Mindfulness and Liberation True Love Global Sangha: - The ...

true LOVEBreaking up asa MindfulnessPracticeBy Octavia BakerArthur and I had both been dreadingthe end of our relationship, not knowinghow or when to break up.FFor months, I was clinging to my relationship with my partner,thinking we could somehow stay together without my becominga parent, although he wanted to have children. I thought mypartner could adopt my best friend’s children. He could becomea mentor, a big brother. He could co-parent with a yet-to-beidentifiedlesbian couple. I was obsessed with finding a solution.On the cushion, yet another idea would pop into my head. I scouredthe library, read Rebecca Walker’s book on alternative families,One Big Happy Family, and searched online for examples of coparentingthat could apply to a straight couple.Finally, I decided to consider the possibility of motherhoodand joined a twelve-week support group with six other womentrying to make the same decision. We explored the sources offear, craving, and delusion within ourselves. At the end, it onlyconfirmed what I already deeply knew to be true—I do not wantto be a mother. Mentoring two young women for seven years hassatisfied my need to nurture. And although we live in the SanFrancisco Bay Area, the capital of non-traditional relationships,Arthur really just wants an old-fashioned nuclear family.Growing up taking care of his dad, who suffered from a mentalillness, Arthur has always yearned to experience the traditionalroles of a father/child relationship. Although we discussed ourdifferences when we first met, he was not ready to become a fatherthen, so we decided to go ahead and explore a relationship withone another. And being with the most charming and attentive manI’ve ever met (and someone that my friends really admired), itwas easy to continue year after year, with the parenting questionhanging in the air.Our relationship is hard for some people to understand, sowe are often asked if we are wasting our time staying together. Onthe contrary, I think we have learned to savor our time togetherbecause we know it will not last. For the most part, we cultivatethe four elements of true love—loving kindness, compassion, joy,and inclusiveness—and try not to take each other for granted. Ihave taught him to speak more truthfully in difficult situationsand he has inspired me with his compassionate listening. At thesame time, we have been able to avoid the landmines that mighthave broken up other relationships, like arguing over finances oran overbearing mother, because they didn’t really matter in thepresent moment. If we were not going to get married, we did nothave to go to financial counseling, and I did not have to learn tolive with his mom.A Tender CrossroadsOur whole relationship has been based on not knowing, asix-year practice in being present and not planning for the future.We’ve attended ten weddings together, all the while trying not toimagine our own. But at age thirty-four, Arthur decided that he28 Winter/Spring 2011