Dharma, love and football

HH The Dalai Lama just finished his last lecture in Manchester Arena. He leaves me enveloped in a warm, fuzzy feeling of love, happiness and profound gratitude and with tears streaming down my face.

I sit down again. I don’t want to talk to people. I don’t want to interact. I just want to stay with this feeling a little bit longer.

I wish Tony were here to share this moment with me. I’d hold his hand or rest my head on his shoulder and simply enjoy his presence. No need for words. You know you found someone special when you can enjoy each other’s silence.

On the train home I remember one of our first shared moments, which was incidentally during His Holiness’ visit to Glasgow in 2004. Somehow we both ended up in the same room one evening with a group of other volunteers and we spent 2 hours stuffing little bags with items for a ceremony that His Holiness was holding the following day. On the photo that someone took of this evening, we’re just sitting next to each other focusing on the work at hand.

That was before I asked him to take me out to watch various football matches of that year’s European Championship and before I told him that I liked him. 

We're both quite happy to be on our own, we both love football but we also both love the Dharma and decided to make it a priority in our lives. Our wedding vows, which we took not even a year after that evening in Glasgow, read:

“Today we promise to dedicate ourselves completely to each other, with body, speech, and mind.

In this life, in every situation, in wealth or poverty, in health or sickness, in happiness or difficulty, we will work to help each other perfectly.

The purpose of our relationship will be to attain enlightenment by perfecting our kindness and compassion toward all sentient beings.” (By Lama Yeshe).

Today I feel grateful and happy for so many reasons.

Have I already mentioned that the German football team won their group on Sunday and qualified for the quarterfinals in this year’s European Championship?

You might have noticed from what I said earlier that I was quite instrumental in making our relationship happen: I asked Tony to take me out to watch the football (and to be honest I didn’t so much ask as suggest) and I also took the first step in telling him what I felt for him. I went even further than that. I also hinted at some point that if he would ask me to marry him, I wouldn’t say no.

And you know what, I don’t feel one bit ashamed of that because if there’s one thing I realised upon reflection on the whole weekend, it’s this:

In life, in love, in football and in the Dharma, things don’t just happen by themselves. If you want something, you need to get your ass into gear and go and get it.