She is sitting with her coffee
The morning had its usual chores
But something is nagging
She is scared—rather anxious
Thinking who to save
What to do
She is doubtful
She is standing on the edge of helping one person
Only one person is to be saved
But who?
Who does she choose?
She looks up; she looks within
But it leaves her with no usual calm
She wants to do right for a wrong
She did not realise back then
She was heady in love
And now she feels indebted
The burden of it all
She wants to do it right this time
She cannot go back to the past and correct the wrong
She wants to help
The future is right in front of her
The regret that she may carry for the rest of her life
She might lose herself in the process
She does not know who to choose
Her head says it straight
A clear choice
Her heart is feeling the burden
The guilt of what she could have avoided
And now is the time
Or maybe, she will live to see the day
To correct the wrong
To apologise and get an opportunity to pay back
God, you know what is in my heart
Can you not make the decision for me?
Then she realises the attachment
The attachment is the suffering
She looks back to her past
When she was in school
Sitting on the bus and dreaming of a happy family
A life of comfort and love
She fast-tracks the journey in her mind
And, oh
She is standing with exactly what she hoped for
The dream did not warn her of the attachments
But now she can feel the attachment
She is digging her memories for what she has read
All this while
The preparation to understand the attachment
Now, is the time to put it into action
And what does it say?
Do nothing!
Do nothing? Really?
What good is it going to make?
She sips her coffee one more time
As if the answer lies in the liquid
She laughs at the banality of it all
She watches the tension on her neck
She watches the tightness in her legs
She watches it as it gets intense
She feels the heaviness in her chest
This is for real
This is how she is feeling it in her body
This is the truth which is experienced in the body
She thought she overcame the feelings and
Hoped for some things different
But it is present
The stories have changed
The past is calling for a correction
The feelings have not extinguished
They were simmering
And it is calling out for some attention
She asks, “What attention do you want?”
She hears back, “I need compassion
I need no action
I need some gentle attending
Sit with me, and watch me
Understand why I am coming back now
Understand what I am doing to your body
Understand me
You can do nothing
But gently watch it
I will take time to move out of your body
I am here to teach you patience
I am here to come off the ‘doing’ mode
I am here to explain your suffering
It lies in your attachment
Up to you what you are going to do or
Rather not do
But I will go nowhere
Till you have freed yourself from this attachment.”
She sips another sip of coffee
The dregs are bitter and
So is the lesson
Her mind is a little less crowded
She realises
She has work to do
Not in the sense which she understood work
The good old science definition taught her
To look for a visible, measurable, and tangible
Output and displaced distance.
This “work” isn’t visible and straightforward
The needle will move day by day
Moment by moment
But she is not going to see the effect immediately
She will only see it manifest
In the good for others, maybe
And in the meanwhile
In the journey
She will go through this suffering
The tension, the tightness
The sleep with a mind full
It is not up to her
Her work is to observe the breath
In the moments of unease
That is it.
She is grateful to the coffee
The ability to express and type
The means and time
To pause, reflect, and get a direction
She is grateful.
To all my fellow living human beings, I wish you clarity, objectivity, and the understanding of extending compassion to yourself. May you be happy, healthy, and content. May you be well.
~
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