Apples and Attachment

The Second Noble Truth of Buddhism is pretty simple: there is a cause for Dukkha (suffering), which is attachment and desire. Yep, I think that's definitely a universal truth. Think about it, if you're not "attached" (read obsessed) with something, then you won't suffer. You'll be like a duck in the water, easily swimming through life without ever getting wet.

Yeah, if it were only that simple. It turns out that escaping from attachment can be a little more difficult than one might think. Personally, I had a little encounter with attachment this past week, as alluded to in this post. Namely, my reality bubble was rather abruptly burst on Monday when I found out that Villanova plans to give all of its incoming freshman a labtop computer starting with my class, the class of '10 (wow, that's a lame class...). Most people wouldn't be too disappointed by this (what, we're getting a free labtop!), but I've been planning on getting this sexy machine since January. Anyone who knows me knows that I have an obsession with Apple computers and a love/hate (more so hate) relationship with peecees. Now I learned I'd have to wait another four years to get that Mac. Noooooooooo...

Simply, my obsession with this computer situation put me in a rather sour mood that threw off the majority of this past week. I definitely went through the five stages of grief. I started with denial: 'No way, this isn't true. There must be a mistake.' Then I moved on to anger: 'What the f*#$, I've been waiting for this since forever. Screw you Villanova!' Then came bargaining: 'Wait, I can e-mail them, see if I can bring my own labtop and have the price reduced from my tuition!' Depression was kind of short lived and non-existent (it is just a computer after all). Acceptance came rather spontaneously Wednesday: 'Oh, okay. Um, well, I'll just have to wait until August to get my computer. It's all good.'

I think my easy flow through these stages has to do with the little Buddhist training I've taught myself. Attachment, in Buddhism, is the enemy of enlightenement, so the Buddhists have tons of tools to deal with it. One of my favorites is "witnessing." Basically, you just sit back and objectively monitor your thoughts. We all have a permanent stream of thoughts that flow through our mind, we just don't notice them most of the time. In this situation, I quite literally saw all the anger, denial, bargaining, etc. boiling up and just laughed at it. I saw the sentences above describing the steps appear and disappear. Then, after observing the flow of emotions, acceptance just came naturally. All things are impermanent, the First Noble Truth.

Now, the fact that I got upset in the first place is a sign that I still have a lot of spiritual maturation left to do. But still, this was a fun exercise in self-awareness.

Who thought I'd learn such a lesson from my future college before I even went there?

Namaste.