skrusel

This mundane little event got me thinking about attachment to objects, and perception. I intend to keep the camera even though I know it won't ever work again. Objectively the camera is a hunk of junk. To me, though it's "Dad's camera". He had that thing with him on every vacation, every Christmas, and every birthday party when I was growing up. So when I look at it or pick it up and hold it I am filled with old memories. When anybody else, like the nice folks over at the camera shop, picks it up it's just an old camera that doesn't take pictures.

Well so what, you might say, its just a stupid camera. Well, in Zen, it's generally considered a bad habit to become emotionally attached to stuff. Not just objects but ideas and people too. The reason this is considered a bad habit is that it leads a person to value things more than they are actually worth. The main point of Zen meditation is to look at your thoughts and personality as they actually are and not as you imagine yourself to be. One of the side benefits of this practice is that it helps you look at the world in a similar way and make rational decisions based on the way things actually are and not based on your preconceptions. Another reason attachment is considered a bad habit is that it tends to pull a persons attention out of the moment that you are in and into the future or the past. So technically by hanging on to my dad's old camera when it doesn't work I'm breaking my own rules. But then, on the other hand, you can become attached to the desire to be free of attachment. This may seem like contradiction, because it is. One of the thins that can be difficult to understand about Zen is that a lot of the philosophical underpinnings contradict each other, and it's sort of each individual's job to find a balance that works for them. So for me, I'm a little attached to stuff like my dad's old camera, and my Grandpa's old boots, and my motorcycle, and my family and my friends, but not much else really. For some Zen monk in a monastery, though, there might be virtually nothing that she's attached to not even her own personality. And both of these situations are acceptable, so long as we keep things in balance. It took me a while to figure out a balance that works for me, and I still struggle with it. Sometimes I just want to walk away and go meditate the days away, but that would be kind of selfish.

So since Dad's old camera couldn't be fixed I asked the guys at the camera shop if his old lenses could be used on a modern camera. I was told that with an adapter they would work fine so maybe I'll save up to buy one.