Hi Rob,
So I have a bit of a side question about this: if you had the power (friends with the city council or whatnot) to prevent the fence from being built, would you have stopped it?
No. Which is kind of the point. My happiness could not be changed by the arrival of the fence, so if I had had the power over the fence’s existence, I would have turned that decision over to the professionals (the government) who make those kinds of decisions every day. This is a decent example of one of the benefits of being non-attached to a thing or idea. You can make decisions entirely with the good of others (individuals and groups) in mind. Let’s say the choice is between chicken or beef, and you truly don’t care. You can let your friends have whichever he wants. He is happy, at no cost to you. Let’s go the next step. Your friend/spouse doesn’t want to decide which movie to see. You don’t care either. But you step up and make a decision right away because that’s what’s best for the team right then. Non-attachment doesn’t mean wishy-washy. Not at all. It means knowing exactly what your preferences are, and when you don’t have any. And it allows for excellent yielding, and taking charge.
What was the question again? lol
I'm curious how much of this is based on not allowing things to impact our mindset when we are powerless vs. how much it is simply learning to accept everything as it is and will be.
I think there’s too much absolutism in your question. We can’t learn to “accept everything as it is and will be†in some sort of once-and-for-all way. We can learn to do it more often than we do now, and that’s it.
Is resisting change to something that you love something that you should avoid because it shows that you have a degree of attachment?
The idea is to love what you love when you love it and know what you are loving and that you are loving it and that you are loving it now. You’re not loving the idea of having it for a long time. You’re not loving what it took for you to accomplish having the thing you love. You’re just loving this right now. And later you’ll be loving that. That applies to loving things, ideas, people, sucking out on your arch enemy, etc.
Meanwhile keeping it in sharp focus that nothing lasts, trying really hard to not wince at the thought of losing what you love. It will be lost.
Repeat.
I have known everyday for years that my beloved Kepler walk would end, and in the meantime, it would be modified. For example, someday I might walk my walk with a cane. Or maybe someday they might build a big fence and alter the look and feel and things. I already knew the walk as it was would not last and I think about that shit all the time. So when it happens, it’s no big deal. There was no doubt that it was coming. The benefit of that mental effort is that I can love my walk everyday just as it is, and that I love. :-)