Читать книгу The Buddhist Path to Simplicity: Spiritual Practice in Everyday Life - Christina Feldman, Christina Feldman - Страница 17

As we reflect upon the nature of life and ourselves, we discover that there is an innate naturalness to letting go. The nature of all life is change; winter lets go its hold to change into spring; for summer to emerge spring must end and this season can only last for a time before it fades into autumn, which in turn lets go for winter to emerge once more. In the same way, our infancy was let go of as we emerged into our childhood. All of our life transitions, our capacity to grow and mature, depend upon a natural process of letting go of what went before. No matter how strenuous our efforts, we cannot make one single thing last. No matter how much we delight in a pleasant thought, experience, or connection, we cannot force it to stay. No matter how much we dislike or fear an experience or impression, it is already in the process of changing into something else. There is a remarkable simplicity discovered as we harmonize our own life with the natural story of all life, which is change. From the moment of our birth, our life has been teaching us about letting go. There is remarkable complexity in seeking to bend and mold life’s story to support our personal agendas of craving and aversion. We are not separate in any way from the process of change, not just detached observers. We are part of this life with all of its seasons and movements.

Aitken Roshi, a much beloved Western Zen master, once said, “Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this world, but accepting that they pass away.” A deep understanding of impermanence is an insight that has the power to transform our lives. Understanding the nature of change deeply and unshakably loosens the hold of craving and aversion, bringing calmness and great simplicity. To study life is to study impermanence. This insight into impermanence is not a breakthrough experience but an ongoing exploration of what is true. Take a walk through the rooms of your home—can you find one single thing that is eternal, that is not already in a process of change? Explore your body—it speaks to you of the inevitable process of aging and change. Walk through the rooms of your mind with its cascade of thoughts, plans, anxieties, memories, and images. Can you hold on to any of them? Can you decide only to have pleasant thoughts or ideas, only pleasant feelings or sensations? Neither sorrow nor complexity are born of this changing world, but of our grasping and aversion, and our desire to seek the unchanging in anything that is essentially changing. As you take those walks through the rooms of your life and mind, ask yourself whether anything you encounter truly holds the power to dictate your happiness or sorrow, or whether it is more true that the source of happiness and sorrow lies within your own heart and mind.

When we hear the word “impermanence” we tend to nod our heads wisely in agreement—it is an obvious truth. Yet, when caught in craving or aversion, we suffer bouts of amnesia, convinced that everything is impermanent except this experience, feeling, or thought. Life continues to be our greatest teacher, penetrating these moments of forgetfulness, if we are willing to listen and pay attention. In truth, there is no choice but to let go; the nature of impermanence tells us that no matter how desperately we hold onto anything, it is already in the process of leaving us. Our choice is whether or not we suffer in the course of meeting the inevitable arrivals and departures, the beginnings and endings, held in every moment of our lives. Each time we are lost in craving or aversion, we open the door to a flood of thoughts, stories, strategies, and images. Each time we learn to let go, we open the door to peace and simplicity, to joy and appreciation.

Renunciation is not a spiritual destination, nor a heroic experience dependent upon great striving and will. Renunciation is a practice of kindness and compassion undertaken in the midst of the small details and intense experiences of our lives. It is the heart of meditation practice. We learn to sit down and let go. Each time we return our attention to the breath or to the moment we are in, we are practicing renunciation. In that moment we have let go of the pathways of stories and speculation about what is happening, and have turned our attention to what is actual and true in each moment. The practice of renunciation is essentially a celebration of simplicity.

A group of businessmen renowned for their dishonesty went to visit a great Indian saint, intent on earning the merit they hoped would balance their covetousness. Sitting down, they proceeded to sing her praises, extolling her great virtues of wisdom, renunciation, and simplicity. After listening for some minutes her face creased into a smile and she began to laugh. Disconcerted, the group asked what was so amusing to her. Answering she said, “It is not I who is the great renunciate, it is you, because you are living in such a way that you have renounced the truth.”