The Spiritual Practice of Commitment (Part 1)
Navigating the Complexities of Desire and Devotion in a Modern Relationship
It’s 5 am and I can’t sleep. These days, my mind feels the need to wake up early and reflect. There is much to figure out, much to clarify.
Why is choosing 100% for one partner a spiritual practice? This was the thought that came to mind early in the day.
It is quite a strange statement, this one — to 100% choose one partner — in a time when multitude and freedom seem to have the support of the majority. At least this seems to be the case within the tantric world.
But I realize that I put an equal sign between having sexual encounters, even “connections” (although this term seems so vague to me and so overused that I am wary of it) and NOT choosing 100% for one partner.
But not only in the tantric world is this idea of choosing 100% for one partner considered strange and met with raised eyebrows. This discourse of “not one partner can satisfy all your needs” seems to be interpreted as a carte blanche for avoiding fully committing to a relationship. To always keeping a door open, just in case someone else, better equiped to serve your needs comes along. There is no “one partner.” There is serial monogamy or various forms of open relating.
And yet, I want to choose 100% for one partner. But in my way, a way that makes this partnership a spiritual practice.
And this idea, as strange as it may sound, I will illustrate with the words of a tantric gigolo. For clarity, this is a man who is paid to engage in intimate, sexual encounters. He also has sexual encounters outside the framework set up by the monetary exchange. And yet, he is fully committed to his partner, a woman whom he described as “not even my type.”
And sometimes, he confesses, he experiences feelings of love for one of his clients. And then he does the following: nothing. He lets the feelings exist without repressing them, without grasping onto them, and without judging himself. And that’s all there is to it. He stays commited to his partner.
When I heard this confession, it struck a chord in me. I know from personal experience how my mind, emotions, and body can take over when I become infatuated with someone. It can be difficult to focus and stay on tasks throughout the day, and it feels strange to move around with a sense of arousal and warmth in my body.
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What is actually the core of a spiritual practice?
My emotions tend to be very strong and rather unpredictable. My thoughts have a mind of their own and can be rather scary. My reactions are so automatic that many times I wonder how I ended up in a situation and how it went so fast out of hand.
And here I am, in the middle of this field where emotions flare and burn like volcanoes, and where my thoughts are relentlessly bombarding me mostly with nonsense, quite a lot with mean and sarcastic messages, and sometimes with invitations to end it all.
I tried for many years to get rid of it all. I thought to myself, “Surely I can find a way to heal myself, to make all this disappear, to stop the mind, to stop the feelings.”
It doesn’t work like that. Emotions come and go, and thoughts are just doing their thing. You can’t do anything about it. And that’s the truth.
Learning about what meditation does, I understood that the answer is not to start a war against yourself, because that war is a lost cause from the start. Meditation trains valuable skills, first the capacity to focus and refocus and refocus again and again, and second, the capacity to allow everything to exist — emotions, physical sensations, and thought forms — without engaging with them.
Imagine that. A field so wild and unpredictable, governed by forces outside of your control. That’s the inner life. And you, taking your place in the seat of consciousness, allowing everything that arises, feeling everything deeply with no preference for the form that captures your attention. Witnessing everything without getting pulled into it. Without forgetting that you are consciousness witnessing, that you are not the emotions, the physical sensations, or the thought forms.
To cultivate that kind of focus and equanimity, it takes practice. And you can practice all the time, everywhere, in every situation.
Especially in a relationship. Because relationships are hard. This person, your lover, your partner, seems to have the power to trigger the most painful wounds that you have. And the love that was so bright in the beginning cools down, and the promise of being in love forever fades away. Then, you start noticing how annoying their habits are, how they make the most annoying sounds, or that they are utterly boring, and you wonder what you saw in them.
But can you stay with that? With the boredom, irritation, and coolness of love? Can you inquire about what triggers you, which parts of yourself are restless, and which wounds from the past are emerging?
Can you remain calm, not repressing anything, and do what needs to be done to care for your wounded parts while also expressing your needs and boundaries to the other? Can you stay true to yourself and yet be fully committed to not running away, to engaging in a dialogue, to listening, and to speaking with attention to both yourself and the other?
Can you still stay open?
It is so much easier to get out, to look for distractions, to numb the pain that you feel, to blame. In the end, this is what we usually do, don’t we?
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