The Art of Getting Muddy
I've been sitting a lot with the topic of attachment. I know I know, nothing new here. We all
read, don't be attached to things.
Zen Buddhists say: work at the root, so let's go deeper. You cannot just decide to not be
attached, it's something that either happens through realization of how useless the attachment
is or through practicing letting go of the part of you that's bothering you, that's being
attached. Here we'll focus on the former, but technically they are one and the same thing.
A friend told me this story of a famous yogi who used to eat from golden plates. My first
reaction was, “wow, what a fraud, a yogi who hasn't renounced the luxuries of life and is
eating from gold plates.” But as we went deeper into the story I learned something.
The yogi couldn't care less about what he was eating from. The gold plates were given to him
as a gift, so instead of storing them away, polishing them every now and then, he just ate
from them and didn't care one bit if they would get scratched, used up or decrease in value.
That's a person free of attachments. Through this realization, in that moment I became
enlightened. Just kidding, but stay with me.
Can you ever really enjoy something, anything if you are attached to it? Can you ever enjoy
the moment in front of you, if you need something from it? Can you truly see the person in
front of you, if you need something from that person? Can you truly enjoy your car if you're
worried it could get a scratch?
Another example, did you ever buy a book that you thought was so wonderful, but you didn't
want to damage it and put dog ears in it. So you treated it with a lot of care. Every page you
turned very carefully.
On one occasion I received a second copy of the same precious book. Suddenly I felt, I can
truly learn from the book, I underlined, dog eared, wrote notes on the top and the sides,
spilled coffee by accident over it but I didn't care.
After finishing the book I felt like I learned something, I truly enjoyed the book and fully
consumed it. Now I just throw it in my bag and take it with me, not worried if it
gets banged up.
A few months back, I bought a pair of Nike Cortez, the shoe that put Nike on the map in 1972
(see picture above from Forrest Gump). The shoes are white, so I treated them carefully. I was
much more concerned with not getting them dirty than fully enjoying them and wearing them where
ever I wanted.
So what's the message here?
You can't really enjoy anything, when you're attached to it, when you need something from it.
So fully use that book, bring out the special crystal glass and loudly cheers with it, wear
those white sneakers in the gym, go barefoot into the mud and play with your kids. Laugh at
the car scratch and give that person in front of you the gift of being seen for the first time
in a long time because there's nothing you need from them.
When nothing is needed from the moment in front of you, what happens? You fully enjoy it, it
won't be something that you actively do, it will simply be something that happens to you.
~ When you do things from your soul,
you feel a river moving in you, a joy. Rumi
So get muddy.
Hope you enjoyed this, let me know if you occasionally want more of this.
As always if you're curious and want to get more muddy please
schedule a call here
or email:
coach@chopwoodcarrywater.org
Coaching that works.
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