The Three Wives

I had this dream yesterday. So here goes the story:

I opened up my secondary school yearbook (wasn't my year, it's either before or after. It feels like after my year though, but it looks a bit old, maybe I am very old at the time when I read it?). I flipped through the pages, and saw that my secondary school for girls, have engaged quite a number of male teachers! One of them is a Mr Broman.

Mr Broman set up a club, something like a theater club? And his main topic is a play of a man with 3 wives, and I think the objective of his club is to teach the students how to become good wives. I do not know if I read about the play, or I actually have the chance to see it.

So this Mr Broman has 3 wives, one is sweet, one is sour, and one is a bitter angry lady. One of the scene had him coming back for dinner, and his pretty sweet wife (supposed to look like Zhang ZiYi but isn't her) - serves him dinner, smiling a very sweet smile. This sweet wife is not very ladylike though, the way she eats her food is like a poor person who hasn't eaten for days. However, Mr Broman thinks that this is a good thing to see his wife enjoying the food. I woke up here.

Strangely.. I thought I should do a short meditation. As I do the meditation, I thought about this strange little dream.. I thought of my recent (and first) retreat about the 4 Brahma Viharas (I finally googled up what they mean, the 4 divine abodes!). It suddenly strike me, this sweet wife, and Mr Broman's attitude to the wife, is like a man cultivating mudita! To be appreciative of other's goodness, and the second and third wife... are like opportunities to practise karuna and metta! I can't help but to open my eyes at this point, a bit shocked at the connection of the three wives with the 3 brahma viharas, the subject of the meditation..

Having pondered a bit further, this is my analysis.
1. The first wife is sweet, and is a change for us to practive mudita, appreciative joy or symphatetic joy.
2. The second wife is sour, perhaps not very enlightened and therefore has bad habits and not happy. Therefore it is important to have karuna or compassion to this wife.
3. The third wife is angry, and as the Buddha has thought, the way to conquer anger is via loving kindness (metta).
4. How to have a harmonious household with 3 wives? There should be equanimity (upekha) to all.

And then.. having thought about this for a while, I also linked it to the 4 hindrances:
1. We can easily be attached to something which is good, so this might cause greed to arise. And the way to counter greed, is to appreciate the goodness in other people and do not crave to want it for ourselves.
2. When someone is sour, that person might have a lot of cravings, jealousy, ill-will, cannot see the true nature of things i.e. suffering, and thus not happy. And they are not happy because they are ignorant or they have delusion. Therefore we must have compassion for these people.
3. A bitter and angry person has a lot of ill-will and hatred. So we must conquer hatred by love.
4. If we are not clear of what is the truth, we will be in fear. So we must have the correct understanding and look at all things with equanimity.

After this dream.. I went back to bed happily :)

~ttg~