Q4-19990324-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_7-43039 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 19990324-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_7-43039 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 01:16:17 Display_question: How you can experience the joy of something if you're not attached to it? Keyword_search: joy, attachment, love, possessiveness, nonattachment, detachment, suffering, flowers, wilt, Buddhist monasteries, pleasure, birds chirping, Cambridge, Brattle St., intimacy, florist, letting go Question_content: Questioner (inaudible) Just general a question, but I'm confused as to how you can experience the joy of something, if you're not attached to it? Larry: It's just the opposite. For example, typically people ask that about… well, when you love someone, of course you're attached. I would say to begin with, that is the normal condition. But there's quite a difference between love and attachment, and the only way to find that out is you have to really pay attention. You could see the difference. And in fact, attachment compromises the love, because often it's not love, it's possessiveness. It's this, that and the other. Questioner: How do I do that with a flower? Larry: Okay. No, okay. I think it's a language thing. Let me try. Let's take the flower. It's a very good example. There's a difference between nonattachment and detachment. And a lot of people think that the Buddhist teaching is about detachment, and that makes it an awfully dry, and unappealing. Why would anyone want to go through life that way? It's sort of your pulling back and from a distance, watching you're looking at the flower. I don't want to really like you, because if I do, then it'll be what he said, attachment, and then I'll suffer. Whereas nonattachment is an opening up to it, to fully experience that flower, the beauty of it. Break_line: But at a certain point, the flower will start to wither and die. In fact, in Buddhist monasteries, typically there are flowers on the altar. When we do our job, we often have them here, and they're allowed to stay a little bit beyond the beautiful part. We let them wilt, and stay there a day, or two, longer. It's a teaching so that, let's say if you attach to the beauty of the flower, then when it dies, you'll feel hurt. You say, well, I'm never going to love flowers again. They just go and die on you. They just wilt and they die on you. And so, then I don't want to see those flowers. Someone delivers flowers…. or you get plastic flowers. Not too satisfying either. So, what we're learning how to do is. Break_line: Let me make a distinction, the distinction between joy, and pleasure. You can use the language differently. This is just how I'm using it. Joy would be that spontaneous, immediate, wonderful feeling of the beauty, of a flower. Anyone who's a normal healthy person loves to see a flower, or to hear a bird chirp. It's an automatic thing. Oh, you just feel good. It does something for this ticker in here. But then let's say the flower starts to wilt. And it was such a beautiful bouquet, so beautifully arranged. I've never seen one like that. And then you want to repeat it. Then what you're looking for is pleasure, as I'm using it. And it's based on memory, it's based on acquisition. And then you start running around to florists, and none of them get it right. No, I got it in this florist, in Cambridge. And they just do it beautifully, on Brattle Street. Why can't you do it that way? Well, this is what you said, and it's not what I said. Do you see the difference? Questioner: Yes, I do. Larry: Okay, so it's opening up to life. It's participating fully, intimately in life. But as things change, that's a fact. It doesn't have to be a problem unless you make it into a problem. It's a fact that things change. So, if you can love the capacity that you have, to get back, and then when it's gone, you have to let it go. If you don't let it go, then who are you hurting? You're only hurting yourself. So, it's that kind of thing. Does it make sense? Questioner: Yes, it does Larry: Oh, good End_time: 01:19:59