"This"

It occurs to me. When we say “This too shall pass,” we are still embroiled in the problem. When we manage to detach from whatever this means, then it has already passed, even when it is still going on. The old proverb (its roots are Persian, Hebrew) in effect says that things change over time. Of interest to me, in the context of detachment, is what this signifies—and what detachment means. Pure observation, all that follows; when it comes to our own states, that is authoritative enough.

In the situation to which the proverb applies, this is usually a situation in which the physical element is just a small part. This points backward and forward in time—backward when something untoward happened and we still “have to live it down.” (Revealing phrase, that.) This points forward when we anticipate trouble, turmoil, or trauma. In either case, this concerns feelings in the present; they intrude to disturb our equilibrium. This  is a tangle of people and what they will or won’t do—or how they will do it or not do it. It embraces unpredictable outcomes, focusing on the negative only. This will involve expenditures of money we either have  but do not want to spend or don’t have; in that case we project hassles and problems in getting the money—which in turn produces another tangle of people…. Buried in there somewhere will be physical things, but these are rarely to the fore. I harp on the relatively minor physical element here because my next topic is detachment.

To see detachment correctly, I start with attachment. We are attached to those thing we want; when things we do not want happen or loom ahead, the body translates our negative view into defensive reactions all of which are quite physical in nature—at minimum tensions and a feeling of stress. The body, as it were, has a mind of its own—signaled to us by the states it initiates on its own (autonomic nervous system). But the body is also a perfect servant of the actual mind—and immediately translates the mind’s state into physical expressions as well: glands start releasing fight or flight stimulants; blood pressure rises; muscles tighten.

This might be a vast structure of mostly mental projections and anticipations, accompanied by mostly negative judgements. But the state they produce, from which we stoically pronounce, “This too shall pass”—almost as a warding-off prayer—are quite physical inside us.

Detachment is a very curious state. It results from a deliberate mental act by means of which we change our mind. And no sooner does the mind change than the body, obeying immediately, sets to work calming the system down. Some hormones stop flowing, others signal relaxation. The stress lifts, the tension eases. This takes on a different perspective. At least as perceived internally, it appears distant—not us. The identification is broken. The body says “Master is no longer concerned—let us therefore restore the status quo ante.” (The body learns its Latin from the mind, of course.)

The practice of detachment is perhaps one of the best ways to demonstrate the transcending status of mind quite viscerally, as it were. The problem becomes an objective over there. Not surprisingly, freed of unnecessary stress, the heart beating at its regular pace, we are always able to deal with this in a much more rational way.

We are blessed with wonderfully well-constructed, very obedient bodies. Alas, they only understand the physical. The body must, by its nature, understand mental threats as physical—and responds as if it were physically threatened. We can get around that by talking to the body. Few people—even those who talk to plants—are very good at it. Hence there is a lot of sighing.