One criticism of Buddhism that I've heard is that to be a perfect Buddha, you don't need anyone in the world to exist at all-- all you need is your mind and a place to meditate. This notion deeply bothers Westerners. Christianity teaches us the virtues of altruism and kindness, and our happiness is directly correlated with our positive relationships with others. This disparity used to bother me, too, but I've been thinking a lot about the nature of love, happiness, and what's really going in in our heads. I have come to believe that happiness is a state of mind that can be created and controlled by the individual, without help from anyone else.

Why do we fall in love? Our traditional Western notion is that when you meet the perfect person, you'll fall in love, and be happy. It's all very nebulous. But what's really going on? You might say that everyone in your life is pushing buttons in your head. Some people really piss you off; they're pushing bad buttons. The neural pathways that are activated when you're around your annoying coworker are ones that make you, well, annoyed. You learn to avoid this person and to shorten any contact with them. Inversely, when you're around someone who pushes good buttons, your brain positively reinforces your interactions with them. Same goes for good friends and close family members. People we like make us happy, and people who make us happy we like.

But why? Well, take me for example. My parents make me feel capable, valuable, and smart. They love me unconditionally. I really grew to need them and rely on those feelings of adequacy for the first sixteen years of my life. I didn't realize it at first, but when I went away to college, the positive influence their support had on my brain was lacking, and I filled it in various other ways. The same thing can happen when a relationship ends. You find a way to give your brain the happiness it used to get from the other person pushing your buttons the right way. Most people just jump into another relationship. One thing I'd like to explore is finding a way to short circuit the loop: push those brain buttons without the other person.

Buddhism is all about this. In fact, it says that relationships with others are nice, but you should really work to free yourself from needing anything from this world-- possessions, people-- and concentrate on using your mind to set you free. I'm not 100% for this viewpoint, because it would mean nothing would get done. Everyone would walk out of their desk jobs, sit under a bodhi tree, and be happy and peaceful... until after a day or two when all the produce would rot and we'd starve to death. That's why Zen Buddhism probably incorporated that whole thing about getting enlightened while doing the dishes.

But think about it-- if you could find a way to feel the ecstasy of love without the object, wouldn't you? All we have is ourselves, and no relationship with another person is everlasting or static. People die or change all the time, and it usually gets us hurt.

One last thought. Modern Christianity has been reduced to getting married and loving your spouse and family, but Christ Himself was alone, and was sustained by His relationship with God. This is what Buddhists strive for-- a meaningful relationship with the divine. Of course, Christ also found meaning in His good works for others, but then, so do Buddhists. I think that love as defined by Christ would have more to do with the way things you do make you feel, and less with the way another person makes you feel. The former is what I think Buddhism is getting at; the latter is what Americans are looking for today. Both are effective ways of pushing those brain buttons, but you don't have the control in the second instance.