Change

We have all returned safe a sound from Shambhala Mountain Center. This trip was successful by all definitions of the word in all aspects. Yet I find myself curiously disappointed. At first, I did not understand this. I just knew that all the enthusiasm I thought I would feel (and did feel the day we arrived) was somehow absent. I blamed it on my cold and the altitude and not feeling well. Now that I am back in my comfortable breathing zone I think I understand it better. Something is lacking, something which I expected but do not feel – triumph.

I think somewhere inside, I felt that this trip would in many ways be the culmination of so much hard work. It should be the climax, the finale, the zenith. I think I expected something to change somehow, yet life goes on as it has. Here I am, back at school, back to work, back to studying, and everything is much the same as it was before I left. I guess that proves life really isn’t a movie. There aren’t intricate plots with introductions, actions, challenges, and finally endings. There are no endings; it just continues, one infinite denouement.

I was attached to this vision I had create for myself and of myself. I had this lovely (fictional) story all laid out in my head of how my triumph would be achieved. The funny thing is – it was achieved, as beautifully as I ever could have hoped for. It just lacked theme music. And the credits never rolled.

Buddhism teaches us that all things change. Clinging and attachment to things which we believe to be concrete and lasting causes suffering. Turns out that clinging to ideas of how change will occur causes suffering too. Attachment to our own ideas of how the plot should run is an obstacle in our perception of reality.

Sometimes things change and sometimes they don’t – and sometimes they just change in ways you didn’t expect.

PS – The object of my earlier ‘Fixation’ wasn’t even there. I did not ask after him.