Spiritual Partnership in Action.......

Just after blogging about how to make love last (including my heart's desire for an Executive Valet Charging Station) I came across this article about a different kind of relationship. These two Buddhist teachers, ten years ago, took vows never to be apart from each other, in body, heart or spirit. Their celibate partnership is a high level of Buddhist practice - that purportedly involves confronting their own imperfections and thereby learning to better serve the world. They never go more than 15 feet away from each other - day or night.

Their exacting commitment to this ideal of spiritual partnership has attracted many devotees from all around the world, although their practice is not approved by the Dalai Lama (who believes their behaviour is unconventional).

They live in a yurt in Southern Arizona when they are not traveling around the world (about half the year). Before they went public with their relationship they lived for three years in a silent retreat in the yurt. They do everything together - even yoga, breath for breath:

“We are always inhaling at the same moment and we are always exhaling at the same moment. It is very intimate, but it is not the kind of intimacy people are used to.”