Attachment Ramble

Being sane in an insane world is insanity to the insane. 

Life for the SPMI is a practice in letting go. You could say our whole lives are preparing to die. Many of us have had severe traumas within our mental health, and we’ve gripped with eternity for some time already. How do we do it? We have to, we all have to eventually, the SPMI have been doing this every day. Many of us are stronger than we look; most of us are trying to appear normal. So what does this have to do with attachment? To win at this game, we have to let go of our egos.

I spent a great amount of time trying to control my illness, but in the end, I must accept that this illness has won. A great part of the SPMI problem is that need for medication. I cannot stress enough to any of you who are ill, whether it be mental or physical, you need your medication. there are a lot of popular arguments today that mental health meds are harmful and they mess up your brain. Your chief allies in this game are medication, therapy, and mindfulness. These will all serve you well. But enough about mental health.

Once we let go of control, we can let go of ourselves. Because that self that we call “myself,” is just a tapestry of fragments of memories or dreams that we try desperately to combine into a seamless whole, which will inevitably not lead to a completed work. There is something more; you must find it. Zen, to me, has been that find; maybe you can find yours, or maybe yours is the same as mine. Either way, meditation, mindfulness, medication, and therapy will inevitably allow you to make progress. Don’t rush yourself, and don’t get discouraged for too long.

We can spend a great deal of our time trying to define ourselves through achievements or personality traits, or what others have said about us, but in the end we haven’t found the truest self within us. We have to stop holding onto these ideas about ourselves that grip us, good or bad, and confine us to mediocrity. When we meditate, we let go of that ego itself, and search. We search ourselves, we search our motivations, we search our notions of divinity. This will inevitably lead to little awakenings that give us new perspective. They will build up overtime and become second nature, and we will be changed. If you are chronically, unhappy, this is exactly what you need. This is where you find the I Am.

Attachment to material things is a serious distraction to the present moment as well. I’m telling you is that God is now. You are now. Life is now. Not yesterday or last week or 10 years ago, not tomorrow, not at family dinners, not when you get that new job or promotion. It is all right now. It’s the only time that exists, ever. God, or what I like to call the one consciousness, the one love, is always now. When you recognize God, it’s now. Try to think to a time in the past when you felt like you experienced God. Can you conjure him from there? No you can’t.

Buddhism and Zen have given us this practice. Christianity, Sufis and other faiths have practiced similar things for quite some time, but they may be less known. The Buddha was Hindu, but he had trouble with all the ritualism, and began his own way. It is valuable. You will not be led astray by practicing. If we’re a slave to the past in shame, or were a slave to the future in wishful thinking, then we’re forgetting that all of that begins here anyway. Backwards or forwards in time, it all begins now, the only place you’re gonna experience anything. This is what meditation teaches us when we sit, we’re just sitting, and when we’re eating, we’re just eating. When we’re doing the dishes, we’re just doing the dishes. This is mindfulness. And of course, we are always breathing.

Peace, friends...