Vachon Imagined

When the balance is overshadowed by greed, we have trouble letting go. You can feel this when you take your attention away from the object of craving. You can feel the tension, the suffering, the resistance, the anger, the rage. You can feel it. It is happening inside of you. Even if it was triggered by something outside you, it is now yours.

This is not to imply that we are meant to let everything go. You certainly do not have to, and anyone who forces you to let go is acting from another form of gain. That is something else entirely.

Anything that is truly purified does not arrive as force. It arrives as awareness—an awareness of self, an awareness of you. Nothing is happening outside the body; therefore, nothing is happening outside of you.

Greed is the possession of experience by the body-mind. It can attach itself to things, people, ideas—but we recognize it most clearly through how it feels. It constricts, it defends, it protects, and without grace, it turns into violence. It becomes retaliation, vengeance, denial.

And yet it is not separate from life. It is one movement, one spirit, even in its imbalance. It is not to be condemned or glorified. It is to be seen.

Greed exists as a possibility in all people. To recognize it in yourself is to come home to the body, and to be present with what you see—with what is passing through you.

Not meant to be glorified. Not meant to be demonized.

Just seen.