The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

REFLECTION AND CHANGE 35hold of it. With your arm still outstretched, turn your handover so that it faces the sky. Release your hand and the coinstill rests on your open palm. You let go. And the coin is stillyours, even with all this space around it.So there is a way in which we can accept impermanenceand still relish life, at one and the same time, without grasping.Let us now think of what frequently happens in relationships.So often it is only when people suddenly feel they arelosing their partner that they realize that they love them. Thenthey cling on even tighter. But the more they grasp, the morethe other person escapes them, and the more fragile their relationshipbecomes.So often we want happiness, but the very way we pursueit is so clumsy and unskillful that it brings only more sorrow.Usually we assume we must grasp in order to have that somethingthat will ensure our happiness. We ask ourselves: Howcan we possibly enjoy anything if we cannot own it? Howoften attachment is mistaken for love! Even when the relationshipis a good one, love is spoiled by attachment, with itsinsecurity, possessiveness, and pride; and then when love isgone, all you have left to show for it are the "souvenirs" oflove, the scars of attachment.How, then, can we work to overcome attachment? Only byrealizing its impermanent nature; this realization slowly releasesus from its grip. We come to glimpse what the masters say thetrue attitude toward change can be: as if we were the sky lookingat the clouds passing by, or as free as mercury. When mercuryis dropped on the ground, its very nature is to remainintact; it never mixes with the dust. As we try to follow themasters' advice and are slowly released from attachment, a greatcompassion is released in us. The clouds of grasping part anddisperse, and the sun of our true compassionate heart shinesout. It is then that we begin, in our deepest self, to taste theelating truth of these words by William Blake:He who binds to himself a Joy,Does the winged life destroy;He who kisses the joy as it flies,Lives in Eternity's sunrise. 7THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRIORAlthough we have been made to believe that if we let gowe will end up with nothing, life itself reveals again and