All’s fair in love and ‘War’ – a well-cast, classy-trashy divorce drama as reflected on by Sensei Michael Jinpa
Late this morning, I watched the tide recede along the breakwater outside Clear Mind Zen Sanctuary. An old friend, who works in media production, sent me a note. He mentioned the buzz around HBO’s new series, a high-stakes divorce drama. This show chronicles two London law firms presiding over a savage, scorched-earth divorce. Our culture deeply craves spectacles of marital warfare. We package human grief as stylish entertainment. We are drawn to watch lives unravel from a safe distance, fascinated by how easily tenderness can curdle into malice.
Beyond the Battle: Understanding Marital Warfare
During my years as a hospice chaplain, I sat with many people. They took inventory of their lives. The physical body weakens, and worldly titles fall away. Almost no one laments lost property or unpaid slights then. Instead, memories of relationships surface. Specifically, people remember moments when pride overcame love. In high-conflict separations, whether dramatized for television or lived out quietly, assets rarely drive the central conflict. A fierce, wounded ego attempts to secure a verdict of absolute righteousness.
In Zen practice, we often speak of grasping and aversion. We suffer not merely because circumstances change. We build rigid identities around our desires and grievances. Two people promise their lives to one another. They often begin by sharing mutual vulnerability. However, over time, unmet expectations harden into silent contracts. When those contracts break, fear rushes into the void. Without mindful awareness, that fear transforms into aggression. It convinces us that only by dismantling the person who injured us can we heal our wound.
Finding Peace Amidst the Divorce Drama
Here in Harborview Point, the salt air corrodes metal. It requires regular care. Human vows demand even more diligent maintenance. An intimate bond dissolves, and an unavoidable death takes place. A shared history, an imagined future, and an entire constellation of trust are ending. If we cannot tolerate the grief of that ending, we turn to litigation, vengeance, or public humiliation. These actions become numbing agents. War becomes a seductive substitute for mourning because rage feels powerful, while genuine sorrow feels completely helpless.
Viewing human division as sport normalizes our estrangement. We consume stories of vicious conflict as mere classy-trashy diversion. Consequently, we subtly reinforce the belief that kindness is naive and cynicism is realistic. We forget that every casualty in an acrimonious parting leaves scars. These scars mark children, friends, and the broader community. In Buddhist ethics, speech and conduct hold real weight. When we weaponize words to annihilate another, we inevitably poison the soil of our own inner life.
It is entirely possible for two people to recognize that their shared path has concluded. They do not need to declare war. Such a parting demands tremendous spiritual courage. It asks us to look directly into the pain of disappointment. We must not look for a villain to punish. Compassion does not require that we stay in unhealthy situations. Nor does it demand that we erase legitimate boundaries. It simply asks that we refuse to deny the basic humanity of the person sitting across the negotiation table.
The bell rings for our evening sitting. Meanwhile, the fog settles over the docks. It softens every hard edge of the harbor. Life offers us constant opportunities to practice release instead of retaliation. When relationships fracture, the spiritual task is not to win the battle of narratives. Instead, we must remain awake to the heartbreak. Only by allowing ourselves to feel the reality of loss, without armoring our hearts in anger, can we step toward genuine peace and begin again.
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