Few years ago I participated a 10-days Vipassana meditation course.
Vipassana is an ancient meditation technique brought from India, it was taught more than 2500 years ago in India. Vipassana means to see things as they really are, the technique teaches you, transform you with the help of self-observation.
What I remember most and took with me from this course was the deep interconnection between mind and body. The observation of our body to the molecular level, to the atoms that constantly changing, moving in our body, moment to moment, we are different every millisecond from inside and out.
During the course you are not “allowed” to talk to anyone else, it is a retreat in silence. You are not supposed to do any activity with your body (any kind of sport), you are not even allowed to look at the people around you because the course is meant for a very deep self-observation without any distraction. You are, however, allowed and encouraged to ask questions (in particular times of the day) and refer them to your teacher who will help navigate you through the process.
I had only ONE question the whole time that really bothered me and did not align with my understanding.
How can you live your life without expectations? How can you live life just by floating from moment to moment, I mean OK, you live in the moment, but what about goals? Plans for the future?
I do wish to myself some kind of things in the future (you can call it goals, hopes, dreams, plans) – should I throw it all to the garbage bin and just live the moment?
My wise teacher had a wonderful answer – I carry it since then with me all the time.
It is about one of the Buddhist believes – Non Attachment.
There is a very important distinction between detachment and Non- attachment.
Non Attachment sounds negative, but it is not detachment, it is merely not being dependent on the results of your expectations.
Sure, you can (and should) have aspirations in life, goals and plans. Sure you do need to plan your future to some extent. But you should also trust (the universe and yourself), the process, your being and karma. You should not react over dramatically if your plans have changed, altered or dismissed even.
Trust your-self, believe in your-self, gain the knowledge you want and need for your goals, gain experience, have failures and success, know your limits, know the market (the world) limits, know that it is a way – a path. You should react to everything that happens to you with the SAME reaction.
Acceptance.
And then you can always start again, try again, change. Whatever fits. Live the moment – moment after moment. React to these moments with the same stability of mind.
No attachment is being non-attached to the result, be it bad or good. It teaches the EGO humbleness, it teaches us acceptance and these are all great tools for life.
Wouldn’t you want to be that person that reacts calm to every situation? We are not robots and of course emotions are always going to surface, but even after all that is happening to you, you can still come back to calmness. And keep on moving forward with ease.
You should and can have expectations, but do not get attached to the results.
** If the atoms in our body keep change, if our cells are constantly being regenerated - why can’t we?
I think these are fabulous news for us – the ability to change every moment and the ability to accept every new moment is empowering and giving us a lot of freedom.
Here is a link that explains a bit this phenomena https://goo.gl/G58UMC
