“I’m not jealous (greedy, self-obsessed, narrow-minded,) but what’s mine is mine.” – unknown
Mine. It’s mine, they are mine, and that’s mine.
Inside, in my strange little interior world that only I know, I live out of two perspectives. And lately I’ve been noticing I’m not the only one. It feels as though we all live in world of MINE.
One perspective that is socially conditioned, is things in the universe can be possessed, or are mine. People, places, and things can be collected and owned. Cars, relationships, houses, drums, pets, information, feelings, books, appliances, opinions, money, air, property, and ideas, to name a few, have all come under the heading MINE.
Sometimes, even though us meditators often announce in the grandest mystical tones, “There is no future or past,” I contemplate my past anyway. Just to spite myself and them. And the image that rises is that of me as a boat sailing the seas, stopping here and there, collecting people, places, and things that immediately become the property of the ship, or MINE.
But at the stern of the ship, where the future is filtered by the present and the past begins, there’s all this stuff floating around in the wake as the ship decides it’s no longer needed. Like a snail trail of people, places, and things. And feelings, moods, and angst. And looking at this directly is a bloody painful musing. People and things, no longer around. Ideas that were so important, along with the conceptual. All mine. MINE. Until they go off the back of the ship to make room, or at least that’s what I tell myself.
And in the end I die, and whatever’s left is divided up among the other ships, only to be tossed off their sterns later. To make room, of course. OK. I get this, and worse see it in a clearer fashion than I ever have before.
8,000,000,000 ships.
Perspective two. “I” simply can’t own or possess anything. Everything is flowing in time, coming and going, rising up, existing, and then fading. Over and over. And I know from experimenting with this view how I am driven and desperate to hold onto something and make the flow of life stop for just a bit. But, I can’t stop anything because I’m not in control, I never was, and never will be. I only have beliefs and stories of being in control. And I suffer from them.
Well, that sucks. But only if I want to own people, places, and things. Because although it has that “poor helpless me” feel to it, what it really means to see this is freedom. A release. A slowing down. And it’s sobering all of a sudden. A reality of reality sinks in. What and how I really am. Spinning around and flying through the universe on this rock. Collecting things in a temporary attempt to convince myself of my own worth.
And seeing that I could just be curious and interested, enjoying people, places, and things for the temporary period of time they are in proximity, and understand the unfolding will bring what it may. Some folks say things like, “Just let things go,” in the mystical wizard voice, but I don’t have to do that if I see the grabbing onto early enough in the first place. (Buddhism, 101) Besides, go ahead and grab it and hold it as tight as you can and the universe will rip it out of your hands later. Me “letting go” is another fantasy of control. (Sometimes the “ripping” can be damaging when I’m really holding on, like an octopus.)
Of course, experience it all while it’s happening, but then embrace the reality of reality and say goodbye, then say hello to the next thing that rises in attention.
But I probably won’t. It’s too spiritual. Too California. Wu Wu Mystical shit. Acting as though I live in a museum and casino, nothing but stuff to be curious about and accepting the enormous odds of change that bring wanted and unwanted things my way. A rolling stone among eight million rolling stones. I see it, but social conditioning’s a hammer and I’m a nail.
Today I can try to stay aware of the MINE perspective, and see if I can maintain the inclusive view, I’m just visiting here.
Today is a thing unto itself, a journey, travel well.
Bryan Wagner
Visions of a People's Dharma 