It’s not unusual to look to the Dalai Lama for wisdom and inspiration on a life well-lived, but what about dating? We think he just might be an expert on love.

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Dating? Although, his holiness and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, Dalai Lama didn’t set out to write about dating, somehow he did. And he did it eloquently, teaching us all about being part of the human family.

When it comes to dating, as in life, Dalai Lama’s lessons of kindness and mindfulness find truth to a society fraught with the self. Some of his most powerful life lessons benefit us if we leave ourselves open to discovering them. I would not in any want to take the Dalai Lama’s words out of context, therefore, I have used quotes from his actual text. He gave us a lot of good advice that we can use in life, dating and especially words to spread kindness.

Finding Kindness

How can we follow Dalai Lama’s words in life? We can remember some of his more famous words:

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

Following the kindness that the Dalai Lama has always taught us is well within our reach. Everyone is born with a propensity for kindness, yet we seem to lose much of that as we age and become jaded. We are all tied by our human lineage, but forget as we become more and more successful.  Forgetting our roots make us feel as if we are better than others and somehow that life is unequal; however, if the truth is known, everybody is equal.

Finding Equanimity

If we look at Dalai Lama’s The Path to Tranquility: Daily Meditation the answer is clear.

“If there is love, there is hope to have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, and real peace. If the love within your mind is lost, if you continue to see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education you have, no matter how much material progress is made, only suffering and confusion will ensue.”

And we won’t find equanimity, or even our perfect a inside that designer handbag, or sharply cut suit. It won’t even be in the glove compartment of our car, so don’t look there. It lives deeply within our heart and can only be found there

The heart is not only the key to finding your equanimity, but following your heart can give you far-greater rewards. All you have to do is follow your heart and realize that your brain and heart is your temple. That internal judgment and belief system will help us to make better decisions. Because we often worry about how much a person contributes financially, so superficially we can end up with the wrong person. Following this belief system will take us down the wrong road in finding our soulmate.

Finding Religion within Our Heart

If you follow the Dalai Lama, here is a simple philosophy with regard to religion:  

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”

But, in our lives the very concepts, religion and country, may also teach us that we are separate. Sometimes we try to find our soulmate in religious organizations, thinking that they might be more suited to our cultural needs. The problem is we don’t look for people of other religions or other ethnic groups that may be even more suited for us.

A Positive Vision

“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.” 

You can’t write about the Dalai Lama without including meditation and his visualization in your article. If you don’t meditate and visualize it will be virtually impossible to find your soulmate in this complicated world of dating. You must first have a positive vision, or positive sense of self. This comes from your belief in yourself and understanding that you deserve someone who will be good to you. Trusting also that when you have a positive vision, and can’t visualize your soulmate, you can still find him or her.

Living in the Present Moment

“The present moment is changing so fast that we often do not notice its existence at all. Every moment of mind is like a series of pictures passing through a projector. Some of the pictures come from sense impressions. Others come from memories of past experiences or from fantasies of the future.”

The Dalai Lama could have been writing very easily about selfies, Facebook, tweets and every other form of social media that hurt our society; or how convoluted and how difficult meeting someone would become in our days of Internet frenzy. We must find ways to stay grounded in this quickly-moving present moment.

Freeze-Frame

“Mindfulness helps us freeze the frame so that we can become aware of our sensations and experiences as they are, without the distorting coloration of socially conditioned responses or habitual reactions.”

If what we need is mindfulness to help us grounded, freezing the frame in our camera of life helps us to understand perception better. Our positive perception is important in finding the most compatible mate. So looking at our photo of life will help us combat socially conditioned responses and habitual reactions.

Be a Problem Solver Not a Problem Maker

In the Dalai Lama’s words from The Path to Tranquility: Daily Meditations:

In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.

Become a problem solver not a problem maker. Do what you can to change your present circumstances, because nobody else can do it but you. When you become proactive in your life, will find you a clear not only finding the partner that is right for you, but having an emotionally healthy life—and that truly is the path to tranquility.

So even though Dalai Lama didn’t start out to write about the things that concern all of us in the dating world, he gave us very sound advice to follow.

 

—All quotes from Dalai Lama Quotes

[image: via kris krüg on flickr]