sushil soni
4th November 2013, 06:37
Suffering comes from holding on to, happiness arises from giving up. Non-clinging is the key word here. We are all the time, throughout our lives, holding on to something: a notion, an idea, a system, a book, my wife, my husband, my family, my car, my job. If I am angry, the anger comes from me and it is mine; if I desire, it is my personal desire for my personal satisfaction; if I push an object away, then I do so because it is not to my liking. Everything is as me or mine. I am always identifying everything with myself.
Perhaps my personal relationship with clinging began when I was a baby, clinging to my mother’s arms, my head comfortably resting on her soft and warm bosom. Perhaps I became incomplete, perhaps I was put into a state of deficit when I was taken away from her bosom. Perhaps now I am trying to fill the gap that was then created with objects that give me comfort. Seriously, I have failed to replace that comfort, one in which I was placed when I was a baby. I do not blame anyone for this. However, I am trying to fill up that deficit. But I cannot – my attachment to external objects is endless and the well of deficit is abysmal.
Now, I am in a strange and piquant situation. If I continue to keep my childhood relationship with bonding, then I will remain unfulfilled. And if give up attachment I will lose everything that I have and enter an uncomfortable zone. But this is wrong thinking. This is thinking which is attached to the body.
All that I have to do is to not cling to anything, not even my body. I must let go of everything – all that I see and all that I don’t see. In this universe there is nothing that is mine. All that I have invested in throughout my life, thinking that they belong to me, will not remain with me forever. These objects, that I have acquired all these years through hard work and sacrifices, did not belong to me from the very beginning.
I had been clinging to them without realizing that they were already inside me, they were already part of me, they were never separate from me. Now I know that I am not the acquirer of these objects nor am I the owner of these objects. Now they are not objects of attachment since they are not separate from me. In this unity, which I have just now discovered, the notion of attachment has become absolutely absurd. There is nothing outside of me – now I know. When there is nothing outside of me, how then can I be attached, and with what?
Having said that, I must keep going on, I cannot do away with existence. Non-attachment does not mean shunning every object and spending the rest of your life in a cloistered environment. To me, non-attachment is non-clinging which comes from the wisdom that nothing is truly separate. To me, this is my wife, my family, my friends with whom I have relationships but I do no longer cling to them.
Having gained this knowledge of non-clinging, there is now no deficit in my life, no deprivation. Now I am full and satisfied and calm, in total peace. I had been unnecessarily complicating my life all these years. Before I gained this knowledge of non-clinging, I was getting food, shelter, clothing, companionship and status in society.
Now after gaining this knowledge of non-clinging, I am still getting the same food, shelter, clothing, companionship and status in society. So, what difference has all this made? Nothing has happened outside of me. But now I can value each moment that I am living. I am living the way that I should be living. In other words, while I was clinging, I had forgotten how to live. Now I know I am living.
Perhaps my personal relationship with clinging began when I was a baby, clinging to my mother’s arms, my head comfortably resting on her soft and warm bosom. Perhaps I became incomplete, perhaps I was put into a state of deficit when I was taken away from her bosom. Perhaps now I am trying to fill the gap that was then created with objects that give me comfort. Seriously, I have failed to replace that comfort, one in which I was placed when I was a baby. I do not blame anyone for this. However, I am trying to fill up that deficit. But I cannot – my attachment to external objects is endless and the well of deficit is abysmal.
Now, I am in a strange and piquant situation. If I continue to keep my childhood relationship with bonding, then I will remain unfulfilled. And if give up attachment I will lose everything that I have and enter an uncomfortable zone. But this is wrong thinking. This is thinking which is attached to the body.
All that I have to do is to not cling to anything, not even my body. I must let go of everything – all that I see and all that I don’t see. In this universe there is nothing that is mine. All that I have invested in throughout my life, thinking that they belong to me, will not remain with me forever. These objects, that I have acquired all these years through hard work and sacrifices, did not belong to me from the very beginning.
I had been clinging to them without realizing that they were already inside me, they were already part of me, they were never separate from me. Now I know that I am not the acquirer of these objects nor am I the owner of these objects. Now they are not objects of attachment since they are not separate from me. In this unity, which I have just now discovered, the notion of attachment has become absolutely absurd. There is nothing outside of me – now I know. When there is nothing outside of me, how then can I be attached, and with what?
Having said that, I must keep going on, I cannot do away with existence. Non-attachment does not mean shunning every object and spending the rest of your life in a cloistered environment. To me, non-attachment is non-clinging which comes from the wisdom that nothing is truly separate. To me, this is my wife, my family, my friends with whom I have relationships but I do no longer cling to them.
Having gained this knowledge of non-clinging, there is now no deficit in my life, no deprivation. Now I am full and satisfied and calm, in total peace. I had been unnecessarily complicating my life all these years. Before I gained this knowledge of non-clinging, I was getting food, shelter, clothing, companionship and status in society.
Now after gaining this knowledge of non-clinging, I am still getting the same food, shelter, clothing, companionship and status in society. So, what difference has all this made? Nothing has happened outside of me. But now I can value each moment that I am living. I am living the way that I should be living. In other words, while I was clinging, I had forgotten how to live. Now I know I am living.