Pictures on My Wall

Many years ago, I attended a Dharma talk on nonattachment.  The monk explained the teaching by discussing the importance of having bare walls.

 

He explained that if we decide that we want to hang a picture on the wall, that requires us to buy a frame for the picture.  Then we have to get a nail and put a hole in the wall.

What if we put the nail in the wrong place, and we miss the stud?

Even if we hit the stud and hang our picture successfully, now we have wonder if the picture is centered properly.  Naturally, once we hang the picture, we'll want another one to go with it...

The gist of the talk was that if we don't hang anything on our walls, we can save ourselves a lot of headaches and avoid unnecessary suffering.

That teaching appealed to me for a number of reasons.  First, I was living in an apartment, so putting holes in the wall to hang pictures would've violated my lease.  Second, I was traveling a lot, and I prided myself on being able fit my whole life into a duffel bag if the need arose.  

But I recently came across a few family photos that have survived my travels.  My mom also gave me a few that she no longer had space for.

So, I decided to put some of them up in my library, placing them on walls and filling empty spaces on bookshelves.  This brought on all of the problems the monk mentioned, and then some.

First, I had to find frames for all of the photos.  There was a traumatizing moment where I tried to remove my baby photo from a frame that was too big for it only to find that it was sticking to the glass!

I was able to remove it with minimal damage, but I'll have some explaining to do when my mom sees it.

Next, I had to put screws in the wall to hang the photos.  This should have been the easiest part of the process. In my life, I have built tiny houses, green houses, a pergola, and various types of furniture.  

How hard could it be to put screws into a wall?

(sighs)

I bought a stud finder at the hardware store, so that I could securely fasten the pictures to the wall.  But the stud finder ended up being a piece of crap.  It gave nothing but false positives, and none of my screws found a stud.  Not wanting to cause additional damage, I hung the pictures anyway.

I'm hoping they don't destroy the wall.  But only time will tell.

Now that all the suffering is complete, my family pictures are bringing me a good bit of joy.  I look at them and I see me as a baby, staring off into space.  I see me as a U.S. Marine, glaring into the camera.   

I see my siblings sitting on a bench at church.  I see my mom and dad celebrating their birthdays. I see my grandparents.

I see things that are me, and things that are not quite me, and it makes me happy.  It makes my house feel like a home.

The reason for this happiness can be found in quote from the German philosopher Byung-Chul Han:

"Rituals give for the essential transitions of life. They are forms of closure. Without them, we slip through time. Thus, we age without growing old, or we remain infantile consumers who never become adults" (The Disappearance of Rituals)

In the same way that my home gives me a sense of place in the physical realm.  The ritual of displaying family photos gives me a sense of place in the temporal realm.  I look at them, and I'm able to grasp the nature of my existence.

I'm reminded that while there is pain and sadness in my family history.  There is also happiness and satisfaction.  There were times when I made mistakes.  But there were also times when I was innocent.

My family photos serve as a period at the end of sentence.  They encapsulate a moment in time, providing closure whilst pushing me into the future.

To be clear, I think the monk was right.

I think that if I were made of stronger stuff, I could be happy with bare walls.  I could walk the hallways of my home; feeling content with the sunlight and empty air that greeted me.

There is beauty in letting go.  

But the freedom that comes with nonattachment isn't free.  It's painful; not having a place where you belong. 

When the Buddha and his monks went forth into homelessness.  All sentient beings became their family, wherever they rested their heads at night became their home.

But I'm not the Buddha.  I'm not a monk.  I'm just a foolish being, filled with greed, anger, and ignorance.  And when the world feels lonely, I take comfort in the pictures on my wall.

Namu Amida Butsu

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