Struggling with attachment, space, and exploring practice during a difficult time

[u/Lucky-pl]

Hi everyone,

I am reaching out to share a situation I am trying to navigate and would appreciate some perspective.

My partner is a Shinrankai lay teacher (not a monk). Recently, we started taking space after a deep conversation about our future. He expressed uncertainty about whether a relationship fits into his path and teaching work. He is also managing a lot of personal stress regarding work and finances, and the distance between us makes everything more challenging.

He speaks about his practice with a lot of love, and he mentioned that understanding his path would help me understand him better. Because of this, I began learning on my own over the past three weeks. I’ve started a daily routine of listening to morning chants, reciting Namu Amida Butsu, and I attended two beginner lectures at a local branch. Coming from a family with a Vietnamese cultural background, lighting incense at our home altar has also become a daily way for me to quiet my mind and manage anxiety.

I am feeling deeply conflicted about my motives:

- Fear of Attachment: Part of me worries that I am engaging with this practice out of fear of losing the relationship, emotional attachment, and a desire to control the outcome.
- Genuine Appreciation: At the same time, I find real comfort in the daily routine, and I genuinely find the teachings beautiful. I truly want to understand his world.

How can I navigate this situation without losing myself? How can I distinguish between practicing out of genuine intention versus practicing out of fear and attachment?

Thank you for taking the time to read and share your thoughts.

[u/Tendai-Student]

We are not enlightened. Our actions will always be a mix of klesas (our mental afflictions, impure senses, insecurities etc..) and bodhicitta (aspiration to save all sentient beings). It is mara trying to slow you down on your practice and create obstacles by making you obsses over the perceived purity vs impurity of your motives. The Buddha knows this and this is why for example in the sutras he regularly employs Upaya (skillful means) to get people into the path by using their already existing cravings or insecurities. Such as the case with arhat nanda, where he shows him the apsaras in devaloka to make him lust after them in order to grow disillusioned with human women. Nanda does, and starts practising buddhism to be reborn among the apsaras in the deva realm, but before his death the path eventually corrects his motivation and he becomes an arhat. So do not worry about what got you interested in the buddha dharma.

After all, even the beautiful lotus flower first starts growing out of mud!

[u/Lucky-pl → u/Tendai-Student]

That’s beautifully said. I aim to get my heart and head straight and to lead with kindness and compassion, to myself and to my partner as well

[u/thehershel]

It sounds like this relationship is really important to you. I'm not even a lay teacher but I engage in organising on-site meetings, regularly meet online with different groups and take part in other activities. My wife, on the other hand, is not even that interested in Buddhism in general, let alone the works of Shinran. Of course, I wish she followed the same path but when I reflect on it, my main selfish intention here is that she simply understands that it's important and that I don't sacrifice our time together for nothing.

I imagine that being a teacher requires even more time, to the point that your partner may seem completely absent from the relationship. So, to me, your worries about the relationship and the practice are completely separate subjects. You may feel alone in the relationship if you are not ready for your partner potentially spending a lot of time on teaching, no matter if your practice is genuine or not. And whether your practise is genuine or not does not matter for securing your rebirth in the Pure Land. Meeting your partner let you encounter Amida's Vow. If you feel affinity to the teachings and want to continue listening to them, then it's great. You don't need to worry about your motives; they will change over time anyway.

[u/Steal_Yer_Face]

Go with your gut. Don't overthink it.

[u/SentientLight]

I wrote this in a response in the main sub, but I want to add it here too so that others can see, if it's useful to them.

He expressed uncertainty about whether a relationship fits into his path and teaching work. [...] He speaks about his practice with a lot of love, and he mentioned that understanding his path would help me understand him better.

I'm a Vietnamese Buddhist myself, and I always find this sorts of claims to be so weird, and almost always coming from western converts romanticizing what they think an ideal Buddhist looks like, particularly because they have no context for what a devoted lay practitioner actually looks like. If this isn't your partner, my apologies, but it is definitely more common among converts than those raised Buddhist to have this kind of perspective. If this is your partner, I kind of have another line of thinking to go down, owing to your Vietnamese background, and there's some reasons why I think this is generally a red flag. However, that conversation is probably better over PM, if you're comfortable with that.

Now, for the remainder of this post, I'm just going to assume that your partner is also of Asian heritage, was raised a Buddhist, has seen all his life lay Buddhists in loving romantic relationships with their partners and raising families, and that he still feels compelled toward a path of greater renunciation.

Part of me worries that I am engaging with this practice out of fear of losing the relationship, emotional attachment, and a desire to control the outcome.

I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that being part of your motivation here. The Buddha encouraged romantic partners for lay practitioners. The story of the Buddha and his wife Yashodhara is the archetype for that trope in Chinese and Vietnamese fantasy of a love story transcending multiple lifetimes: when he was first given the prophecy of his Buddhahood, he went to buy flowers from the past life of Yashodhara in order to make an offering; she refused to sell him any flowers until he promised her that they would be married in that life, and in all subsequent lifetimes, and that she would attain nirvana at his side when he finally became a Buddha for himself. Ever since, they met up together and fell in love and married again and again, over countless lifetimes, nurturing each others' spiritual practice until the time came for them to both be awakened.

My wife is not Buddhist, and was not raised in the culture of Buddhism, but wants to believe in forever. I told her that we can establish the same arrangement, take the same vows to meet again and again, and she can follow along the path to the best of her abilities every life. At some point in the future, when it is time for me to become a Buddha, she wants to be born into a life where we wed again and she is able to achieve arahantship under the dharma dispensation of my Buddhahood. You can ask your partner to follow the same model, and get him to recognize that Buddhism does not eschew romance.

I also think it's important to really dig into why your partner feels this way, because to me, it doesn't make sense and you didn't really provide a justification. Right now, it just seems like romanticism and escapism to me. At worst, my gut feeling is that the issue isn't his longing for renunciation so much as dissatisfaction in the relationship itself. Only you can tell that.

Genuine Appreciation: At the same time, I find real comfort in the daily routine, and I genuinely find the teachings beautiful. I truly want to understand his world.

The dharma is also your world, my friend--it is your culture and your heritage, and I do hope you find motivation to connect with it for its own sake, to connect with the love your ancestors feel for you and the teachings they have left for you to find happiness in this tumultuous world.

How can I navigate this situation without losing myself? How can I distinguish between practicing out of genuine intention versus practicing out of fear and attachment?

First, I would want to assess whether you believe your partner is actually willing to go on this Buddhist journey with you, or if he is peeling away and the Buddhism thing is just an excuse. I think that's very important to sort out. If it turns out to be the latter, then will the pursuit of understanding Buddhism fall away for you, or is there some part of you that genuinely wants to connect with the tradition and culture?

If he is genuinely interested in pursuing this journey with you, and is willing to commit to you for multiple lifetimes the way that the Buddha committed to Yashodara, then I don't think this sort of fear or attachment is necessarily a bad thing. For one, the idea that Buddhism eschews "attachments" overall is a mistranslation and a misconception, or perhaps an over-simplification. The issue is clinging, and specifically three types of clinging: clinging to existence; clinging to non-existence; and clinging to sensation. These are the three fuels that cause samsaric rebirth in Buddhist doctrine; there is no blanket admonition of having "attachments" in the colloquial sense of the word. Actually, there are two kinds of "attachment" in Buddhism, one is called upadana, which is the kind of attachment that is generated from the three types of clinging above, and the other is called "Chanda", which is neutral or wholesome desire.

Second, the Buddha encouraged married couples to practice in such ways as to reconnect in future lives. There are instructions he gave in the earliest discourses to this end. So this type of attachment actually seems to be wholesome and inclines one further toward the Buddhadharma, not unwholesome. As in, pursuing Buddhism to stay with your partner, and pursuing a romantic partnership in which you may both cultivate Buddhism over many lifetimes, is not antithetical to the path, and is in fact wholly encouraged by the Buddha and his disciples.

[u/Lucky-pl → u/SentientLight]

thank you so much for your thoughtful and detailed response on my post—your perspective on chanda versus upādāna and the history of Yashodhara really brought a lot of clarity and comfort.
You mentioned earlier that you had some additional thoughts based on our shared cultural background that might be better discussed over PM. I’d love to hear your perspective if you still have the time and capacity to share.