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note: we link to our free guide to mindfulness and meditation at the bottom of the page (no email required). Our last two musings have covered the topic of attachment: Wednesday is our traditional "weekly quotes" day - we examine quotes (or a story) related to mindfulness, meditation, living in the present moment, happiness, and similar topics. This week we are wrapping up attachment with some applicable quotes. As you read the following, remember what we said in our previous musing: >>> ...we encouraged you to take an honest assessment of your attachments. We discussed how attachments result from our desire to control an existence that is inherently uncontrollable. We ignore this fact, and attempt to create certainty and security amidst the changing nature of reality. As such, we continuously grasp or chase after the things we find pleasant, and push away or run from the things we find unpleasant. <<< We will start with this from Paulo Coelho: "It is best to accept life as it really is and not as I imagined it to be." Simply put, don't be attached to the image you have of yourself, others, or the world around you. As we always say: There's what's happening, and there's the stories our minds tell us about what's happening - the two rarely match. Next, a well-know quote form Heraclitus: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." All experience is transient. Everything comes into being due to causes and conditions, it exists for a time, and it ceases. We create our own suffering when we attach to things that are always changing - when we try to make something impermanent into something permanent. As Sam Harris says: Ceaseless change is an unreliable basis for lasting fulfillment. The final two quotes speak to the futility of clinging to attachments, and offer analogies to avoid doing so. From Tich Nguyet Han: "Swallows fly in the sky, The water reflects their images. The swallows leave no traces, Nor does the water retain their images." And, from the book "Geeta Enlightened" by Yogi Mahajan: "Lao Tse say: 'When the sage walks he leaves no footprints behind.' He is in timelessness, where no one moment is more precious than the other. In his journey through life, the sage leaves no traces on the sands of the mind. He neither goes anywhere, nor comes from anywhere. Like a lotus leaf he remains untouched by the ripples of the water." 
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