City Cave Zen - Blog

Zen Buddhist Sangha in Glasgow, Scotland, practising internationally online

donate contact podcast videos how to do zazen meetings monks about subscribe by email rss

Grief: Summary of Yesterday's Dharma Talk

October 24, 2022

by dogo

More than a decade ago, a friend told me they saw grief as the price we pay for love. I disagreed, saying i did not see the two as separate, a thing/experience we enjoy, and a bill we then pay for it, but i could not articulate it further. Last week i watched an interview with the Canadian spiritual teacher Stephen Jenkinson, in which he suggested that the tears that come with love are a manifestation of grief for what we have not yet lost. I agree.

I often joke, "Being dead makes people like you better," but it is not really a joke. It is common for survivors to reinvent the person who has died, making them into the person they would have preferred. Of course, this desire to change people into who we would prefer them to be is something we also try to do to living people we are in relationship with, including ourselves. This is also a way of trying to avoid grief by controlling the narrative.

a scan of dogo's teacher chop

email

This site does not track you.