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 such pleasure. Of sights and sounds. Tastes and smells. Thoughts and emotions.

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

But we all do it. It is normal.  We want what we like to stay. To remain or to continue.  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 choose to come out of this tendency to cling and similarly to reject. By learning to observe the sensations that arise within us. Those sensations both pleasant and unpleasant. And to observe them with awareness and equanimity.  By such observation, we can have an insight into the peace and possibilities which exist when we release ourselves from the attachment.

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.

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash

 

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Penelope Mavor
10 years ago

Thankful for the wonderful images from Vivid Greeting Cards – a constant source of beauty and inspiration

Cathy Teesdale
10 years ago

Love it, very wise & beautifully illustrated, as always!