Attachment and Letting Go

I did something I rarely did that day. I had a raging migraine which I simply could not work through, sit through, push through. I gave up about 2:00 o’clock and went to bed.

I don't think my head hit the pillow before I was asleep, neurons shimmering across my brain in a neurological aurora borealis. When I am awake and in the grip of a migraine every sense is heightened; I am all raw reaction, my vision near-obliterated by neon lightning strikes and zig-zag patterns. Sounds are magnified and sharpened to the point of pain, the fragrances of my own hair and the fabric softener lingering on my clothing nauseating.

But when I am asleep the brain interprets sensory input in inexplicable ways. So now, curled with his back into the curve of my recumbent body is the comforting and familiar form of a compact, muscular dog. Slick-coated, breath slowly rising and falling, his head rests on my crooked arm under my chin. He smells of Fritos. His whiskers twitch. We doze together, quietly.

Then I wake enough to realize that "he" is the weight of a bunched blanket, a pillow migrated to lie against my arm, the warmth of my own breath reflected back. "He" is not there. I do not want to let go of the illusion. I hang onto the "him" that has not been there for nearly 40 years. Tears well up into the emptiness he once filled.

Attachment, Zen calls it. Whatever you love will ultimately bring you to love’s final test; the test of learning to let go. So I hold on to my attachment, brought unexpectedly to the surface by the thunderless storm raging in my brain. I enjoy the memory of that joyful little body, touch it once more - lightly and with love - and let it go.

Why do we love our dogs so much? Perhaps it is because a dog offers no advice, no counsel, no suggestions on self-improvement. They offer only the profound act of looking at us without judgment, and loving us, with exuberant joy, exactly as we are. 

Humans find it difficult to see others without judgment, and the ability to offer unconditional acceptance is a rare act of love. We are too preoccupied with worrying what others think of us or trying to make an impression, to be non-judgemental, and what love we have to offer comes with conscious and unconscious expectations. 

Most of us can offer non-judgemental and unconditional acceptance only when we have consciously and deliberately made friends with ourselves, in the deepest, most intimate sense. As you become entirely and completely familiar with yourself and accept yourself inside and out you come to realize that you share the same body and experience the same needs as every other human on Earth. This realization awakens compassion for ourselves and all of humanity.   

There is a Buddhist chant that goes: "It is my nature to age, I have not gone beyond aging; It is my nature to become sick, I have not gone beyond sickness; It is my nature to die, I have not gone beyond dying.”

Though I faced an illness that almost took my life at age 27, I don't believe that I really understood the concept of my own mortality then, but I remember vividly when that realization occurred. Oddly enough it was not at a time of illness or stress. I was not grieving or facing loss. I simply woke up one morning with the awareness of my eventual and certain death. It came with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, a surge of fear. The fear quickly subsided, but the awareness persisted.

At my age, I’ve lost many friends and relatives. Several have refused to face their own mortality, and have even denied to their last conscious moment that they were even facing a serious illness. There was no discussion of their impending death because they wouldn't admit that anything was wrong. To the end everyone tiptoed around the subject. And because they were caught up in fear we lost the opportunity to support them and lovingly ease their transition from this world.  

My brother-in-law and one of my most beloved childhood friends both died of ALS. Brother-in-law denied his illness and refused to acknowledge it, even as his muscles wasted away to nothing and he could no longer sit, speak, swallow and finally breathe. He had behaved very badly, even violently, toward other family members. He was terrified of dying. Though I was holding his hand when he died I felt we had failed him. 

On the other hand my friend and I talked openly about her impending death, about the husband and children she was leaving behind, about fear, gratitude, our many wonderful memories and our love for each other. We left nothing unsaid, and before she died she said she was at peace and asked us not to mourn. 

From a Buddhist view, illness and acknowledging the transience of your mortal existence provides a profound opportunity for spiritual transformation. When we quit running and turn to face our fear of pain and death we can experience life’s richness, without the mental and emotional convolutions of avoidance. When we embrace illness and pain without fear it can allow us to develop serenity and deep compassion for the suffering of other beings.