How is it that attachment can be so binding? We have this amazing ability to invest such strong emotions into such materialistic things. And when we lose these things…stuffed animals, jewelry, expensive technology/equipment/gifts…
sometimes anger is a surpassed emotion. It’s as if our very soul is so sad that it drains all other logic and feeling from our comprehension.
I’m moving through the motions and I don’t know how. I’m afraid that if I say that the objects are really gone, that I no longer have them, that I will lose the stories they have created. That maybe I will no longer hold onto the memories I have because of them. That thought is like a tight grip right around my heart. It’s the choking cry I try not to emit. It’s every tear I’m not ready to let fall.
I just don’t want to lose hope that somehow, someway, the universe will miraculously return what is lost.
I’m not ready.
Don’t ask me to accept the probability. Not yet.
What’s missing has just got to be here somewhere.
But tango has been the most soothing comfort and solace I have found in the midst of this loss. There’s just something to be said about being held while you are so sad… which has been just the right amount of healing for each moment.
Little life lesson: “It is only things that adorn our life but have no deeper meaning! You are safe and beautiful. That is all that matters.”
Sangha Space Blogs 
From Brad Warner’s blog (a Buddhist monk who was a punk rocker)
http://hardcorezen.info/dana-paramta-generosity-as-buddhist-practice/1022
I tend to feel like money represents the circulation of vital energy within the body of society. It’s good for the body as a whole and for the organs individually when blood circulates everywhere. If one organ gets greedy and keeps all the blood to itself this does no good for the body or for the organ in question. Human society is messed up right now because this is pretty much what’s happening. The folks among us who have managed to amass too much may think they’ve won the game. But that’s only because they don’t understand what’s really going on. They’re actually damaging the larger community and thereby damaging themselves.
So on an individual level, it’s also important for our own spiritual health to give. There’s a line in the Zen meal chant that goes, “May we realize the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver and gift.” Which is a cute sentiment. But it’s often hard to put that into practice, especially when the economy takes a downturn.
Still, one very easy way to realize emptiness is by giving. I wrote about getting rid of stuff in order to move out West. It’s not easy to give away things that mean a lot to you. And I just gave away a ton of things that meant a lot to me. It felt really hard sometimes to do that. Yet when that stuff was gone, it was just gone. It was no big thang. It made me feel better, lighter, happier. It made me see how empty that stuff was.
All of the paramitas are steps toward realizing the fundamental emptiness of everything. By emptiness I do not mean non-existence or unreality. I mean that the concepts we carry around about what things are, are entirely mistaken. Each of the paramitas is a way of understanding that.
By giving, we understand that our possessions are empty. By acting in a moral way we understand that our ideas about separation from others are empty. By being patient we understand that the urgency we feel to get what we want is empty. By making diligent effort we understand that our desire to be lazy is empty, and that doing work makes us happier than being idle. By meditating we understand that our so-called self is empty. By gaining wisdom we see that the fundamental ground of everything is empty.
This emptiness isn’t darkness or bleak despair. It’s not lack or absence. It’s emptiness that is light, joyful and free. It’s emptiness as the true source of our being.