Passion Into Compassion: The Whole Problem of Marriage
My wife and I are celebrating our twenty sixth anniversary today. This marriage is the second go-round for both of us and has lasted considerably longer than either of our first ones. That is some kind of a statistical milestone, apparently, though I am in over my head if I wade into this too far. There are experts far more knowledgeable than I who seriously study such matters and it is to them one should turn for reliable data.
It was a beautiful day in 1994. Shirt sleeve weather, sunny and seductive, in a month when weather can start to turn capricious. The ceremony was held outdoors, on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Maine, witnessed by people we loved, and it seems like a long time ago with a lot of life lived since.
On that day we began what Joseph Campbell described as the ordeal of marriage. He called it that because, in starting such a relationship, we bring along all of our projections.
He said “So what is it you’re in love with? You don’t know who this is, and you don’t know who that is, you don’t know what the person is. If you marry someone on to whom this has been projected, it’s bound to happen that the person begins to show through.
What are you going to do? Are you going to say, well, I’m disillusioned, I’m going to take my possession back and have it ready for repossession?
The ordeal of marriage is to let this projection dissolve and accept what comes through. When that’s done, you can have a really rich love relationship that goes on and on.”
The key, he taught, is compassion.
“Passion is different. With passion you want to possess. The conversion of passion into compassion is the whole problem of marriage.“
From where I sit, all these years later, it looks like developing and practicing compassion may be one of the biggest challenges in all of life. Indeed, the Dalai Lama refers to it as the common thread of all religions.
I’m still learning how to be compassionate in my marriage and am very far from compassionate in other areas. I have very little compassion for people with opposing political views right now, for example.
There’s a female customer who frequently shops in the grocery store where I work. She has worn some swag, including a mask, that has revealed, without question, where she stands. Seeing her, I mouth the words “It’s voters like you who..”
I hope she doesn’t ask me any questions because I don’t want to help her, though I have done so.
Jimmy Carter spoke of the lust in his heart. I must confess to the lack of compassion in mine.
But, it feels shitty, even as I’m doing it. Cloying, leaving a metallic taste in my mouth. Turning this vile feeling into compassion is the hard work and I’m a slow student. No question it ain’t easy, and I have to be careful to also be compassionate with myself, as well. I may be an even slower student with that lesson.
We really need compassion now in America, in our marriages and in all our relationships
Pema Chodrön suggests a path through this–
“Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.”
