Free yourself from attachment.
If you don’t cling to anything, how can you be made miserable? Your clinging creates misery, because you want to cling and in the very nature of things, things are changing; you cannot cling. They are slipping constantly out of your hands. There is no way to cling to them.
You cling to the wife, you cling to the husband, to the children, to the parents, to the friends. You cling to persons, to things, and everything is in a constant flux. You are trying to hold a river in your arms and the river is flowing fast; it is rushing towards some unknown goal—you are frustrated.
The wife falls in love with somebody else—you are frustrated. The husband escapes—you are frustrated. The child dies—you are frustrated. The bank fails, goes bankrupt—you are frustrated.
The body becomes ill, weak, death starts knocking at the door—you are frustrated. But these frustrations are because of your expectations. You are responsible for them.
If you understand that this place is not a home and you are a homeless wanderer here, a stranger in an unknown land and you will have to leave, you will have to go… if you have penetrated that point, if you have understood it, then you don’t make a home anywhere. You become a homeless wanderer, a parivrajaka. You may even literally become so; it depends on you. You may really become a wanderer, or spiritually you may become a wanderer.
My own emphasis is not to become literally a wanderer, because what is the point? Buddha’s emphasis was not on becoming literally a wanderer; let it be clear to you. Buddha has not said what to do, whether to follow him literally or not. Millions followed him literally—they dropped out of their homes, out of their families; they really became bhikkhus wandering all over the country, begging.
If really you understand then there is no need to do it in such a factual way. You can be in the home, you can be with your wife and your children and yet remain alert that nothing belongs to you.
Remain alert that you don’t fall into attachments; remain alert that if things change you are ready to accept the change, that you will not weep for the spilt milk, that you will not cry, that you will not go crazy and mad. To me this seems to be more significant than really becoming a wanderer.
Understanding it deep in your awareness is enough. My emphasis is to become a spiritual wanderer. There is no need to drag the body like a beggar; just let your spirit be that of a wanderer, and that is enough. Don’t create bondage for your spirit.
