This article is part of a series on overcoming loneliness. Click here for part 1, part 2, and part 3.
I miss you!
When did you last miss someone?
Missing people is of course related to loneliness. When we say we “miss” people, it seems like quite a good descriptor, because we are “missing” also in the sense of not getting it, missing the mark, not realizing that they are still in our hearts, that they haven’t really gone anywhere.
Attachment is a cover up of isolation that increases our isolation. It looks for love but blocks us as the object is outside ourself, unreachable – we’re like that donkey chasing the carrot. Futility and frustration are endemic in attachment for we’re looking for relationship while grasping at an independent, ie, unrelatable, self and other. We are holding ourself and others to be poles apart (||) as opposed to poles dependent (/\). This means we cannot be together, however hard we try.
Uncontrolled desire, or attachment, takes us out of the here and the now. Have you noticed how, when you are attached, you are always wanting to be someplace different or with someone else, never content or satisfied in the present moment with the people around you?
And do you not find it ironic that the less dependent we are on externals, the less needy–for example through open-hearted equanimity and love–the more others seem to enjoy sticking around?! With grasping, sooner or later we lose everything.
Try this thought experiment
We can use Chandrakirti’s verse as an object of contemplation, and see how our self-grasping ignorance sets us up for attachment, asking ourselves:
“What or who is that I or me who is lonely? How am I holding myself and the object of my ignorance and attachment apart, like the two poles (||), unable to bring them together?”
Then, when I try to bridge that gap, ‘I need you to make me happy’, what is that sense of me?”
We can see how we yearn to be close and yet our attachment pushes us further away from others. Frustration is guaranteed. The gulf between self and other grows greater the harder we try to bridge it with attachment.
Does attachment work? It’s what we’re turning to!
We need to bridge the gap through love and wisdom instead, effectively. So we can make the determination to overcome ignorance and attachment and increase our love and wisdom – this can be the object of our meditation.
This mountain, that mountain
The title of this article is “Why do I have no friends?” But the point is, you DO have friends, lots of them.
If we understand we are poles dependent (/\), we know that we are ALREADY in relationship. We don’t have to create relationships that are already there. We can however improve our relationships enormously by recognizing them.
There are various ways to understand that we are already dependent on others, and therefore in relationship with them. One is by contemplating “this mountain, that mountain.”
19 Comments
Hello! This is a great post! For me, this is a challenging topic as it feels the more I strive to develop my spiritual self and grow, the fewer friends I have left. I do not feel lonely, though. How can you explain this?
I think people who genuinely dont have friends really dont have friends. I know some people like that. Noone actually wants to be their friend. Maybe all the Buddhas are their friends but a friendship with someone who you input through the power of imagination does not answer the question…why do other people have human friends whereas I cannot get that to happen.
Of the people I know who dont have friends, some of them are people who smell bad, have annoying habits and for other reasons are not nice to be around. Other examples are elderly and disabled who people avoid often because they are trying to avoid depressing images & seeing suffering. These people are not mistaken when they think they are being rejected.
Most isolation is because your first social moves involve unintentionally (and without realising it) doing something horrible to the person you are trying to make friends with. The person still tries to connect with you though…enduring this horrible thing over and over. But after a while they have had too much horribleness..at this point things break down.
I have a friendship with a man at the moment who is deeply lonely but refuses to wash himself or his clothes. When I tell him there is a bad bad smell he says I have a very oversensitive nose, & am too extreme about cleanliness & I am imagining it. It is exceedingly pungent!
Because he has this mental block anyone he tries to get close to tries to endure it because he is otherwise a lovely person. However each time he makes their chairs/cushions, towels, coats on the hook, bathroom stink they just feel he doesnt respect them. Then he puts food directly on the table instead of a plate & refuses to use the plate, he spills drinks on the chairs and puts his grubby items on very pale chairs (which will get marks). He even puts his foot on the cream upholstered chair to tie his shoelace. He even wiped his arse with the hand towel after I got him to have a bath. I told him repeatedly to use the towel I have given him. I have to check the hand towel constantly! The towels stink which mean hes not cleaning his skin before using them.
All these actions are messages – saying over and over again “I dont care about you”
This is the message that leads to having no friends. Caring mentally isnt enough. This guy thinks he really cares about me & he thinks he really treated the others who rejected him with respect too. What normally happens with him is the other person gets more and more angry and eventually explodes. He has been hit with pans, beaten, and suffered a lot of domestic abuse in his life. And he is incredibly lonely. He has many friends now but always when he tries to get close to someone they end up lashing out because he constantly acts like he doesnt have any respect for them. He might as well be trying to make friends by going up to someone and smearing them with a rotten egg when they are wearing a white top that cost them a lot of money. BUT he is completely oblivious even if you spell it out to him calmly and respectfully with love & a stinky hug afterwards!
This is such a moving account of how we self-sabotage. I am so glad you are trying to be his friend.
I wonder if it would help if you put these thoughts down on paper for him, in a very loving and respectful way. It would give him more time to think about it. There must be something in him that wonders why he is not able to hold onto his friends. You have made it clear to us, and maybe if it is written down it may be clearer to him?
I don’t know if it will be enough, but is it worth a try?
What is his name — I’d like to remember him in my prayers.
Love the explanation of this mountain and that mountain. Clarified what I read in Joyful Path quite a bit.
good 🙂
We turn love upside down, seeing it as something existing
in the object, outside of our mind, and then giving all our power over
to that object thinking it is the cause of our happiness or misery. Love is an inside job, and the more we realize this the happier we’ll become. I am happy to say that my own relationship has been strengthened through this understanding, which prior to finding Dharma we had know idea how to fix.
Thank you Luna, for sharing on this subject.
Nicely put, love IS an inside job 🙂 It is attachment that gives away our power, looks outside for happiness etc. Good way to understand the difference, thank you.
Wonderful post!
I recently received a message from a family member whom I have been estranged. I was planning to call her when I received a letter stating- “since we have no relationship your cards and emails have no meaning to me – so this will be my last to you.” I on the other hand, am content with the relationship I thought I had. My Buddhist practice has allowed me to be much more content with the appearances to mind and if I want to change things I can try and if I can’t, patience will bring about a change anyway. I may not like the change but change things will and resistance to change is such a huge part of suffering.
Being close to others is the way things really are. When I think that others are out there independent of my mind I dwell in ignorance. When I realize there is no separation of self and other my mind can be peaceful and content. Loneliness comes from reifying the illusory difference that our ignorance creates. The above article tells it like it is and presents a reality suited to much less stress and anxiety! Thank you.
great comment, thank you!
‘Whoever is me is also you and whoever is you is also me’ I could meditate on this for a very long time Luna and it’s a phrase to remember day to day with people and animals.
I’d like to tell you about my Mum – I was very close to her and was unable to imagine my life without her – even though I was grown up with my own family – the thought of her ageing and death terrified me if I’m honest. When she died I was very surprised there were benefits to the loss. Of course I missed her but on the other hand I felt much stronger – more whole. The qualities I thought came from her came back to me if that makes sense. I think in my attachment I gave away my power. If I’d realised this earlier it would’ve enriched our relationship which is a regret but funnily enough I find I still have a changing relationship with her – we become closer, she appreciates and encourages me and I appreciate her more and more – she is part of me.
Very interesting, thankyou for sharing this.
One needs to stand on the mountain in meditation as a practice to gain the freedom??
Yes, you can imagine that.
Beautiful thank you!
🙂
THIS MOUNTAIN OF ME
(morning song lyric inspired by posting)
This mountain of me
That I can’t even see
Causes so much
………………….Misery
I’ll climb down
This lonely mountain of me
I’ll cross the valley, climb up high
And see what I can see…..I’ll see what I can see……..see what I can wed
Then this mountain of me
Will become another
Mountain that
I’ll be able to see
When this mountain of me
Becomes another mountain
Then maybe I’ll be able
To see………………..
…You and me
Maybe I’ll see
You and me
Well baby, now I know
That I just can’t
See…………………..
This mountain of me
Sean in Windermere
Thank you, my friend!
very insightful!
but i still want the carrot 🙂
can’t have the carrot …