Another strategy for keeping peaceful with one’s self talk is to practice “non-attachment”. Like the archer who trains on releasing the perfect arrow in the ideal trajectory to hit the target, we train and focus and give life our best, but once that arrow is released the true challenge begins: Allowing acceptance of where the arrow lands.
To say this is easier said than done may be the understatement of the year. But with practice the rigidity of our expectations begins to loosen up. Below is an old tale that I will paraphrase to illustrate this dynamic in action. I first heard this story from Author and Teacher Tara Brach while attending an Insight Meditation Community event over a decade ago.
There was a church community in which a family learned they had a sick child. They didn’t have the resources to obtain the recommended medical treatment to save the child’s life. They sought support from their religious community by going to the Priest for help.
They pleaded with him to make their charity case to the congregation to raise money for their cause. The Priest agreed. The church became a fundraising forum for the child’s medical treatment. Church members of all socioeconomic status got behind this family and raised thousands of dollars to help.
Weeks and months passed. The family with the sick child came to church less and less often. One Sunday, a parishner who’d been instrumental in the fundraising effort discovered in horror, that the family had lied. Their child was not sick at all and this had been a financial scheme all along. The family had up and moved, loot in hand. That parishner was seething with anger, frustration, rage. She ran to to find the Priest and blurted out the news.
Upon learning what had happened, the Priest looked at the woman, and a calm, illuminated smile came across the Priest’s face. The woman said angrily: Why are you smiling? We have been taken for fools! We have been tricked based on lies, greed and deception?!! This is terrible!”
The happy Priest looked at the discombobulated parishner and asked: “You mean there is no dying child?”
More in “part two” on how this relates to thwarting negative self talk when we get fooled…Enjoy this day!