A young woman approached the Buddha. She was weeping and feeling distraught.
“Lord Buddha, I feel so terrible. My boyfriend has left me for another woman.”
The Buddha said: “It’s normal to feel that way. How can one not feel sad after losing something that made her happy? But the wound will heal. You are still young. Many new opportunities await you.”
The woman said: “You don’t understand how I feel now. I only love him. I only want him to come back to me and I want him so badly. I beg you to perform a miracle for me.”
The Buddha said: “If he still doesn’t come back to you?”
The woman said: “I guess I can threaten him with suicide.”
The Buddha said: “If that doesn’t work?”
The woman said: “I can kill him so no one else can have him.”
The Buddha said: “How can you say that you love him when his suffering pleases you? Don’t you want him to be happy?”
The woman said: “I do but …”
The Buddha said: “What if leaving you makes him happy? Can you let him go?”
The woman said: “Then I would have wasted all my love on him. It’s not fair!”
The Buddha said: “You insist on the right to decide what he chooses in life. It’s indeed not fair.”
The woman said: “I’m the one who is hurting!”
The Buddha said: “Why are you hurting?”
The woman said: “It’s all because of him!”
The Buddha said: “He can’t hurt you. You’re hurting because you can’t get him to meet your expectations. Right from the start, it’s not love at work but your ego. We all feel hurt when we or others don’t live up to our expectations, but let the wound heal and move on to perhaps better things. Don’t think about miracles or revenge.”
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