The unbearable lightness of being. I do not think that we should offhandedly dismiss people who are, or at least seem, “light,” especially those who are smart. Because I think we can all look around at the world and see how the things to which we become attached—whether it be a person, a belief, a job, an idea, a morality/ideology—can weigh us down, and thus slow us down. In fact, people who judge those they consider to be light are possibly themselves weighed down by all of the assumptions, beliefs, conceits and so on which allow them to be so judgmental in the first place.
On the other hand, a lot of people who live light lives are simply avoiding life and refusing to deal with reality just as much as the weighty people who use things to keep themselves too busy to deal with reality. People who are light understand the danger of attachment, the inevitable narrowing of the mind with each new, or strengthened, addition. What they do not always understand is that their distancing reaction is not the only way of dealing with the situation. There may be other ways to be light and still get the benefits that those who seem weighed down get.
People, generally, do not seem to have the skills to go through life without clinging and attachment. Since we do not seem to be able to think about love without need, dependence, and attachment, we inescapably limit ourselves to the degree with which we become attached to things.
One of the most difficult attachments to understand and overcome is our attachments to our assumptions. For example, most people would say that the greatest human emotions come expressly from/with attachment, that you cannot truly “live” without attachments, something to “care” about. But then, the Buddha taught that happiness can only be achieved without attachment. Which is right?
Don’t most of us feel “alive” when we are emotional? Don’t most people consider love to be an emotion as well as whatever else it is? Don’t people mistake passion for love? On the other hand, some people feel most alive when they are calm, in harmony with things, when they feel strong and yet light, balanced, going with the flow, feeling things without clinging to them. Do we have to have a vested interest in something/someone to care about it/them? What do you mean by “care?” Don’t most people tend to equate caring with attachment as well? We normally do not care about things we are not attached to, things in which we do not feel a vested interest. What is the common thread in that? The self. That it is actually about us, not the thing or person.
I think that there is a way to “care,” to feel connections, feel close to things, feel love for things (especially people) without attachment. Essentially, it comes from recognizing and letting go of that to which we cling, of recognizing the selfishness of the craving and fear that is behind what we mistakenly think of as love. It is achieved by breaking down our illusions, our assumptions about what things mean, about what is needed for us to have and feel certain things, as well as a rethinking of our expectations of what we want and need.
We need to ask ourselves why we are clinging. What is it that we fear? On what is that fear based? Basically, it’s about questioning ourselves about what we want and why we want it and seeing whether those are valid reasons or whether they are actually based on baseless ideas and illusions. The more we see how baseless our illusions are, the more we will see that attachment is actually not love, and that all the things that we might think are about the other person are actually about us. That is self-ish. How can that be love?
Don’t we only love people who give us something, whether that be attention, sex, companionship, validation, security, or even on the other side, a reinforcement of negative feelings we have about ourselves? Either way, that “love” is about us getting something. Can you imagine loving someone from whom you get nothing? Not even a sense of pride that you can love the unloving, the unlovable?
Again and again, when we really start to examine our feelings, and this thing we call “love” we say we feel, we see that all of these things are, ultimately, about us. We see that love is not what we thought it was, that the things we are feeling are actually something else—desire, craving, lust, fear of being alone, etc. And all of these things are wholly about us.
Only when we see things clearly, as they really are, not as illusion, can we make a truly informed decision about things. To love without illusions and misguided assumptions is the truest love, the most real love. Beauty is reality; that which is pure, unfettered by illusion, that which is undistorted by need, fear, clinging, and greed.
True love is unburdened love, a love based not on assumptions, judgments, expectations, and attachment, but on reality (the absence of illusion). Only if they are unburdened and undistorted by assumptions and illusions can our connections be true, real, and strong. How real are connections you need to hold together?
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From my personal notes, 11/26/99
