My maternal grandmother lived in the house pictured above sans red door and decorative circle.
Our first attachment is to our parents. Our attachment to them is influenced by their attachment to their parents. Norman Fischer, in Taking Our Places,* writes:
“In the end our maturity demands that in accepting our parents we find a way to be grateful to them, no matter how terrible a job they may have done with us.”
Fischer continues: “……to accept our parents with gratitude is to accept the world as it actually is and to understand its suffering and confusion with a wide wisdom.”
So as we explore attachment to our parents, I hope to keep his wise words in mind. Accepting the world as it actually is – where did you learn to do this?
More to come in Post #151 on attachment. In the meantime, please consider what comes to your mind when you think of the attachments in your life – and tell me, Do you accept the world as it actually is? Let me know what you think and feel. We’re going into another complicated mystery!
Thanks for Exploring the Mystery of Attachment –
Nicky Mendenhall
6 comments
I think I have an easier time accepting the world as a whole than it's individual people, especially those in close contact with me. As is true with anything, some are easier to accept than others. But with those closer to me, especially those that may live with me, there have been many times I wish that I could change them to suit me better.
Thank you Nina for your honesty. If we can realize we want to change others, it may help us resist this normal human desire. It's difficult not to be in control isn't it?
i think attachment also has to do with ‘what we stubbornly want’ – so that striving is about attachment too…. traveling to different places, learning new things, changing careers is both a letting go of attachments, but also a striving towards something we want that we don’t have….. so maybe its a yin/yang moment. Rebelling against parents is partly letting go and partly attaching to something we don’t think we have. then, don’t we already really have everything? Ehh??
Good Morning, Nicky,
I think I'm going to have to disagree with the idea that our first attachment is to our parents.
I think our first attachment is to our body.
That is why it is such a big deal to discover that you are consciousness and not the body in meditation.
Don't you think?
As I said in my personal email to you, thinking this way feels free. I don't tend to separate the body and consciousness though. So much to think about! I can see your point that consciousness attaches to the body before any thing else.
Matt – I think this is a very interesting take on attachment. It speaks to the Buddhist way of thinking about attachment. There will be more about this later in the series.
Thank you for priming the pump!
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