Rev. Danny Fisher

Today, on the occasion of my baby sister Anna’s wedding, the dharma quote is one from the Vidyādhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987), whom I first quoted and wrote a little bio for here. Congratulations, Anna and Matt!  This is it–from editor Carolyn Rose Gimian’s Ocean of Dharma: The Everyday Wisdom of Chogyam Trungpa, pg. 254:

When you get married you shouldn’t expect anything at the beginning, but you should try to work together with your husband or wife.  Basically speaking, marriage is a joint effort of trying to solve one another’s problems, and trying to make a creative world. As long as you are not immediately looking for an ideal, happy life, you can work with marriage.  On the other hand, the idea of working with problems all the time can be overwhelming.  It is a question of intelligence on both sides, and at the same time, there is a need for tremendous awareness and mindfulness.  Each communication that takes place between the two of you has to be sacred in some sense.  You should regard your partner as a spiritual friend of some type, and try to work along with that.  When there is that kind of working basis taking place, I don’t see any particular obstacles.

The relationship might change anywhere: right at the beginning, or halfway through.  It may not always be the same kind of relationship, because each one of you begins to grow up.  So it might take a different shape; it might produce different kinds of phenomena.  Nonetheless, it is workable, as long as there is a dharmic connection, a spiritual connection.