Level 2 in my Shambhala training still haunts me: let go of your storylines, recognize your habits and how they keep you from experiencing the present moment (and receiving it clearly), see your attachment to the world and let it go. All of this attachment to people, objects, labels, routines ---- all of it makes me both uniquely me and also conformingly like everyone else. I mean, I must say…I do have a flair for attaching myself to people like very few. While others have long said goodbye to their high school buddies, their old coworkers, their teachers, the baristas at their coffeeshops, I have KEPT them CLOSE. In my mind, we will always be bosom buddies.
I grapple with wondering if this obsession with people is helpful to the world --- shouldn’t there be SOMEONE that’s still interested in you? Shouldn’t there be a person who will always call you on your birthday (or should she get quite busy, you at least KNOW that she’s thinking of you)? Or is all of this my own dysfunctional way of staying dependent on others and feel needed/wanted/loved? I am sure I know what some of you would speculate. I do believe on some level there must be a REASON that I am eternally connected to those people whose lives have touched me. There is strength here in seeing the good in people and choosing to hold on to it.
Recently, while moving, I kept coming up with this very dilemma --- do I need you? do I utilize you? do we have a beneficial relationship? Sadly, the silver Docs were a resounding “no.” Sadly, that lovely but never used apron was also a “no.” What about those clear plastic packaging shapes that have long since been separated from the toys they packaged and the cardboard backing. Is there value in these bizarre plastic shapes in my art? Perhaps…they got packed and moved.
I always have to psyche myself up for these kinds of weighing of importance because so deeply in me is an assumption that I am attached --- to all of it. All of you. All of everyone. Why would I even consider lessening my load, simplifying, or moving on? I keep questioning. Why choose now to be the kind of person that walks away? Why make it this time? The truth is, I am not convinced that letting go of those boots really bettered my life. Sure my possessions now take up less space, but is it inherently ‘better’? I don’t think so. Am I more evolved now that I have discarded them?
The particular part that is worrisome and IS taxing on my being is the weight of the attachment. The longing. If it were just plastic shapes and boots, and childhood friends it would be fine. My life is really made up of wild wet passionate love for a pink glass bunny lamp though. What would happen to my children should they accidentally knock it over and it shattered? Wow. What a horrific thought.
I think I just wanted to throw this out there as an exploration of the whys I am like this, and the ways in which so many of you are different than me in this case (although surely there is some overlap). It’s also to say, I am not leaving my loved ones behind. I am not running away because there has been pain. I’ll be here, like Gary, attached to you. Yeah, I guess that’s just the way I roll.
3 comments:
I had to look up Shambhala Training— that's how unsophisticated I am. Actually, I suppose the real clue to my lack or culture was that I found it disappointing that Shambhala Training had depressingly little to do with Three Dog Night.
I've also been studying up lately on mindful living and meditation, though for me it's via reading Jon Kabat-Zinn. I would find it very difficult to let go of my attachments... perhaps because I've also spent a good deal of time reading Nick Hornby and he spends a lot of time on the philosophy: It's not what you're like— it's what you like.
I'm not sure that there is strength is sloughing off old friendships and deep and meaningful attachments with other people. Isn't that our enlightened goal in adult relationships? Never to just walk away, but to invest the energy in maintaining connections with others. (I mean I feel like marriages dissolve all of the time because of the lack of this very "work")At the very least there should be a very calm, rational, "adult" conversation about why you and your high school friend have grown apart, and while you will always remember each other fondly, let's just face the facts that we simply no longer have anything in common. And this may or may not be subject to change in the future. And that's okay. Am I wrong? (I mean if only out of respect for what transpired between you?)
Granted there are exceptions to this rule. I think that there is a school of understanding energy in the universe, where by people come into and out of our lives when we need them to, and it is fine to give into the constant ebb and flow of baristas and work friends, and next door neighbors, etc.
I fear that I am all too guilty of accidentally losing defining friendships, by simply not keeping in contact, by growing apart by default. Isn't it nice to know that no matter what, you will always have a friend in Gabrielle? I don't think that's shameful, I think it's comforting. Not having to walk around on egg shells wondering when and if you might over step the bounds of intolerability and wind up yesterday's friendship news.
And as for attachment to things I am the wrong person to ask, I love my gorgeous things, you know that. But when push comes to shove, in a fire, the only things I would grab are my dog and my photographs. And I would be fine. I mean, doc martins come and go but real, deep, meaningful friendships are supposed to be forever, right? (but maybe the danger is in how you define these friendships... and whether or not the people in your life suffer based on your need to commune with ALL of your friends... if it, in fact, impedes your ability to be good friends with any of them. Like addiction, perhaps it should ultimately be measured by the impact it has on your life, and not have a generalized definition or litmus test of right and wrong, black and white. No? Maybe I am over thinking this.)
I should have explained Shambhala Training more. They were a series of very powerful secular Buddhist-like intensive teachings I did over a series of a few months. Those teachings have been remarkably impactful.
It isn't really like you're giving up 'what you like', but more the attachment to those automatic knee-jerk reactions that evolve out of liking what you like. If you're interested, we could talk more about it....
About my attachment disorder:
You're right Jacob, one of the tenants of being an adult, in my mind, is being solid and working through the trash of our teens. Sometimes that does necessitate distancing yourself from some, but most of the time it's really finding value in the histories and continually finding ways to share new experiences.
I am guilty of spreading myself too thin, hoping that the more people I reach the richer I'll be...or something. I do find myself feeling guilt that my closest friends are getting shorted. Truthfully, so am I, as I try to sprinkle the world with my glamorous presence! ;) I would like to work on choosing wisely. It isn't quantity (although my quanitity is vast, which also breeds variety!), it's quality (which again, my friends have got sweating out of their PORES!).
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