Remember that your family is not a cocoon to be inside and ignore

BUILDING MARITAL HAPPINESS

Apparently, there are too many factors that threaten marriage. Thus marriage has never been a "quiet home" or a "happy ending." Everyone will face so many problems when they start their married life. The fact is rare people are blessed enough to be ordained. Most people will feel in love with someone and enter into marriage. However, if you don't practice Buddhism, your marriage/family will be a burden on you because your family doesn't guarantee your happiness as what you dreamt when in love; it is very risky.

Understanding this, we have two choices: first is living alone, and second is to become a monk/nun. If you cannot do both things, then try to build your own family a happy one since it will become a solid foundation that helps you feel easy to contribute to society, the country, and Buddhism.

Otherwise, if your family is chaotic, you won't be able to have a career that is what you contribute to your country. While doing business, you create jobs for others, pay tax to the State, contributing to the prosperity of society. Therefore, today, the State honors successful entrepreneurs. But to have a successful career, their families must be stable and happy first. Likewise, Buddhists must have a good family that they will be able to practice the Dharma, help the ordained to do things for Buddhism. Therefore, if you cannot either live alone or become monks/nuns, you have to build a happy family for your own. This is a very accurate view.

Moreover, both of a couple are not saints that won't make mistakes (Saints don't get married). So, when you love someone, you should know that you and that person are not perfect. And when imperfect people live together, there will be disagreements and misery. That two people with imperfections have a happy life together seems to be only in poetry and music, like this one:
I promised to bring you to the violet horizon
Gathering all clouds, we build our castle of love
Please make the girl's hair shine in the moonlight
When there's a light of love in her boyfriend's eyes...

It was just a dream! So we can undoubtedly conclude: "Marriage is often painful." Happy marriage rates **are very low and require conditions. What are they?

The first is the practice of Buddhism*

To have a peaceful and happy marriage, you must know the causes that harm/destroy your marriage then calmly overcome each. We listed many reasons and first is love. Love brings us into marriage, and it also causes our suffering. It is a principle. We have proved that when in love, we become selfish, demanding, and jealous and the person we love develops her ego, i.e., she wants to be babied and then aggressive. So, love brings both happiness and suffering.

To have a happy marriage, one must resolve this first. He must lessen his selfishness and ego. Go to a Buddhist temple, not for ordination, but for taking refuge in the Three Jewels, worship the Buddha, learn morality from the ordained, practice compassion and meditation. Why? - Because when we cultivate compassion, we can love everyone, so our selfishness in love decrease and we will less hard, demanding, and jealous. So your marriage will be less stressful. And when you sit in meditation and can put your mind on concentration, you will steadily become calm and won't get angry unreasonably. Facing the mistakes of your partner, you will still be comfortable and calmly resolves them but not get mad then say harsh words and throw away all things as before.

Thanks to meditation, compassion contemplation, and the realization of the impermanence of life, and samsara that we can still keep calm in many tricky circumstances. For example, a wife confessed to her husband that though she loved him and very faithful to him, she suddenly felt a feeling of a love for another man. She didn't know why and she didn't want to. Usually, the husband would be jealous, angry and accused his wife of unfaithfulness. But because of understanding the Dharma, the husband immediately realized that his wife and that man had a karmic debt/ good relationship in a past life, now they accidentally met, they felt love for the other, though the wife didn't want to.

Everyone goes through many incarnations, and in each incarnation, they change their spouse; it's normal. When encountering a person who was your former spouse, one cannot avoid a feeling of affections for that person. In this case, the wife was honest with her husband, and the husband gently helped his wife to overcome the situation. He said: "I love you so much and I also understand your affections results from a past karma between you and that person. Let worship Buddha and repent in front of Him with me to overcome it, and also, you should avoid that person." Knowing the Buddha's teachings, believing in the law of Karma, and samsara, the husband didn't grumble and feel jealous but was always tolerant and protected his wife overcome her affections for somebody else. Thus, they could retain their marriage.

Therefore, the practice of the Dharma, meditation, and the contemplation of compassion will decrease your selfish love and increase your wisdom; hence, you will rarely make mistakes and resolve things reasonably, and for that reason, your happiness will last longer.
Every single day of mine is a new spring
Since I adopted Buddhism
Get rid of private dreams
Lessen afflictions.

The second is to live with responsibility

Also, when you practice Buddhism, your ego will reduce, and your compassion will grow, and for that reason, you will bear hardship to be responsible for your spouse, children, and families of both sides. Therefore, you and your spouse will feel grateful to each other, and it will help your marriage lasts until your end. Gratefulness is the key, while love is impermanent and will pass away over time. So, seeing two people passionately in love, we know that it really does not matter, as long as they live ethically and responsibly with each other, their families, and the community, then we can hope that they will live together until their death.

And remember to live irresponsibly is easy, while the opposite takes your efforts but you will win a reward later on. Those who just care about themselves and love enjoyments, though they live comfortably when young, they will suffer when old as no one will care for them. So they don't have true happiness in this life. Moral people will be responsible for many other peoples. Thus, they have a blessing of being respected and taken care of when growing old.

So when you get married, do not ever let yourself become a worthless person. It means you must live responsibly and contribute much to your family, but not just receive other's favors because your blessing will decrease dramatically. Our forefathers said, "Behind every successful man there is a woman." Everyone must contribute to the building of a home, and thanks to that contribution, they have a value to their family, relatives, neighbors, and society.

Third: Treat each other as guests

After the weddings, many people are subjective to think that their partners are theirs, so they don't control their words for others. The harsh words will hurt their partners' feelings. That is a terrible mistake. A wise man always treats his partner as their first days.

We know a couple in their fifties. Once, we had to work with the husband all day long. And we found that the husband treated his wife as if they were in love, while their children have grown up. They talked to each other courteously and often said "thanks" to each other. We were surprised to find that that couple was praised for their family happiness, and they were occasionally invited to give a speech on this. Finding out more, we knew that they always kept the principle: though living together, they must treat each other as guests and never said harsh words to each other as if they were still in love. That was the way they remain their marriage happiness. Those who think the partner belongs to them and treat them poorly, then their happiness will become more and more fragile.

When the husband is patriarchal, he treats his wife as a slave to serve him; then their happiness cannot exist. Or the wife thinks she is talented and wants to dominate her husband; then their marriage cannot be happy. Maybe because of past karmic debts, one now bullies and want to control the other, but all should restrain themselves and pay off their karmic debts, or else they will bear terrible retribution.

Fourth: Tolerate your partner's affair

Through many lives in samsara, all change their partners many times. So, in this life, even when one is married, he/she still can love someone else who had a relationship with them in a past life. The husband/ wife should understand the Law of Karma and samsara to tolerate and help the partner overcome strange feelings.

We have said that to be a couple you two must have some past causes together. For example, the wife in the past was a princess, and her husband was a bodyguard. They belonged to different classes. The bodyguard behaved correctly toward the princess, but indeed, he very loved her. However, the princess didn't pay attention to him because she was a noble. She was dreaming of a faraway prince who with a sword on his back beautifully rode a white horse along with his entourage came to propose to her. Here is what I heard:
Once upon a time
There was a princess
In the spring garden
She often felt sad
When a prince proposed
With thousands of jewels
But she didn't care
As her heart broken.
That's the story of the old days.

And even when the princess got married, the bodyguard asked to be followed her. The effort the bodyguard made to serve the princess exceeded what he received. According to the Law of Cause and Effect, the princess owed the bodyguard a debt, but she didn't know. Many lifetimes passed and in this life, she was born into a wealthy family because her blessing hasn't ended yet, and the bodyguard was born into a family of a middle class. However, when the girl met the boy, she felt love at first sight with him even though their family backgrounds are different. That is because of the old karmic debt.

We occasionally met married couples whose blessings are so different. The wife is very noble, while her husband is penniless, but why do they love each other? It is a secret of the law of Cause and Effect, and we must understand it to understand why. It's because of their karmic debts, and when the debts are paid off, they can leave each other.

Or in a past life, there was a great general. In a battle, he was defeated and detained by the enemy. A maid in the enemy's side believed in what the general did, so she sneaked into the prison to release the general. The general escaped in that night, but he couldn't bring the maid. After the investigation, the maid was executed. The general felt compassion toward the girl, who died for him, all the time.

Later he won the battle and had a wife and children, but his gratitude to the girl never ended until his death. So in some life, when he meets the girl again, she surely loves her more than anything else. They will become a married couple, and when people see them, they will be surprised at a big difference between them. One still has figures of a general, and the other is content. The past favor secretly united them, and we don't recognize it. But whether their marriage lasts depends on the way they live with each other. That is how the law of Karma works.

Through many lifetimes, everyone must change his/her partner many times, so our love for the partner will never be stable. You love your husband/wife sincerely, but when meeting someone, you may love that person, that is because, in a past life, that person was your husband/wife and you two loved each other very much. That the way samsara goes. So, in this life we may fall into a tricky situation: you meet your ex-husband/wife again. So, everything would be easy to deal with if we never met the person who was our husbands/wives in past lives. Therefore, if we don't understand the law of Karma, our lives will be tricky, and we will more and more suffer.

Jin Rong has set up a character who was "absolutely faithful." Xiao Feng was the leader of a gourd of professional beggars. When found to be of Ho people in the North of China, he was boycotted by Han Chinese. So Xiao Feng had to return to the North and lived there. On the way, he met a girl named A Zhou. They felt in love and took an oath to love each other for all their lives. But in a conflict resolution, A Zhou died. Xiao Feng missed her in all his life, and no one could replace her position in his heart. Later, A Zi, A Zhou's younger sister, wanted to replace her sister's position in the heart of Xiao Feng but it couldn't be. In this story, there was a statement: "Now and forever I only love A Zhou but not somebody else." And it was true until the day he died: He only loved one person even she had died.

That love was utterly faithful and beautiful. It was as impressive as the most beautiful painting in the world. However, it exists only in novels and in reality, it's rare because of the complicated law of Karma, it always control us and bring us into the unexpected circumstances and feelings that require tolerance. As we have mentioned the story of a husband who understood the Dharma and helped his wife overcome the strange feelings, but not blamed/scolded and felt jealousy.

Fifth: Admitting your faults

There will be countless situations for your marriage, but there is a golden key, a golden rule to avoid conflict and to preserve your happiness. That is always to admit your mistakes. It is the main principle (there are many others, but this is the central one). When the wife and the husband never acknowledge her/his faults, the family is very easy to break. If you are married, recall throughout their lives, how many times you admit your mistakes and how many times you blame others? And do you notice that when you blamed your partners, your family would have more and more disagreements and when you cleverly admitted your mistakes, your family would be better?

Flight attendants or waiters at tourist attractions always say sorry, admitting their mistakes because it is morality and also a key to pleasing others. It's okay when you make mistakes, and you acknowledge them. However, people only apply this golden rule to business, service, trade but forget to use it for marriage. If the wife or the husband always recognizes their errors, then the family has fewer conflicts. Two people who are full of shortcomings, how can they avoid disagreements when living together, but it's valuable when you lower your ego and recognize your faults.

It is very strange that in the past when marriage arranged by parents but very durable, people rarely left each other. Now young people "self-serve," they marry the people they love, but they quickly abandoned them. Why is that so? Because children in the past were very obedient to their parents, and when they abode by their parents' teachings, their egos were small, and when they entered marriage, they easily lived in harmony, hence their marriage quite stable. Today people are desirous to find freedom and in this desire is egos and without much thought. People with big egos live with others: how can they avoid discord.

Sixth: Having regard for each other

In nature, there are assignments for men and women, and truly there is not equality between men and women. Women are weaker and must bear the pain of giving birth, and the value of a woman is her virtue. Men are stronger and don't have to endure the hardship of maternity, and the value of a man is his responsibility to the family. Nature assigns so, and we cannot force a woman to shoulder the family, and a man to have soft manners and take care of housework.

However, in spite of inequality, we have to respect each other, because it is morality and human civilization, or else we are immoral and uncivilized. In primitive societies, women were despised and poorly trampled. Or in some places, men have the right to have four to five wives, and women are only regarded as tools for men. These are uncivilized societies.

In contrast, in civilized societies, "lady first." For example, a man will give his seat to a woman who comes after him. Women get respected and favored because they are weak. Respecting and taking care of ones weaker than you is a sign of civilization and morality. Relying on your muscle to bully weaker people is a sign of lack of refinement and poor morals.

In nature, there is an explicit assignment for males and females and so is in a family. Thus, we must have complement and regard for each other. Husbands must respect their wives because they know that women are weak, suffer the pain of maternity and have a great virtue, which is worth their respect. And wives know that their husbands are strong, responsible for their families, which is also worth their respect. Never say anything like: "Why don't you have soft manners like me? Why don't you do the laundry and cook like me?" - Because each person has been assigned differently.

Seventh: Help the other understand and follow Buddhism

It will be lucky if a couple practices Buddhism together because they both will correct mistakes, decrease their affliction, selfishness, and increase their compassion, endurance; hence their marriage will be comfortable and much happier.

A couple quarreled, and the husband was so angry that he didn't want to talk to his wife. The wife kept silent and continued her jobs, but when she found it was 7 pm, she suspended everything, wore a robe and went to burn incense sticks for Buddha and bowed to Him. Seeing his wife's humility, sincerely worshipped Buddha, the husband suddenly didn't feel angry anymore. Though he still disagreed with his wife about the business problem, he started to feel love for her. This is the case of a couple who practice Buddhism together. If otherwise, what would happen? The husband might think: "How come you didn't apologize me, cook for me, but worship Buddha at this time?" He would feel angrier and had more quarrels. Practicing Buddhism together helps your family happier.

So when you are in love with someone, try to help them understand and follow Buddhism. That is, bring them to a pagoda to help them take refuge in the Triple Gems, advise them to listen to the Dharma, and guide them to practice Buddhism. If later, your wedding comes, then you have finished helping them understand Buddhism, or else we earn a blessing when we help someone have faith in Buddhism.
A Buddhist girl brought her boyfriend to a pagoda to take refuge in the Triple Gems. They broke up then. But eight years later, we met the man at our pagoda. He told us that when he tried to win her affections, he agreed to go to a pagoda with her. Even though they didn't marry, he still took refuge in the Triple Gems and knew Buddha's teachings. Thanks to that chance, he came back to the pagoda and practiced the Dharma. If they reached a wedding, they both understood the Dharma, and together practice Buddhism, so their marriage life would be better. So, as parents, please remind your children: Whoever wants to be your boy/girlfriend, take him/her to a pagoda for taking refuge in the Triple Gems first, and everything else will be handled later.

Eighth: Together do good things

Marriage requires very high responsibilities, but love is only emotions, sometimes love results from a feeling. Marriage requires ethics, and love requires romance, that's why poetry, literature, and music praise love, but not marriage. Because marriage needs morality, responsibility, intelligence and bravery, and dedication; while love requires not much responsibility, so people are romantic in love. One who enters into marriage accepts double duty, as they have to take care of the partner's family. If the partner's family is good, then they are quite okay. Otherwise, they will have a new burden, which tires their mind.

Although demanding responsibility, love and marriage have a paradox: The more you care for it, the faster it passes away. This statement will surprise everyone, but it's true. For example, the money you are keeping in a safe will gradually lose its value due to inflation. There was a funny story about a guy who had been in a coma for 25 years because of an accident. After waking up and recovering memory, he immediately called the bank to ask them to check his account. A bank employee replied, "Your account has $4 million." He sighed, thanked them, and hang up. Then the phone rang, he picked up the phone and heard a message: "Sir, your last call costs 6 million dollars." It's a real joke, but it also warns us that the money that we keep will be devalued.

Love is so, too. When you two just care for each other, then your love will go away. Why? That people love each other is because they are indebted to each other because of old karmic debts. Now if they focus on paying their debts then the debts will be paid off soon, and at that time, they will leave each other. This is the law of Cause and Effect: When the debt is paid off, people naturally get bored with each other but don't understand why.

So what makes love last? It is your good deeds that you do for community and society will unexpectedly help your love be sustainable. Is it strange? If a couple together go to a temple to worship Buddha, do good things, or if they are civil officers have the same concern for the country, then they will help them earn a blessing which will strengthen their love. This is the key to happiness, but not only to care for each other.

Remember that your family is not a cocoon to be inside and ignore life because this cocoon will dissipate soon. Your family is not everything but just the foundation to rely on, so you will feel secure to step into society to serve people and the country. If you live like that, your family will naturally be happy and sustainable.

We have said when the family is less blessed, or too poor, their happiness hardly exists. That is why when getting married, you have to try to do good deeds for your family's blessing many years later. If we live leisurely without trying to accumulate blessings, after a few years, when you run out of your blessing, your family will go worse and worse and even extremely poor. At that time, you won't be able to raise the children; they would be very easy to be corrupt. Therefore, everyone must try to earn a blessing from the beginning of marriage.

Those who rely on the property and power of the family and quickly get rich, while they themselves don't have enough wisdom and virtue to be the master of their money, then the money will master them and they will depend on their wealth to have enjoyment, and their family will get broken. So Buddhists must understand the philosophy of money to be the master of your money, and even being poor, we still live a righteous life but not to sell our soul to the Devil.

Ninth: Mutual respect

Respect is the foundation of love and happiness. We can never love someone whom we despise. You must appreciate some good qualities and have a little respect for the one you love. The more you respect them, the more you love them. It is a principle of psychology. So once entering into marriage, each person must do whatever to keep their partner's respect. That is, after marrying, you still have to improve yourself on both knowledge and morality to preserve the respect of your partner for yourself.

A grave mistake is after marrying, your only care about doing business, or to live however you like but not grow yourself morally. When you don't get developed, you will lose the other's respect. The wife can say: "It has been ten years and you don't get better on both knowledge and morality." She a bit looks down on her husband. Please remember when you don't get better, it means you are going backward. So when you get married, don't think that everything is done, in fact, everything has just started. Therefore try to improve yourselves on both knowledge and morality until your death. Many people think that marriage is their most significant achievement and they don't need to make efforts anymore. They live an ordinary life, become bad, so they lose the respect of their partner and finally their happiness gradually go away. So, another golden key to marriage happiness is both must keep on improving themselves to maintain the mutual respect.

Finally, to have equal blessings and virtues

The balance between blessings and virtue of a husband and his wife is critical. A male Buddhist worked in a gold shop. The owner loved him so much that they married their daughter to him. We may guess it was because he was so good, gentle, honest. And when the owner passed away, he and his wife inherited all the property. From an employee, he married a wealthy girl then became the owner of a gold shop. He was living a virtuous life, and when he met Buddhism, he was earnest in practicing it. Such a person is so rare, and he was worthy of what he received. You see, marriage always requires the balance of blessings and virtue.

There are also other cases. Case 1: Two people were in love with each other. The man changed when they met the daughter of his director. She was prettier and wealthier than his girlfriend. He broke up with his girlfriend and married the director's daughter. Three months later, he discovered that his marriage was suffering. This suffering has two reasons:

The first is causality. Because he left his girlfriend for another girl without falling love with her, so he had to bear his retribution.

The second cause is the unequal blessings. He had fewer blessings than the director's daughter, and also, he was not virtuous.

Because of their different blessings, only three months after the wedding, his marriage ran into considerable trouble. His wife looked down on whom she loved and decided to marry. She treated him like a servant. He felt so miserable and wanted to return to his ex-girlfriend but never be accepted again.
Case 2 is like this story: In the ancient times, there was a poor student who came from a far away countryside to the capital for the examination held by the court. He became the winner, the doctor. The king let him marry a princess. Usually, in such cases, the happiness lasts long. Why? Although the princess was a blessed noble, the doctor was of great talent. This talent was balanced with the princess's blessing.
In ancient times, to be the doctor, one had to be incredibly talented in many aspects, but not just literature. Don't think that a doctor in ancient times was only good at literature or writing. He had to take a lot of subjects and had to be expert in astronomy and geography, and more importantly, he had to have national leadership. Besides, he had to be excellent at many things like Confucianism, medicine, Physics, Mathematics, etc. For example, the king asked doctorate candidates to describe a given stick. Who talked about the stick making of some good and its shape would fail. Candidates must talk about the country affairs but must be very subtle and profound.

In this case, the doctor could have a long and happy marriage with a princess; it was because his talent was so great that was balanced with the great blessing of the princess. Our ancestors ever said, "similarity of social background" means the balance between the blessing of two sides so that they could live together till their end. In the case of different backgrounds, one who has a lower background but great talent is considered balanced with one of a higher background according to the law of Karma.

Written by:
Janna

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