Clinging on?

The world is full of beauty and wonder, abundant with amazing people, creatures, beings, things and objects. At any moment we may come into contact with pleasing sights, sounds, tastes, smells, thoughts and emotions.  

And it can be a slippery slope from appreciating them for what they are to becoming our fixed attachments. 

But we all do it. It is normal.  We want what we like to stay, to remain, to continue.  But before we know it, we have gone from liking to craving to clinging.  Perhaps because we deep down know that everything is impermanent we desperately cling to it.  And cling we do. The more we cling, the more misery we create as the very things we like fade, dissolve, disappear, leave, go, die.  

Vipassana meditation offers a way to come out of this tendency to cling and similarly to reject, by learning to notice the sensations that arise within us.  We can choose to observe these, be they pleasant or unpleasant, with awareness and equanimity.  By such a process, we can have an insight into the peace and possibilities which exist when we release ourselves from them.

As to reinforce my learning that it is the phenomena, people, projects, possessions and places that we become attached to, which offer us rich lessons in impermanence, somehow I got detached from my matching Mandarina Duck luggage on the way to the retreat.  It with all my winter woollies turned up 7 days later, just as another sign of beauty, the traces of the first season’s snowfall which had so enchanted the sacred silent centre, were dissolving.  The irony was not lost. 

Image:  Velcro Cub.  Manitoba by Linda Drake as posted by Vivid Greeting Cards on Facebook 17 April 2013.    Vivid Greeting Cards – celebrating the world's wonders with gems found in cyberspace and Gallery Windows of VGC art - http://www.vividgreetingcards.co.uk/. Sign up to Vivid Greeting Cards Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vivid-Greeting-Cards/187838957957375