Buddha on Broken Hearts

You Will Heal

When you first start dating you never realize how much breakup hurts. Dealing with the loss of a serious relationship is hard.

After the relationship ends you start to feel sorry for yourself. No matter how hard you try, the pain doesn’t go away.

But there are ways to deal with your heartbreak. In Buddhism you can find help to mend a broken heart and deal with emotional pain.

Let me explain after this little poem :-)

Lonely and abandoned I write these words on paper I see a picture of our happy past But it could not last forever

Never thought our love would end Yet we decided to go our separate ways But I didn’t count on one thing My heart loves you more than I can say

Here I am, all alone There is no hope for me anymore Without your presence around me My heart hurts like never before

I want to wrap my arms around you Then it hits me you’re not there All nights are so cold and lonely Every new day a terrible loss

My eyes fill with tears of sadness I did not know it would hurt so much In my heart only that terrible pain I would love to be with you again

Whether my eyes are open or closed In everything I see your face I’m still hearing your voice and laughter While thinking of you the whole day

My heart belongs to you alone My love for you not over A life without you I cannot bear But I know I’ve lost you forever

I must try now to continue Heal my sorrow, remorse unspoken But I don’t know how to mend my heart For it is truly broken

Buddhism has a lot to say about suffering — and there are likely few times we suffer more intensely than when we break up with a romantic partner. It feels like you may never recover.

The only thing a boyfriend was good for was a shattered heart.-Becca Fitzpatrick, Crescendo

What to do with a broken heart? If there would only be a one step plan, an immediate cure or medication that would heal your heart immediately?

Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that, but according to American meditation teacher Lodro Rinzler, also writer of the book Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroken">Love Hurts: Buddhist advice for the heart broken, you can find a cure for heartbreak in Buddhism.

According to Rinzler, the 2,500-year-old teachings of Buddha are the ultimate antidote for emotional pain, including heartbreak and love sickness. And you don’t even have to be a Buddhist to apply them.

Rinzler took the wise teachings of Buddha as a guide to heal your heart and bundled his own experiences and lessons in his book Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroken">Love Hurts. With great humor, Rinzler points out the pitfalls in dealing with a broken heart, gives tips and makes sure that a smile appears on your face.

His advice is practical and based on his own experience with loss and heartbreak.

It’s a great, practical offering of consolation for someone you know who’s going through a tough time, and for yourself when you’re looking for the light at the end of the tunnel in your own situation.

Rinzler did not find a quick fix for heart pain.

The only way to get over a broken heart is to experience that awful, devastating, profound experience

But Rinzler does have good news.

It will be fine

Below are the eight most important lessons that you can learn from Buddhism to mend your broken heart.

You will heal

Healing is a matter of time. You are strong enough to face it all, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

According to Rinzler, the transitoriness of life (and also love) is both your friend and foe: ‘A student asked the Buddhist Zen master Suzuki Roshi to summarize Buddhism in a sentence. The Zen master answered: everything changes’.

The pain you are currently experiencing will not remain the same. Everything changes. Even the greatest sadness.

Yes, I understand why things had to happen this way. I understand his reason for causing me pain. But mere understanding does not chase away the hurt. It does not call upon the sun when dark clouds have loomed over me. Let the rain come then if it must come! And let it wash away the dust that hurt my eyes! -Jocelyn Soriano, Mend My Broken Heart

It takes time

Time may not heal all the wounds, but time does change them. Some wounds will heal completely. Some wounds stay with us longer and then it sucks that they have not yet been healed.

Over time it will hit you less. And eventually your tears will change into a smile.

In the meantime, realize that time doesn’t heal by itself, it’s also what you DO with the time that does.

It requires proper ACTION. So do things that are meaningful and joyful for you, things that give you a purpose.

Do not lose yourself

According to Rinzler, it is normal that you want to bury your head in the sand. Often you are self-destructive during deep sorrow. Maybe you drink too much. You may have one or two sexual escapades. You may give in to binge eating. You’re gaming or Netflixing for too long.

There are more healthier ways to deal with a broken heart. Rinzler pushes you in the right direction by trying to make you see your heartbreak as an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Who do you want to be? What would you do now if grief would not stop you? And what can you do today? DO it.

Realize it is not about you

All too often, we create stories about how we’ll never find true love or that we’ll always fall for the wrong person who eventually cheats on us. But it is really not about you. ‘Often a rejection has much less to do with us and much more to do with what is going on in that person’s own head,’ Rinzler says.

So thinking that you are a looser who will never find true love or that you will always be rejected because you are not good enough, not smart enough or not beautiful enough will only lock you in your own personal hell. Forget these self-destructive reasoning patterns in your head and accept the one the universe has planned for you.

To be rejected by someone doesn’t mean you should also reject yourself or that you should think of yourself as a lesser person. It doesn’t mean that nobody will ever love you anymore. Remember that only ONE person has rejected you at the moment, and it only hurt so much because to you, that person’s opinion symbolized the opinion of the whole world, of God.- Jocelyn Soriano, Mend My Broken Heart

Take care of yourself

Great heartbreak is traumatic; it shocks the system. So do not forget to take good care of yourself.

Even the simplest of self-care acts make a big difference when we’re struck down by heartbreak. Rinzler recommends:

• getting more sleep than you think you need
• eating well, or at least eating (we often forget to when we’re depressed)
• meditating
• exercising in whatever way makes sense to you

Rinzler calls these the ‘Four joys’ that originate in Tibet’s Buddhist monasteries. Very simple, but things we would pay less attention to or completely forget when pain swallows up all the space in your head.

Give into all the feelings

You will get through this period when you stay true to your feelings. In the face of heartbreak, we are often overwhelmed by violent emotions. And that’s okay.

When you’re going through heartbreak, it’s natural to feel a barrage of emotions. As overwhelming as they can be, the only way out is through.

Let yourself burst into tears while listening to music or chopping vegetables or some other innocuous scenario without judgement or commentary. ‘The only bad emotion…is the one you close yourself off to,’ Rinzler says.

Rinzler advises you to allow yourself to fully feel your feelings. ‘But be careful not to get stuck in it. Find that strong emotion, spend some time with it, but do not make it too cozy. At a certain moment that emotion changes because you change.’

Keep on open heart and be compassionate

Rinzler also advises you to keep an open heart and be compassionate.

In the Buddhist tradition we refer to beings willing to keep their heart open no matter what as bodhisattvas.

Bodhi is a Sanskrit word that can be translated as ‘open’ or ‘awake.’ Sattva can be translated from Sanskrit as ‘being’ or ‘warrior.’

It’s a person who is incredibly brave in maintaining an open heart, no matter what comes up in their life. This experience is something we can aspire to.

If you are experiencing heartbreak because of another person, don’t give up on them; don’t cut them off in your heart, even if you have to cut off regular contact with them.-Lodro Rinzler

The Zen master Seung Sahn once said, ‘Being a bodhisattva means when people come, don’t cut them off; when people go, don’t cut them off.’

Your ex can be ‘a piece of shit’, but you can still feel respect for him or her.

Sometimes we may go through a breakup and think our ex is crazy and deranged. Even if that is true, they are not basically evil-Lodro Rinzler

They still possess basic goodness, but they are not connected to it or know how to act from it. They’re probably stuck in their own ego personality. Which in its own way is sad.

You are a warrior if you can see that and be compassionate about it, have compassion for them, no matter how hard that might be to do.

Stay on your (spiritual) path

Rinzler calls our whole life a training in heartbreak and advises to not try to stop it but make it part of your spiritual path.

Our whole life is a training in heartbreak, whether we acknowledge it or not. By showing up for it, day in and day out, we learn to make it a part of our spiritual path as opposed to something we have to hide from.

Thus, we show up for our life more authentically and offer our love that much more deeply. Heartbreak becomes not a horrific thing we have to run from, but the very path to transforming our life into one marked by love.-Lodro Rinzler

I was blind and heart broken and didn’t want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, “I have wonderful news!” And I was like, “I don’t really want to hear wonderful news right now,” and Gus said, “This is wonderful news you want to hear,” and I asked him, “Fine, what is it?” and he said, “You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!’ -John Green, in his book The Fault in Our Stars