attachment

Now that Nayeli is on the mend, I have to own up to my recent reflections. I'm not an overly anxious person and am usually able to reason myself out of any arising anxiety, even when it comes to my daughter. On Thursday, when Nayeli was at her worst ever, burning up, not keeping any food down, and having a hard time breathing, I still knew it was nothing to worry about. But I broke down anyway, because it got me thinking about the connection Nayeli and I have in this life, and how at some point it will have to end.

This is not a morbid thought, at least not the way I see it. I will die, and Nayeli will die; those are the facts of life. It is, however, a very sad thing, because of the way we have attached ourselves to each other and because we depend on each other so much. That is the nature of human existence, and is indeed the nature of all existence. Everything depends on everything else. I would not have this life at all were it not for a multitude of co-incidental circumstances.

I don't think that the answer to the suffering inherent in the human condition is in detaching myself from those I love or even in not becoming attached in the first place. I am human, in all my dynamic human aspects, and anger and attachment consequently arise. The suffering goes deeper than that.

What is it that makes me think, given the interdependence of all things, that Nayeli (or myself) is more valuable than anything else in the world? I can't help feeling that way, but it is so illogical. Nayeli would not even exist were it not for a whole other set of co-incidental circumstances. Those circumstances themselves must therefore be valuable. And how did the circumstances arise? From their own sets of circumstances.

Many months ago, I asked my teacher, Angela, for some advice about attachment to dharma practice, and received the following response:

It is very difficult to generate motivation for anything that we do, including practice, that is unmixed with attachment and self concern. In fact, those brief moments in which one's mind is purely dedicated to the welfare of others, are moments of enlightenment. Usually we are only able to experience this pure motivation with regard to someone that we love greatly and to whom we are totally attached - like one's child or spouse. When that loving mind lets go of the attachment to self, and therefore to other, and when that mind is dedicated in the same way to all beings, then one is fully actualizing Buddhanature.

Is it harder to let go of the attachment to self, and therefore to other, when one has such intimate relationships as that of mother-child? I actually think it's easier. If Nayeli is sick, I will do anything to help her get better. Anything. She is far more valuable than I am, in the illogical sense of a mother's love. I let go instinctively and spontaneously of attachment to self. That in itself is an incredible relief, since so much suffering comes from the thought, "but what about me?" And following Angela's reasoning, letting go of self is letting go of other. Each gets mixed up in the pool of interdependence when I realize the not-two-ness of it all.

I think this is all fairly easy during pregnancy, when not-two-ness is obvious. But a mother fully devotes herself to her child's welfare most easily when the child is sick or dying (Nayeli is not dying, but I'm quite sure of that statement). So, if I can dedicate that compassion toward all sentient beings, without partiality, I am experiencing enlightenment. That is the tricky part: using my attachments, so tightly woven into my human nature, as keys to liberation.