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

by Gabriel Cohen

When I was a kid, I studied Greek mythology. I’m not sure why, but one story made a very deep impression on me. Orpheus, a wandering musician, falls in love with a beautiful maiden named Eurydice. They marry and are able to love each other for a time, but then she’s carried off by Hades, the king of the Underworld. Orpheus is so grief-stricken, so in love, that he dares what no man has ever dared: he travels down to the Underworld to bring her back. Hades is so impressed by Orpheus’s courage and his singing that he consents to let Eurydice travel back with him to the upper realm. There’s one condition, though: on the journey up, Orpheus must never look at her. They make their way up toward the light, but at the last moment, he turns to her and she slips away forever. Despite my Buddhist training, my slowly increasing mindfulness and peace, I still empathize with Orpheus’s suffering. Every few months I still have those dreams in which I go back and find Claire, and we’re reunited, and once again I experience a deep, selfless side of our love. Then I wake up and she is gone.