Wednesday, May 20, 2015

May 19th

Marriage


Wall of flames, bridge of tears.
Snowflake on newly forged links.
For a marriage to last, a couple must go through great travails and hardships. It is like a process of forging steel links together. The iron must be heated to a high degree and then plunged into cold water. A marriage alternates between the heat of passion and love and the chilling times of tragedy, conflict, and adversity. An enduring marriage becomes like tempered steel.It is difficult to go through life alone. We all need support and the sense of belonging that comes from working toward goals shared with another. For such a relationship to work, there must be a basic compatibility of values, outlook, and purpose. It is an inadequate cliché that husband and wife must be friends as well as lovers. Two mates can know a loyalty found in no other type of relationship. Yet even in the face of such strength, Tao reminds us of the need for moderation.
Ultimately, all relationships are temporary. False attachment to another can become an addiction, a voluntary bondage detrimental to clear perception. We should not bind another to ourselves, should not define ourselves by our marriage, should not force another to stay with us. But if chance allows us to walk together, who is anyone to challenge our choice of walking companions?
When it is time to part, then it is time to part. There should be no regrets. The beauty of marriage is like the fleeting perfection of a snowflake.


Personal Interpretation


Iron must be heated and then plunged into water in order to make steel, and romantic relationships are no different. When choosing to share one's life with another, one should be ready for good times and bad. Partners will endure hardship as well as marvel at their love. They will be tested. Adversity will rear its ugly head. Not all such arrangements will endure, but those that do will be all the stronger for it.

Life is a difficult thing to go through without companionship and the wisest practitioners of Tao see marriage as a potentially beautiful bond between two people who come to care very deeply for one another. Even as we unite our lives with another though, we should be careful to maintain ourselves. As with everything else in this world, our relationships are transient and doomed to end. We should not seek to define ourselves by them, nor should we force our will upon our partners. Equally important is the cultivation of sufficient strength to resist the efforts of our partners to control us. The best relationship consists of two whole people.

When the relationship is brought to an end by a change in circumstances or sentiment, or the arrival of death, we should not resist the end. The wise know how to embrace endings as well as beginnings. We must strive to rejoice in memory rather than lose ourselves in lamentation when what we love is taken from us.

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