The suffering contained in these two sentences is huge: This is mine. That is me.
The Dharma calls these the marks of clinging - the mistaken belief that the world exists for me, that my job is to guard my little bubble of mine-ness at all costs. When we believe this is mine, we bind ourselves to loss, we do wild things to hold onto what is mine, to prove it is really mine.
When we believe that is me, we shrink the vast, changing universe into a fragile identity we have to defend and protect constantly. We become the main character in a story we didn’t even write, forgetting that everyone else is the main character in their story too.
7 Billion people walking around claiming, This is mine, That is me.
By holding on to who you are, you inherently create suffering for who you will become. By holding on to what you want to become you inherently create suffering by and for being who you are.
Yes, it is a catch 22. And so, what do we do?
The dharma invites us to loosen our grip, to see through the illusion of ownership and selfhood, to see that, to not want a thing and to want a thing are the same thing, both rooted in resistance to what is. It’s not that nothing matters, it’s more like everything does. Only when you do not seek will you find, and only when you do not strive will you have.
The world is not mine alone and you are not me - and that is where freedom begins.
Imagine - 7 billion, fuck it, 1 million, 100 people claiming, This is ours, That is us. xo
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