My Hydrangea

My Hydrangea had its first bloom. A beautiful bountiful flower head as big as size of my face is bringing beauty to my front yard. I loved to watch it bloom from a bud to a fully grown flower head, took multiple pictures and shared proudly with my friends and family. I said “My” hydrangea is blooming. “My”.. it was so easy to just call it mine. I did not plant it, cared for it, or knew about it until a month ago. You see, we bought our first home and moved in last month, this plant seems to be planted by realtors as part of ‘staging’ the house. I didn’t even know it was hydrangea until I inquired with my Mexican gardener in my broken Spanish and made out the response in his broken English.

The feeling of ownership comes so easily, without any implicit decision. Other then the big things like my house, my kitchen, my dresses, we associate our self with so many small things in day-to-day life. Let me give you a stupid example, In my last project we were in a war room for over 5 months. Everyday whole team will sit and work together in one conference room. Pretty soon I found my perfect spot, I would always go and sit there. If someone else sat on my spot or someplace nearby, I felt uncomfortable. Not long after, I realized what I was doing and tried to “let go”. Yes, you can practice ‘letting go’ with small and meaningless things like this.

Being a Jain by dharma, I always learned about importance of “Aparigrah”. Practicing true Aparigrah may be quite out of my reach, but at least I have started to identify some of my ‘parigrahs’

Here is a little description if you are not aware of the term – 

Aparigraha (Sanskrit: अपरिग्रहा) is the concept of non-possessiveness, non-grasping or non-greediness. It is one of the virtues of Jainism. Aparigraha is a combination word in Sanskrit, fused from “a” and “parigrah”. “A” as prefix means “non-” in Sanskrit, and aparigrah is thus the opposite of parigrah. The word Parigrah means ‘to amass’, ‘to crave’, ‘to seek’, ‘to seize’, and ‘to receive or accept’ material possessions or gifts from others. The word includes in its scope outer worldly possessions as well as inner attachment to material rewards, rather than doing the right thing or good because it is the right thing or good. Parigraha thus includes the results as well as the intent, in other words the possessions as well as the craving, a sense of possessiveness and hoarding. Aparigraha is the opposite state of existence in thought, words and deeds than parigraha. The virtue of aparigraha means taking what is truly necessary and no more

Tags: Aparigrah, feelings, gardening, Hydrangea, Jain, let go, ownership