fault for everything” coming back in my opinion. He’s not enlightened, and was hardly generous to you. I know it is difficult to let go, but remember he doesn’t want to be with you. Keep self nurturing, looking deeply and letting go, and it will be a simple thing to attract a new person into your life when you’re ready. Namaste, sis.

With warmth,
Matt

Sapna,

Perhaps you could recognize wandering thoughts as wandering thoughts? Do you understand you don’t need wandering thoughts? Its just the nature of mind to wander away, like an untrained horse. It floats away, its normal, and we can gently return to our sense organs, our breath, our cooking, the speaker, etc.

With warmth,
Matt

This post got me thinking; why is that in the majority of posts about break-up we exalt the person who left us or who we left as being “the best,” “amazing”, “so awesome”, “so good”, “a god”, “a goddess”?

In reality, in the grander scheme of things, we’re all average. Over their course of their entire lives, I doubt it that anyone ever deviates too far from the median for too long on any measure we use to evaluate an individual. Therefore, objectively speaking, how can anyone be better than anyone else?

The person we’re with is usually “perfect”, but then you think to yourself, “Wait, a second, the person I was with last was also perfect at the time, is this person better than that person? Is the next person going to be better?” There’s even a social convention and pressure to speak highly of your current partner and talk about how better then were then your previous relationships. “Oh, she / he is so much better than the last person I dated. I don’t know what I was thinking with that one. I’ve got it all figured out now. This one is perfect.”

Look back at your relationships. Look all the way back to your adolescence and remember how many people you considered to be ‘perfect’, ‘awesome’. The truth is, none of them were. It was simply your mind playing tricks on you. Emotion guiding reason and the following story starts playing in your head, “If I feel so strongly about this person, then they must have been special. They must have been better the person before and there’s no certainty that I’ll meet anyone as good as them”

I’m beginning to appreciate how the mind begins to create what seem like “rational” stories in order to justify the feelings that we experience. It’s your mind justifying / rationalizing it’s actions and feelings. In short, it’s your ego being fed. Because, if you truly realized that the person was just like any other, objectively no better and no worse, your ego would crumble and rebel

“What do you mean I invested so much time and effort and emotion into something who was just average?”

That kind of thinking is unacceptable to the ego, so it exalts the other. It puts them on a pedestal in order to satisfy and secure it’s position and it’s own importance.

I think we simply meet people at different stages of our lives and depending on a given variables (interests, values, mental stability, willingness, physical attraction, etc) we’ll either connect with another person or we won’t. It has really nothing to do whether or not they’re better or worse than someone else because objectively speaking, they’re just average sacks of bone, liquid, and flesh just like anyone else. To think of them as better or worse than yourself or anyone else is a ranking game that we play to secure our ego’s position in a false and impermanent hierarchy.

“less than” and “more than” are by-products of our society obsessed with self-esteem and self-worth derived from external sources and comparisons.

The remedy? I would say being open to even more rejection and disassociating yourself from it. Easier said than done I know, but imagine a life where your day to day peace of mind was not dependent on how others accepted or rejected you. It’s not pleasant being rejected, but it doesn’t have to spiral you into depression, self-judgement, self-criticism, or despair. It happens, you feel it, and you move on always knowing that that deep down inside you are a good person and deserving of love and affection.

My favorite scene from my favorite movie that encapsulates Buddhist wisdom in a nutshell: http://youtu.be/BYNElueJj_w?t=21s

“The trick is not minding that it hurts” 😉

Also try this: http://youtu.be/IvtZBUSplr4

• This reply was modified 10 years, 7 months ago by John.

*hugs*