Marriage and Freedom: an oxymoron?

This past Friday I was privileged to hear a talk by a high lama of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, The Venerable Third Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, my teacher. The topic of his talk was "Karma in the Family."

Bardor Tulku Rinpoche is not a monastic. He is a family man with a wife and three adolescent daughters. As a Rinpoche (it means precious one), Bardor Tulku is uniquely qualified to talk about karma. As a family man he can talk from experience on the difficulties of family life in Buddhist practice.

Rinpoche's topic is not one I necessarily wanted to hear. I'd read his book, Living in Compassion, and know what his views are on married life. I am married, and not always happy about it. Why? Because it means I have to compromise, it means I have to put my needs and desires aside at times, it means I can't be as free as I want to be to come and go as I please. No one coerced me to get into another relationship. I put myself here and I want the good stuff of relationships.

Before I go further with this, I ‘d like to say that none of my issues are the result of any of my partner's issues, past or present. I am a product of my culture, of my generation, of the home I grew up in, of the decisions I've made in my life.

One of the interesting points that Rinpoche made was that our "...culture is so committed to individual freedom that giving up a part of that is experienced as a loss." That really hit home with me. That's a big issue in relationships for me. I feel that loss deeply, and I am always looking for that freedom. I often experience a feeling of "where's mine? when do I get mine?" The "mine" I am always referring to (without exception) is time to myself; time to not have to pay attention to another person, time to do what I want, no matter what that is.

I have always thought that this was an immature attitude. And perhaps it is. But I also think it is a result of the indoctrination of our culture. We Americans are a selfish lot. Most of the rest of the world considers Americans as children. Not because our country is so young but because we see the world as our own, to take, to play with, to drop when bored.

It was helpful to me to identify that feeling I have, usually manifested as resentment. Understanding that it is loss, eliminates the resentment because it is something coming from within me and not a result of what someone is taking from me.

Bardor Tulku said many other things as well, but it will take a week or three for me to digest his talk. I'm glad I have notes.