Through Pain Comes New Life

Losing loved ones is never easy. It's especially hard when the loss is an ending of one kind of relationship like romantic or friendship because we know that person is still around and we don't get to have interaction with them. You see, most of us get the circle of physical life. These bodies we reside in don't live forever, so we can come to grips with physical life ending...eventually. But because we form attachments by nature, letting go of them is difficult.

It takes Buddhist philosophy to explain the perils of attachment. This is love, Buddha-style: 
"impartial to all, free from excessive attachment or false hope and expectation; accepting, tolerant, and forgiving. Buddhist non attachment doesn't imply complacence or indifference, or not having committed relationships or being passionately engaged with society, but rather has to do with our effort to defy change and resist the fact of impermanence and our mortality. By holding on to that which in any case is forever slipping through our fingers, we just get rope burn."(1)

You see, in order to have attachment you need two things: the attacher and the thing (or person) to which the attacher is attached. But, non attachment is the exact opposite of separation. It is unity, oneness. If you have unified with the whole universe, then there is nothing outside of you, and thus nothing to which to attach.

It may be easier for most of us to know we are all one, connected, than to feel it to the extent that we no longer form attachments. Thus, we go through this pain, feeling of loss while we try to get to that place. So in the meantime, there's another way of looking at so-called loss and the pain of it.

A fetus grows in its mothers womb for nine or so months. They are one, literally attached by the umbilical cord. The baby gets comfy, spending its time sleeping, eating, chilling. But as the baby grows, it becomes too big for the very space to which it is connected. So mommy, in all her wisdom, pushes the baby out when she feels it stretching for more space. This is a traumatic event for baby, and mommy. The birth canal is tight, mommy is squeezing, and the pain mommy is facing just to give baby enough space to grow is excruciating. But soon, baby emerges into this world with tons of space to grow and become who he/she is meant to be.

Loss of friendships can feel traumatizing and painful, and we may still not understand why things had to change once we're out of the womb. But with time, patience, and faith, our new worlds will take shape and all will be revealed. To all of the friends I have lost, I'm sorry for whatever I did or didn't do, I wish you well, and thank you for the push.









(1) http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/love-quotes.html