Impermanence and Non-clinging

This past Sunday, Margaret guided our reflections while featuring a talk by Greg Scharf on Impermanence and non-clinging.

The link for the talk was:

http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/229/talk/38189/

A few notes and quotes follow.

This talk starts with a Jataka story.   These are the stories that tell about the previous lives of the Buddha, in both human and animal form. Like fables, these stories always contain a message.

“Fruitful as is the act of giving,  yet still more fruitful is to go with a  confident heart to the refuge of the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha, and  to undertake the five precepts of virtue

But fruitful as that is, yet it is still more fruitful to retain loving kindness in ones being, for only as long as the time it takes to milk the cow.

And fruitful as this is,  yet still more fruitful is to maintain the perception of impermanence only as long as the snapping of a finger.”

“Nothing whatever is to be clung to as me or mine.”

“There seem to be a lot of issues, so much at stake, so much we need to control – but there is nothing to hold on to.  If you are getting rope-burn, only solution is to let go.”