The Storms Can't Hurt the Sky: The Buddhist Path through Divorce

by Gabriel Cohen

Buddhists use another analogy to describe self-cherishing. Imagine that you’re alone in a rowboat in the middle of a lake. You’re lying on your back, looking up at the sky, and you can’t see over the sides of the boat; you’re just drifting contentedly. Suddenly, another boat comes along and smacks into yours. You immediately become angry at the other boatman or woman. (Or maybe you become depressed by their bad treatment of you. Either way, the essential thought is, How dare they do this to me?) You jump up, and look into the other boat—and discover that it’s empty. Notice what happens to your sense of wounded self: it shrinks. You’re able to calm down, relax, and lighten up. Here’s the interesting thing: even when we think that someone else is in the other boat—in divorce, for example—we can still learn to let go of our anger, to see that their intention is not necessarily to cause us suffering or harm.