Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

Attachment:

Causeway Between Islands

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

July 30, 2011


"No man is an island, entire of itself." ... John Donne, Meditation XVII

"Another possibility, John, is this: as the source of their experience, every man is an island, entire of itself." ... Laurence Platt
This essay, Attachment: Causeway Between Islands, is the twenty fourth in an open group Encounters With A Friend:
  1. Showing Up
  2. Poet Laureate
  3. A Man In The Crowd
  4. Real Men Cry
  5. A Different Set Of Rules
  6. Nametag: A True Story
  7. Half-Life
  8. Waiting On You
  9. Erotica On Schedule
  10. A House On Franklin Street
  11. NeXT
  12. Reflection On A Window
  13. Here And There
  14. How To Enroll The World
  15. Demonstration
  16. Two Of Me II: Confirmation Not Correction
  17. Holiday Spectacular
  18. Hello! How Are Things Going For You?
  19. Regular Guy
  20. A Scholar And A Gentleman
  21. Images Of You
  22. With Nothing Going On
  23. Where No One Has Gone Before
  24. Attachment: Causeway Between Islands
  25. If You're Not Then Don't
  26. Images Of You II
  27. Living Where Life Is
  28. Create Me The Way I Am
  29. How Do You Spell The Sound A Ratchet Makes?
  30. You Don't Ask "Why Me?"  When It's Raining II
  31. The Stink Of Zen
  32. Sitting Quietly In A Room Alone
  33. Footsteps On Metal Stairs
so far, in that order.

It is the third in a group of three on Attachment:


Causeway Between Eriskay ("Eric's Isle") And South Uist ("Inner Abode"), Outer Hebrides, Scotland
When I look and flat footed tell the plain truth about it, I see my attachment to you. Regardless of my already always listening  about attachment, about being attached, and especially about the virtue  (if you will) of not being attached to anything (or to any-one  for that matter), I also see being attached to you is a lot of what comprises my relationship with you. My quandary is as vexing as it is simple: if I give up being attached to you, will I still be in relationship with you?

There's no hiding it. It's not in my interest to hide it. What is in my interest is to take a close look at it. If there's going to be freedom from being attached to you, the first step is to take a close look at attachment, to look at my attachment to you, and to look at whether or not it's OK  to be attached to you. If it turns out it's not  OK to be attached to you, then it's in my interest to look at other possible new ways of being in relationship with you. Of course one possible new way of being in relationship with you is to not change anything at all about being in relationship with you, and simply take the Zen approach: be attached to you as long as I'm attached to you, and no longer be attached to you when I'm no longer attached to you.

I notice how I recoil from even looking  at attachment ... at first. Just looking at it brings up all kinds  of issues for me, not the least of which is the aforementioned "if I give up being attached to you, will I still be in relationship with you?". And: can attachment and relationship authentically overlap?  Can they coexist?  Or does attachment get in the way of relationship? Does the one negate the other? And this: should I give up my attachment just because it is attachment?  Giving up attachment just because it is attachment, may be the way of the sanyassin  - but it may not be the way for me.

Look: I don't have the answers. I just know these are the central questions / issues / concerns which show up for me in this inquiry.

Nobody told me it was time to take a close look at my attachment to you. This inquiry didn't start that way. To be quite candid about this, neither did I say it was time to look at it either. I didn't write it down on my to do  list as something I should action. Rather, it slowly and steadily made itself known  to me in the process of Life itself until soon I had no choice other than to give it my full undivided attention.


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