The Practice of Right Relationship
When someone asked the Buddha to identify the essence of his teaching, he said that he only ever taught about suffering and the end of suffering. We know this teaching as the Four Noble Truths, which state that 1) life is hard, 2) because of our endless want, 3) but it doesn’t have to be, 4) if we follow the Noble Eightfold Path made up of Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. Here, “right” (in Pali samma) doesn’t oppose wrong in a moral sense but refers to the “proper” or appropriate choices to live well, wisely, and joyfully. We can say that the Four Noble Truths describe the way things are—the facts of life—and the Noble Eightfold Path shows us how to practice those facts.
These teachings are familiar to anyone who’s spent even a short time studying Buddhism, but there’s another, less obvious thread running through… well, everything. I call it the ninth implicit factor of the path: Right Relationship.
All of us are constantly in relationship. We relate to our parents, to our children, our lovers, friends, or co-workers. Even when we’re alone, we’re in relationship to ourselves (mostly through the endless dialogue running through our minds), to other beings, to objects of all kinds, and to the Earth, and depending on how aware we are, those relationships will make our lives easier or more difficult. They’ll amplify or lighten our suffering. But if we take the time to understand and practice Right Relationship, we’ll be in a better position to build loving relationships based on clarity and wisdom. We’ll nurture interactions based, not on how we’d like things to be, but on how they actually are, which is perhaps the most direct way to not create suffering and ensure our happiness: by accepting life on its terms. Or, more accurately, seeing that there are no terms, just life to be lived.
Practicing Right Relationship is therefore about aligning ourselves with ourselves, with others, and with the world in such a way that these relationships will both create and reflect harmony, kindness, and care. It’s about living our lives according to our true capacity, our true nature, instead of the confusion that so often results in greed and harm. The good news is that every single one of us has the capacity to see clearly, act lovingly, and care deeply. All we have to do is decide that this is what we want. The rest is just a matter of practice.
If we start with the premise that all eight factors of the path occur within relationship, then we can investigate how Right Relationship operates within each one, beginning with Right View, which the Buddha called “the precursor of the path.”
The traditional definition of Right View is knowledge of the Four Noble Truths, which helps us to first, identify the problem of suffering and second, to apply a solution. More broadly, we can think of Right View as correct seeing—that is, seeing things as they are, not as we are.
Some time ago, a good friend was fired from her job at a special events company after making a mistake in one of her projects. She’d been scheduled to run the operations for a big conference in another country months from then, and her partner, knowing she’d be there, had also registered. When she was let go, my friend was told someone else would run the event, and for reasons relating to the company’s policy, she wouldn’t be able to attend even as a participant. She’d worked with this company for more than ten years and had gotten close with both her co-workers and clients, so she was very upset by the sudden loss of work she loved, as well as the potential severing of these relationships. The decision seemed extreme and unfair to her, and she was so unsettled she didn’t know how to move forward. In the aftermath, her friends rallied around her, letting her know that they too found the company’s response overly harsh and assuring her she’d find another job. This helped to soften the blow a little, as did her decision to book a vacation for her and her partner to replace the trip she’d miss. She looked forward to spending time with him and also thought she could use some of the time to process what had happened and consider her next steps. But to my friend’s surprise, her partner didn’t respond the way she’d expected. He was a bit aloof when she voiced her distress about losing her work and community, and after a few days’ reflection, let her know that he would still attend the conference. When my friend asked why, all he said was, “I planned on it,” which made my friend feel doubly upset. She felt unseen and unsupported, as if they were no longer in relationship, she said.
When she told me the story, it occurred to me that they were both having a hard time understanding one another, and more importantly, feeling what the other felt. Instead of seeing the situation in its entirety and with all its complexity, they were each seeing it in their own image, through the filter of their individual views. But what if they could apply Right Relationship to Right View—would they see the situation differently?
Let’s imagine that my friend’s partner had approached their dialogue with a question, something along the lines of: “It sounds like it’s important to you that I accompany you on this vacation. Can you tell me more about why that is so I can understand you?” A question like that would create an opening in the conversation. It would foreground their connection to one another and allow my friend to state her view. It would also make her feel that her partner was interested in her experience; that he was seeing her, or at least trying to. Next, he could have applied the same attitude of curiosity to his own view so he could get clear about and then express why it was important for him to honor his original commitment. He could get in touch with his deeper intent—whatever lay beyond his initial, perhaps defensive reaction. Having done this, he could maybe show his support in some other way. He could suggest that my friend go on vacation with a close friend instead, and given the loss of her job, maybe even offer to pay for some or all of it. Or, after listening to her, he could decide that it was more important to stay and help her get through this challenging time and attend a similar conference in the future.
For her part, my friend could create space between her partner’s response and her hurt by not jumping to the conclusion that he was leaving her alone in her struggle. She too could tell him she wanted to better understand him, asking questions that showed she was thinking of his needs as well as hers. If he still wished to attend the conference, one option would be for her to plan their vacation for after his return. Another would be for the two of them to spend some time brainstorming about their different choices, a process that would make them feel they were in it together, rather than on opposite sides of a conflict neither of them had foreseen.
Our disagreements are a result of our misunderstandings, assumptions, and limited views. We think we understand a situation or a person based on both limited and uncontested information. Like the blind men in the famous parable of the blind men and the elephant, we mistake a tiny slice of reality for the whole. In this story, a king brings an elephant before six blind men and asks them to describe the animal after touching only one of its body parts. The first man feels the animal’s head and concludes that an elephant is like a jar. The second touches its ear and says an elephant is unequivocally like a winnowing basket. A third runs his hand over its tusk and says it’s like a plowshare, and so on. Holding a wrong view, each of the blind men makes his conclusions, neither realizing his mistake nor questioning his interpretation.
In the case of my friend, applying Right Relationship to Right View would remind her and her partner that their choices affect one another. By taking Right Relationship as the basis for their dialogue, they’ll feel more connected, more in tune with their own and the other’s wishes, and more respectful of them. Even if in the end they agree to disagree, they’ll have made their choices from within their relationship, not apart from it.
But who’s going to remember Right View and Right Relationship in the middle of an argument, we could ask. The answer is, we don’t have to. We can expand our view instantly with two simple questions: am I sure? And, what do you need?
The Buddha said Right View is like a sugar cane seed or a grape seed. It’s like a grain of rice that, when planted in moist soil, grows into sweet and delightful fruit. Right Relationship is that moist soil. It’s the nutrient-filled ground that nurtures the seeds of Right View and turns them into skillful, loving action—the fruit of our care and connection to one another. And, like a tree that offers its ripe fruit season after season, Right Relationship doesn’t support Right View just in this moment, this interaction, this challenging conversation or difficult situation, but for many, many years to come.
*Photo by Vincent Van Zalinge