Why Some Love Stories Break Your Heart

A love story is heartbreaking
when the heartbreak need not occur,
while the heartbreak is clung to,
though the heartbreak can be healed.

- Stonepeace

Many heartwrenching love stories share the common trait of heartbreak – due to miscommunication, which happens in two ways – not communicating one’s true thoughts and feelings in time, and wrongly assuming what the other’s true thoughts and feelings are. The only way to heal such heartaches is… yes, you guessed it – communication. With the world being tightly interconnected by the net today, it is much easier to trace the hearts you have broken, and the ones whom your heart had broken over… to re-communicate, to set the record right, even if it is just for the record, so as to have a sense of closure. Closure, however, does not mean all is over for good, for true closure opens new doors of karmic affinity too, offering new possibilities. Even if romantic love is now out of the question, isn’t genuine friendship possible? Why let a relationship become estranged and wasted over misunderstandings when you can clear the air? It would be truly heartbreaking if they are not resolved in time – when one party departs before the other. Do communicate while there is still time! It doesn’t matter if what you wish to communicate is well received or not, as long as you convey it sincerely, freeing yourself from regret.

As the Buddha taught in the Dhammapada, ‘There are those who do not realise that one day we all must die. But those who do realise this settle their quarrels.’ In the movie, ‘You Are The Apple Of My Eye’, there is an earthquake scene, which shook many wide awake in the still of the night. Everyone suddenly whips out their mobile phones to call their loved ones living elsewhere, to check if they are alright. The protagonist guy holds up his phone to check for reception, as he runs away from the crowd hogging the airwaves. Finally, he manages to connect, or rather, reconnect, with the girl he had a serious crush upon, and was assured that she was okay. Despite a two-year lapse in communication due to a conflict, the earthquake was a wake-up call, on the urgency to reconcile, to express his deep care and concern despite a petty grudge. Furthering what the Buddha said, not only will we die one day, this one day can arrive abruptly indeed, via sudden disasters. Life is too short to make one another suffer by nursing regrets and resentment, especially when they are resolvable. Even if they are no longer resolvable in person, it is also senseless to continue nursing regrets and resentment.

One might as well focus on resolving other conflicts and maintain other surviving relationships well, lest new regrets and resentment form. For making peace with the deceased, one can also share merits for their well-being. In the same movie, there was much ambivalence over the guy and girl in affirming their love for each other. The guy struggles to be accepted, while the girl hesitates accepting him. True Love just loves though. It is not conditioned by acceptance or rejection, never mistaking physical intimacy as crucial, since it can be loveless and lustful instead. Why not just love on in acceptable ways without yearning for more, if the love is true? While one might be ambivalent in committing, there is no need to be ambivalent in being caring. Why let pride be in the way of love, unless your ego is your one True Love? The Bodhisattvas openly declare their True Love for all beings, and love on even when unappreciated! If the ego obstructs even the loving of one person, is one ready to embrace many? Possible – only if one’s love is already more spiritual than worldly in nature. May all beings be slow to hate and swift to love one another, with as few conditions as possible!    

As True Love is truly unconditional,
never expecting reciprocation,
one who loves truly can never have one’s heart broken.

- Stonepeace

Related Articles:

How Can You Quarrel?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheDailyEnlightenment/message/583
Some Regrets about Some Relationships
http://thedailyenlightenment.com/2010/04/some-regrets-about-some-relationships

View the original article here

Yelm Buddhists break ground on new temple

Home The Americas US West

Yelm, Washington (USA) -- Wat Prachum Neward Raingsey Buddhist temple has grown since opening in July 2002 and is expanding once again. The temple, recognizable for lotus blooms at its entrance, sits on Yelm Highway on the westerly outskirts of Yelm.

<< Wat Prachum Neward Raingsey’s monks, Soavanna Chhin, left, Kosal Suon and Tola Chhim, sit in front of a shrine to Buddha, which includes a bone shard from Buddha’s ashes. Photo by Dean Siemon

The Theravada Buddhist temple, a nonprofit organization, broke ground last weekend on a new cetiya, which is a temple.

Kosal Suon, 49, said the building used to honor Buddha is too small for the people that join them in their public services.

Services are 10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Suon said the cetiya is estimated at more than $120,000. He said they hope to build a much larger temple in the far back of the property.

“When I came to the temple, I had to build something new,” Suon said.

Buddhism is a religion practiced as the fourth largest faith, but originates from northeastern India and spread into Southeast Asia. Buddhism was formed after the Buddha, formerly Siddhartha Guatama, left life in a royal family in present-day Nepal and discovered the path to enlightenment.

Thousands of years after his death, his ashes are shared amongst selected temples, one of them being the one in Yelm. A woman brought a bone shard, the size of a grain of rice, after visiting a former professor, who is a monk in Sri Lanka

“She was asked to give (the shard) to a temple in Washington,” explained Sovanna Chhin, a student monk in Yelm for the last year and a half.

Once construction is complete on the new cetiya, the Buddha relic will be moved there. But plans are to move the shard to the larger temple once it is constructed, which Suon said won’t be anytime soon.

“I just have a plan for the future,” he said.

A Buddhist monk for 22 years, Suon spent the past five as the head monk at Wat Prachum Neward Raingsey. Buddhists wanting to become monks can join at any age and become a samanera, a novice monk, before becoming a bikkhu, a full monk.

To become a bikkhu takes 10 years of study.

“I wanted to improve my life and live in the rule of Buddha,” he said.

Chhin said that he joined the temple by choice as a way of repaying his parents for raising him.

“In return, I repay them by becoming a Buddhist monk to show them I still have respect for my culture and background,” Chhin said, who has not returned to his home country of Cambodia since age 5.

Now 35, Chhin is not only pursuing his Buddhist studies but is studying business law at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia.

“That’s for my own personal growth,” he said.

Chhin said that he joined the temple in 2010 as a student expecting to serve only the maximum three-month term.

“But if you have the mentality and the heart to stay, then you can stay,” Chhin said. “I like it. I get to meet other monks and I get to travel and do ceremonies for the public.”

Tola Chhim, 43, is in his first month of serving as a student monk, called a samanera, or novice, at the Yelm temple, but wanted to join a temple for at least six years.

“It just wasn’t the right time,” Chhim said.

About two years ago, Chhim said he was driving in the Yelm area to scout a new location for his family’s donut shop in Spanaway.

He discovered the Wat Pracham Neward Raingsey Buddhist temple and eventually attended the group’s Cambodian New Year, which is from April 13-15.

After attending this year’s festival, Chhim said he decided now was the best time.

“Something called me here,” he said.

Suon said that they are welcoming to new comers with open arms, hoping to continue teaching the rule of Buddha.

“In the future, I (will) try to teach about meditation and teach Cambodian culture and language for the younger followers,” he said.

View the original article here