Me and my suffering. Is there anything I can do?

My suffering, which clouds my mood, is my unsatisfactory experience of clinging to things that will one day cease to exist… whether a desire, a feeling or a person.

I suspect this is usually so.

I write a book, I hope for success, it does not sell well, there is no success, and I suffer because I cling to something that will one day cease to exist.

I want a relationship, I know I’ll be happy in a relationship, I don’t presently have one, and I suffer because I cling to something that will one day cease to exist.

I’m getting old, my body will only deteriorate from here on, I feel bitter about this and depressed, and I suffer because I cling to something that will one day cease to exist.

I remember my disappointment, I remember the unfairness, I replay it often in my mind, it is who I am and can hardly be let go, and I suffer because I cling to something that will one day cease to exist.

We’ll always suffer, because, like a squirrel on a fence, we’ll always find new things to cling to.

We are clingy people.

Though if we pay attention to our suffering, if we notice its simple chemistry and the way it arises and grips, we can begin to loosen the knot it ties.

And sometimes watch it dissolve.