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Freedom and Happiness

• July 2009
• Simple Living

Hi Steph,
I’ve just finished watching your video “Castleton and Diamond free solo”
Marvellous!
I love what you said about independence, loneliness and freedom.
The last sentence made me think:
I thought in the past: “Things are so good that I’m afraid they might go away”,
but now time is passing and I actually see that it’s ok for things to go away
…and I’m even more free.
Really fascinating, but is it the truth?
How can you not regret about good things going away?
Is it actually the way you always feel? or is that just an ultimate target that you’re trying to achieve?
You seem to have found the way for a peaceful and harmonic life… I long for the same feeling.
Is all that coming from climbing?
Please, tell me your secret.
L.

Dear L,
I think nonattachment is the hardest thing, and practicing it is a lifelong endeavour. It truly is a practice, which is to say, sometimes you do better with it than others, but you always try. For myself, the thing I value most in life is freedom, and happiness. This is what it always comes back to, and this value directs all of my decisions and actions. Not everyone has the same ultimate value, but I think everyone can reflect and discover what it is. When this is clear, things become much easier to understand in life.

There is a Rumi poem I really like, translated by Coleman Barks. It is one of a series about King Solomon (who represents luminous divine wisdom) and the Queen of Sheba (who represents the bodily soul). In the poem before this one, Sheba sends 40 mules loaded with gold bricks as gifts for Solomon, as part of a ritual of respect before she will come to join him herself. As the messengers travel to his kingdom, they walk on a surface of pure gold for 40 days, making her gift ludicrous. In Solomon’s kingdom, the most priceless material gifts from Sheba are essentially dirt.

Solomon to Sheba
Solomon says to the messengers from Sheba,
“I send you back as messengers to her.

Tell her this refusal of her gift
of gold is better than acceptance,

because with it she can learn what we value.
She loves her throne, but actually it keeps

her from passing through the doorway
that leads to a true majesty.

tell her, one surrendering bow is sweeter
than a hundred empires, is itself a kingdom.

Be dizzy and wandering like Ibrahim,
who suddenly left everything.

In a narrow well things look backward
from how they are. Stones and metal objects

seem treasure, as broken pottery does
to children pretending to buy and sell.

Tell her, Joseph sat in such a well,
then reached to take the rope that rose

to a new understanding. The alchemy
of a changing life is the only truth.”

Finally, Sheba travels to Solomon and takes only her throne with her, the one material attachment she can’t let go of. She has reached a level of nonattachment where she has happily let go of everything else from her past, her kingdom and her wealth, but her filigreed throne is too precious to her to leave, though it is is heavy and awkward to carry.

Solomon says, “Let her bring it. It will become a lesson to her like the old shoes and jacket are to Ayaz. She can look at that throne and see how far she’s come.”