So long 2010...we hardly knew ye

Happy new year to all :)

I guess it is one of the few holidays that spans all cultures (although when you consider the new year begins or what year it is may differ).  For me, New Years has always been bitter sweet, because I do always think of 'auld lang syne' (days of the past).

As  a buddhist, I try to be grounded in the present, but it is hard not to think of the past.  I definitely think I look back more than I look forward.  My first guess would be that the past is a more happy place, but I'm not sure about that.  Yes, there were good times, but they were definitely more memorable.  That has good and bad connotations.

There is an old zen saying; "If you seek it, you shall not find it".  People, including myself, are constantly searching for something.  Perhaps it is a longing for the past with old friends to relive old times.  Or perhaps people are seeking to find a mate, or a better job in order to find happiness.  What people rarely do however is just see what they have now.  More importantly, people don't question why they are even seeking.

New Years day is supposed to be about looking to the future, and changing for the better...while saying goodbye to what was.  Perhaps the greatest mystery to me about Buddhism is that I supposedly am already enlightened, there is nothing for me to gain.  At the same time, attachments should be abandoned, but it is not the same as saying goodbye to the past.

I remember a few years ago, I told one of best friends that you could sum up Buddhism in two words: "let go".  But how we let go is important.  If we let go or say goodbye with sadness....we truly haven't let it go.  It remains in our hearts.  When we let something go, we have to understand down to our bones that whatever it is we are letting go was never ours to begin with.  Everything we have, and everything we are is a gift on loan. It comes, and one day it goes.  Indeed, I came up with the name Sojourner (a temporary visitor or traveler) as an acknowledgment to this truth.

Although I understand this intellectually, I have not felt it to my core.  A part of me still holds on.  And the irony is that I can see that by holding on to things, it is why I suffer.  And yet I hold on to it all the same.  There is comfort to holding on to things.  Sometimes there is even comfort in ache, longing or melancholy.  It centers ourselves...or so we think.

I would say that I will resolve to be a better Buddhist this year, but I know the danger in that.  Things must come naturally.  Discipline can only go so far, and after awhile is actually a detriment.  It is the same with anything that is forced.  Repressing things is bad, because the desire is still there.  But without courage, change can not happen.  So although I hope that I can change, I know that what will happen will happen.