Dear Weblog,
The Buddhists said that if you have something precious, something in your hand that you want to hold onto, it is best not to hold too tightly. What at first seems contrary to common sense soon reveals itself to be an obtuse platitude.
Imagine clutching a coin over a deep well, if you were to open up your hand it would fall, irretrievably into the void. This clutching and grasping seems like the practical way to hold onto this small treasure. The drawbacks are that your hand is closed and shut, which is no way to live, and didn’t make much sense to me, until I was told that the hand represents your heart (not the literal blood pump in your chest but the heart you use to write songs and poetry) and the coin represents what you desire. I am not sure what the well is. Perhaps there was not a well in the story. I wasn’t listening very carefully.
They told me that no matter how hard you squeeze you cannot get oil from sand. Apparently they have not been to the western slope of Colorado where oil shale is everywhere; I am pretty sure that is sand and oil just waiting to be squeezed.
So how do you hold on to what is precious while opening yourself up to life, love and the future? You have to turn your hand over and let the coin lay in your open palm, and then it will remain without grasping. What does this mean for your heart? I guess we are reminded to look at things in a different way, in a way that embraces openness and change; embrace faith instead of fear. And if a harpy swoops down and swipes your coin then we are reminded not to dangle our treasure over a well like a sucker.
Apparently the Buddha does not wear 5 pocket jeans. If he did he could pocket the coin and still have his hands free to write poetry. As for me, I choose to represent my desires with a finely-honed, harpy-slaying, bowie knife.
Money isn’t everything.
-Kleine Zwemmen
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