Attachments and Detachments

 The Buddha taught not to cling. How do we practise non-clinging?

We practise simply by giving up clinging, but this non-clinging is very difficult to understand. It takes keen wisdom to investigate and penetrate this, to really achieve non-clinging. ~ Ajahn Chah

During the height of the pandemic, I planted a garden in front of where I live, before the garden it was a well manicured lawn. With the help of the next door neighbor, we cleared the area, planted sweet potato, corn, cassava and lemon grass. I felt quite proud of the effort. Seeing the seeds sprouting, the growth stirred something in me.

The trick is, I live on a compound that is run by a management committee. They were not happy with the garden, their preference was a manicured lawn not food. A kitchen garden was, according to them, "ugly". A compost heap was also set up at the side of the house, close to the garden. This was also seen as an eye sore. Totally out of order in a compound with lawn, flowers and manicured yards.

The neighbors' called a meeting and asked me to cease and desist with having the garden , because it is ugly and most of all it is against the rules that I signed up for when I decided to live here.

Truth be told, I was livid. I prevented them for months from touching the garden, making arguments and raising my voice about the ridiculousness of destroying a garden because it is "ugly" a very small piece of land with food planted on it affecting an entire community because of how it looked, did not make one bit of sense to me.

This week the talk has resurfaced, the garden must go, the compost heap must go. I started fighting them, I started making a case for the garden, there was some back and forth. I then stopped myself and asked within - what exactly am I fighting for? I feel attacked. What am I defending?

What is it that I want to prove?

When I stopped and asked myself these questions, it dawned upon me that I wanted to win, to prove a point, there was nothing about the garden in the argument. I wanted to prove how wrong they were and how right I was. I wanted to be praised and complimented for doing the garden.

Right in that moment of awareness, I decided to let it go, to stop resisting, to stop proving, to stop looking for validation. I reframed the question to myself - what is the lesson here?

I am still not sure what is the lesson, I do however know that I learned about the impact of being attached to a particular outcome and the freedom of letting go.

When attached to a particular outcome which does not materialize, there is disappointment of course but the trick is to know that there is nothing to prove, nothing to hold on to and nothing to defend.

The compost heap is gone, the garden is about to go. I know who my neighbors' are, and how they think, this is important information for me to make new decisions - do I want to live around people like this? maybe not! food for thought

I also know that I can let go and it is never a loss.

Peace