S: Depeche Mode in ‘Lilian’ sung, ‘Pain and misery always hit the spot. Knowing you can’t lose what you haven’t got.’ The truth is, nothing can be grasped on to. Not even enlightenment, for it is a state of non-grasping freedom.
J: *Gasp!*
S: When freedom is grasped at, freedom is lost!
J: We lose what we can’t let go of?
S: Ironically, yes :-] If we can’t lose what we haven’t got, we can lose what we cling to, by not clinging.
J: I wonder how much more I need to lose, before I learn not to cling for good.
S: If your teeth cling to your favourite food, you wouldn’t be able to taste, chew or swallow. Only when there is letting go can it be savoured. Likewise only that we don’t cling to can be enjoyed, while clinging itself isn’t enjoyable. The next time you cling to something, try clinging more intensely to see if it is enjoyable. When it becomes unbearable, let it go, to see the contrast, the release and freedom from not clinging. Also, since we cannot really grasp anything (as every physical and mental thing changes), we can never really lose anything.
P: So true. But why do we have such a strong inclination to cling? Strange ah.
S: I guess we tend to cling because it is ‘natural’ to assume that clinging means having. It’s counterintuitive that it is possible to ‘have’ more fully when we let go and bask in the moment. For example, when we cling to a nice river, we might snap pictures of it, but to really enjoy it is to enter it, to enjoy its fleeting nature without clinging, not hanging on to its static nature as mere still pictures.