All relationships go through bad times, but the real relationships get through bad times. These principles to any kind of relationships, whether it is husband and wife, maybe like girlfriend and boyfriend, whether it is like parents and children, whatever the relationship is you can apply these principles and make it more healthy and happy. So practice these principles, add them to your life and make your life a better one. In this blog post through, I'm going to be sharing with you six principles taught by the Buddha on having a healthy and happy relationship. Maintaining a healthy relationship, maintaining a happy relationship or long lasting relationship is a bit challenging. Why? Because we have different personalities. We are different from one to another. But we lose this ability to understand about this situation, this reality. What is the reality? The difference between each other. Sometimes we ask from the people or we ask from our partners.
Why can't you think like me? Why can't you be like me? Why can't you act like me or behave like me? This is where we make many problems in relationships. But if we can realise the difference between one another or if we can realise this reality, what is that? We are different from each other then we can get the power of understanding. There's one important quality that we must practice in any kind of relationship and that is the understanding.
understand other situations, understand why they are acting like that, why they are behaving like that. So, our great teacher Supreme Buddha taught there are six principles to practice. If you practice these six principles in any kind of relationship, your relationship will be much more happy and healthy. So, let's going to know one by one in turn.
PRINCIPLE 1 & 2 : TREAT COMPANIONS WITH PHYSICAL KIND:
First of all, the Buddha said you need to practice these principles when that person, or our partner or companion or the people who we are relating to, when that person with us or in front of us and also in the times where that person is not with us. That means both privately and publicly we have to practice and maintain these principles in our life and also these principles were taught by the Buddhadharma monks actually, because as monks we live as a community. Now in our monastery we have more than 25 monks. So, when you analyze their personalities, they all are different. They all have different ways of lifestyles. So, when we are interacting, there may be some problems. There may be some crashes. But if you practice these qualities, if we practice these qualities, there will be less problems, there will be less disagreements. So, that is why Buddha taught us these principles. So, this was originally preached by the Buddha to the monks actually. And also, you can apply these principles to your life. So, let's get into the first principle. Buddha said, you need to treat your spiritual companions, regarding to monks actually Buddha said, you need to treat your companions with physical kindness, bodily kindness.
What Do You Mean By Bodily Kindness?
There are certain things that we can do from our body in order to show our kindness or show our compassion towards that person. It may not be big things like spending money on big things and buying big things to the person, but also there are many things that we can do, little things, there are little things that we can do for that person to create happiness on that person's mind. And also we can give that, by doing these things, we can give that idea that we value your life, that I value your being with me. So Buddha said, do the acts of loving kindness from your body. Maybe like helping in his career, maybe like helping in his household activities. If you take an example like in a husband and wife relationship, you can share the things that you are doing in the life. We can help each other. That is one way of showing love and kindness to that person. And also we can show in many ways our love and kindness to these people. When you act or when you act from your body with love and kindness, that creates the mutuality between people.
So the first principle is to treat people with physical kindness. Then Buddha said as the carnnd princinie trast the companione with verbal kindness. Then Buddha said as treat the companions You can speak nice and kind and heartwarming words to them. to create the happiness and create the pleasure in their mind. Each and every one of us likes to listen to pleasant words. We all surrender in front of the kindness, kind words, kind actions. So, the first and second thing is to treat them with physical kindness and also with verbal kindness.
Principle 3: Treat Companions with Mental Kind
The third principle, Buddha said, this is the most important principle and that is treat your companions with mental kindness. This is the important one. Why is that? Because if you maintain, if you generate these kind thoughts towards the people around you, in your mind, your thoughts become your actions. Then your actions will be more kind. Your thoughts become your words, then your words will become more kind. So as the third principle, Buddha taught us, treat your companion with mental kindness. So when you treat your companion with mental kindness, that means you are spreading this race and this power of kindness towards them when that person is in front of us and also in the times where he or she is not with us. We had to do it in the same way. That is the third one.
Principle 4: Share Without Reservation
The fourth principle, Buddha said, you have to share without reservation for the monks, Buddha said, if you get any kind of food or any something good to your life, you have to share that thing with your spiritual companions. Now, we monks, when we get some food, we always try to share with our monks. So you can adopt that to your life, whatever the things that you get. Maybe like you ate, you had something very delicious food when you're working in a long distance place. When you come home or when you come to your partner or when you come to that person you can say hey I had this food I, I had this delicious food, I need you to have that. That means you are sharing it. When you share without reservation, it creates the peacefulness and it strengthens the relationships. So sharing is one of the most key and important ingredients in relationships.
PRINCIPLE 5: BE VIRTUOUS
The fifth principle, Buddha said, you have to be virtuous. What do you mean by virtuous? Now in Buddhism, as normal people, in Buddhism, we practice five precepts, Buddhist people practice five precepts. Abstaining from killing beings, abstaining from stealing. Abstaining from sexual misconduct.. Abstaining from telling lies. And abstaining from taking intoxicating drinks and drugs or alcohols. So these are the five precepts that lay people practice in Buddhism. So when you become more moral or virtuous, it creates the trust in people. In normal relationships, in people, this third precept is very important. In third precept, it simply says, you are not cheating your partner. That means it creates the trust and loyalty between the partner and in the relationship. In any kind of relationship, trust is the foundation. Without trust, there is no use of a relationship. So, when you become more virtuous, you will create the trust and loyalty in the relationship.
PRINCIPLE 6: HAVE A COMMON VIEW
The sixth and the final principle, Buddha taught us you have to have a common view in any kind of relationship. That means if you can in a relationship if both the people or if everyone work for one dream, work to achieve one goal that creates the peace in this relationship. Now as monks, Buddha said you have to have one dream or one goal in your life. there's only one purpose of becoming a monk. And that is to end the sufferings of this long cycle of rebirth and to be enlightened. When all the monks get together and work for that dream, then that will be so much easier to live with them. When someone is deviating from that path, that creates the problem. So in relationships also, If every one of us can to achieve one goal, work for one dream or then that will be more easy and more happy.
CONCLUSION:
So these are the six principles that we must practice in any kind of relationship. You can apply these principles to any kind of relationships, whether it is husband and wife, maybe like girlfriend and boyfriend, whether it is like parents and children, whatever the relationship is you can apply these principles and make it more healthy and happy. So practice these principles, add them to your life and make your life a better one. A nice quote that I've read. It says, all relationships go through bad times, but the real relationships get through bad times. So, practice the principles and make your life a better one.
Thank you for reading this article ♥️
