“Ten years ago, Michael Roach and Christie McNally, Buddhist teachers with a growing following in the United States and abroad, took vows never to separate, night or day.”

I am endlessly fascinated by the idea that two people would be able to spend so much time together.  It seems that it would be the ultimate surrender and challenge to compromise but I wonder whose will is most often exerted.  When Roach gets up in the middle of the night to work on his computer why does McNally have to follow him?  Why doesn’t Roach use his computer within their predefined boundary of 15 feet?  The article doesn’t discuss finding kindness and compassion through continuous consideration of another which must be a major component of the sustainability of this arrangement.

A priest told me once that marriage not only united two people who each were to give up a portion of will and control of their individual life’s in exchange for the will and control of some one else’s but it also served the purpose of bringing two people closer to God.  It was only through marriage and unison that a person could truly learn about his or her self and in the end emulates God. 

It is interesting how focused the article is on Roach and McNally’s self-imposed celibacy.  For me, three years of shared self-imposed, stark silence would be much more difficult than abstaining from sex.

(Thanks for the link kaitziskin & kingdragon)