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A common thing that happens in our lives is that we get attached to things and have a hard time letting go. This could be in the case of loved ones or just things that we love in general. Letting go isn’t always an easy thing to do because of the built up energy that we’ve created for the object of our desire.

Sometimes when we hear of other people's experiences of going through similar events it can help us better cope with our own situation. That being said I was thinking about the subject earlier and remember a story that was related to me that is a good illustration of attachment and how to deal with it.

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I’m sure that there are different variations of the story but I think that I can at least convey the message it seeks to accomplish.  The story starts out in a Buddhist temple somewhere in Asia. Quite often monks would have to travel long distances in order to get to neighboring temples to further their studies. In this case two monks were chosen from the group that lived within this particular temple to go on a journey to a far away temple.

The trip was supposed to take about a week or so as the trip was through harsh terrain and thick jungle. As the story goes the two monks traveled for a couple days until they heard a distant cry for help. Following the sound they eventually came to a river where they found a young woman was drowning. In seeing this one of the monks moved swiftly towards the water to jump in and save the woman when the other monk grabbed his arm. He told the monk that he couldn’t save the woman because in the vows that they had taken to become monks they we forbidden to touch a woman. The monk responded to the grab by shaking himself free and jumping in the water to save the drowning woman. 

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So, this monk had swam to the drowning woman eventually reaching her and pulled her to the shore on the other side of the river. The woman coughed for a short time from the water going in her mouth but thanked the monk for saving her. The monk acknowledged her gratitude with a slight bow and signaled his partner that he was ready to proceed with their journey.

As they continued towards their destination the other monk couldn’t stop thinking about what the other monk did. He felt like the other monk made a mistake and broke a sacred vow that he promised to keep. This went on for days with the monk getting more and more agitated thinking about what the other monk had done. It was like the other monk became obsessive thinking about his fellow monk breaking his Buddhist vows that he swore to keep.

Finally after the week was just about coming to an end they were within sight of their destination. You would think that they would be relieved at reaching their journey but the other monk was so upset with what his fellow monk did that he just broke down and told him how he felt. He told the monk that he couldn’t believe what he did and that he was supposed to be more advanced in his practice but he betrayed the order breaking his oath,etc. In hearing this verbal thrashing from the other monk the monk replied, “I did touch the woman but I left her on the other side of the river, you carried her all the way here.”

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The moral of the story is that we need to let things go as they happen. Holding on to things will get us nowhere. It can be a hard thing to do sometimes but becoming more aware of what we’re doing through self-reflective thought can make a big difference in our lives. 

Image source: lifespa.com