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Monday Evening Sit and Talk with Maria Straatman

The following talk was given by Maria Straatmann at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 16, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction: Loss and Attachment

Hello. I'm happy to see you all here. It's been a surprising day. It's very warm here today, suddenly warm. It's about 26 degrees warmer than it was when I got up this morning. Sort of stunning. You notice the change in the air; it's drier than it was.

Tonight we're going to talk about loss and attachment. Sounds grim, doesn't it? It would be simple to cite the truth of impermanence and letting go and say, "Just let go of this sadness and everything will be better." But that's not how life works. Loss is a real thing. Loss arises out of, "it was here and now it's not here."

It's much more courageous to face loss and say, "I see you, loss." Something or someone once was here and is no longer. Something I once could rely upon, something I could enjoy, is no longer here. I can't reach out and touch it and feel it, grasp it. It's not here. There's a sense of loss. There's something that has been taken away. It's not the loss of, "I laid this down." It's a loss of, "it's not there." I expected it to be there and it's not there.

The Nature of Loss: From Earrings to a Friend

Last week I lost a pair of earrings and I was quite certain I knew where I'd lost them. And of course, I dug in the pocket I put them in. They were not there. Huh. I was sure I put them in that pocket. I called the places I had been. Nobody had seen them. A couple of days went by and I had resigned myself to the fact that these earrings were lost. My favorite earrings. And of course, the reason they were my favorite earrings—I mean there were lots of reasons I liked them—but it's because they'd made this trip with me. I'd been to this place and I'd worn those earrings every day on that trip, and I was attached to that trip. And then I shook out the laundry bag and they fell on the floor. Now, it wasn't quite that simple. I found one and then the other one had slid under the washer, but nevertheless, there are these earrings. I'm happy to report what was lost has been found.

But I have a different appreciation for these earrings now because I am conscious of the fact that one of the reasons that I like them is the source of that attachment. I now know something about it and I'm less attached to them because I know I can lose them. It's okay because I've been through that place where they were gone.

Now, also six weeks ago, I lost a dear, dear friend, and he's not going to be found. My access to him is through memories, a few pictures. Gone. And looking at that loss, that grief required a different set of eyes. And sitting with that pain was a little more difficult than sitting with the pain of losing those earrings. And being with that pain required me to say, "Yeah, it hurts."

But I still had to come to the point where I said, "What is it that I'm attached to here? What is it that's making this so big?" What are all the things, you know, not just the memories, not just he's not here anymore? But I finally saw this little thing, this thing that I had a story that he was always going to be there, that I was always going to be able to pick up the phone and talk to him. And it wasn't until I realized that that I was able to say, "You know, that's actually not going to happen." And curiously, that eased the pain. The finally saying, "I get it now." I still am sad that he's gone. But that piece of the story I let go of. That myth I was carrying that he was always going to be at the other end of the phone. That's gone. That's a different kind of hollowness. It's just a not-thereness.

This is the difference between attachment and non-attachment. The pain is still there but the attachment has shifted. It's a different kind of pain.

I could list all kinds of losses. You know, there's losses of material things. There's losses of family members. There's a loss of a marriage. There's a loss of a job. There's loss of income. There are many losses in life. And I'm not here to tell you how to make that better. What I would like to say to you is that it's really important to not push it away. The loss needs to be felt. The loss needs to be seen. It's real. We have to be able to say there is a tearing away. What has been torn away? A piece of something I was holding on to is no longer here.

Seeing Clearly: The Practice of Being with Pain

And to be seen very clearly is to see clearly that I don't have to add this to the pain. I don't have to add my attachment to the pain of that loss.

Yesterday I was on a sailboat as a guest because my husband is turning 80 and his daughter gave us a sailing trip. So I got to go sailing and while we were there, I talked to the skipper. And the skipper suddenly started telling me about how this business he was going to start with his brother, this business of taking people on sailing trips around the bay. But his brother died. And how sad it was for him that his brother had died and he wasn't there. And he went on telling me about his brother and how they had planned this and now he wasn't there. And so I just listened to the story. And as he continued telling the story, I could see he was saying, "You know, he's not here." In the telling of it, he was saying, "He's not here. I get it. He's not here." And what he said to me is, "You know, I don't actually get to talk about this. Nobody wants to hear this," including himself, I'm sure. It was his way of having him and his way of letting go. To be able to talk about it, to be able to have it be real, this loss. Maybe to let it slip away by saying it out loud, "He's not here."

There's a very difficult opportunity that arises. The opportunity to look at something that's happening to you that may be painful and to say, "Why is this painful to me?" and not take the first answer. And not decide, "I'm going to feel sorry for myself about this," or "I'm going to be righteous about this," or "I'm going to be angry about this," all of which are very real emotions that arise. But to say, "And why is that happening here? What is it that I'm holding on to?" I'm not even telling you to let go of it. I'm saying it's important to know what it is, to see it, to let it be seen by you. This is why this hurts. I'm hurting and this is why it hurts.

I notice my lack of enthusiasm. I notice my lack of interest. I notice whatever it is you notice. And not blame it on something. Just, "I notice this." Allow it to be true. Don't try to talk yourself out of it. Don't pretend it's not true.

So, I have been reading a lot of poetry lately. I mean, a lot of poetry. And I said, "So, why are you doing this?" Because it's comforting to me. I read something and then I find a way of reading something into the line that I didn't understand before. Or I went out walking today and as I was walking around this pond, there was a great egret in the pond. And only yesterday I said, "It looks like they've put fish in this pond. I wonder when the first heron will show up." Well, it was today. There was a great egret in the pond. And as I was watching the great egret, I found my mood was lifting and I was bright. I could feel the brightness in the air. And I thought, "Ah, even heaviness doesn't have to be heavy if you're just open to whatever is happening."

And I was thinking about loss. I started on the walk thinking about loss, and there was an egret. And it was beautiful, this white egret. It was Menlo Park, they had dyed the water green, and so it was stretched against this green background in the shade. It was gorgeous. And it was beautiful. In the midst of everything that is not okay, there is also okay. But if all I'm thinking about is "everything is not okay" and not leaving myself open to what's actually happening, I not only don't understand what's happening in the pain department, but I also miss everything else. Everything else that's happening.

A Poem on Grief

So there's one of the poetry books I've been reading. This book is called After by Jane Hirshfield¹. And she had a lot of people in her life that were important to her die in the year that she wrote these poems. This little one, this little poem I particularly like. It's called "One Sand Grain Among the Others in Winter Wind."

I wake with my hand held over the place of grief in my body. Depend on nothing, the voice advises, but even that is useless. My ears are useless, my familiar and intimate tongue. My protecting hand is useless that wants to hold the single leaf to the tree and say, "Not this one. This one will be saved, the last leaf on the tree. You can take everything, but not this one."

Right? You've known that feeling when it seems like everything is going south. Nothing is working. Everything is grim. And you say, "Okay, but I'm going to hold on to this one thing. I'm going to hold on to my grief. I'm going to hold on to my right to be sad. I'm going to hold on." When you feel that holding on, also feel that you can loosen that holding on. Literally feel the loosening of that holding on and just allow it to be there. You can feel the fist tightened up and feel it loosening.

This Glass Is Already Broken

So, I had this exercise I used to do. I was strolling through the gift shop at Spirit Rock one time and I found this beautiful piece of calligraphy and it said, "This glass is already broken, so I enjoy it immensely." And I put it in a cabinet where I had these beautiful champagne glasses because I was so worried about those glasses getting broken. And sure enough, one day one of them got broken and I went, "Haha." And I went over and I grabbed the piece of paper and I held it up and I waved it around the room. And it didn't feel great, but it felt better. You know, it's sort of humorous. I put it back in the cabinet. Slowly everything in there broke. You know, over time everything broke. And it got so nothing mattered anymore. After a while, it was, "Of course everything in that cabinet is already broken."

And I found it was much easier to use these beautiful glasses. And when they broke, they just broke. I don't have that piece of calligraphy anymore because I really don't need it around glasses. Glasses break. This is what we need to see and experience with all of the losses in our lives. We have to be able to see stuff happens, loss happens, things fall apart, things go away, and I can still be here. And I can feel the loss. And that's all. I don't have to hold on to anything and make it so important that it makes me even more sad.

Whatever it is, it feels impossible. I can only tell you that's the practice that I did. And I do that with a lot of things, you know. I'll watch something I really love disappear and say, "Oh, okay. I can practice with this, too. Yes, I can." And then you can feel when the letting go happens. You literally can feel when the letting go happens. It's delicious. It's a lovely feeling when the letting go happens. You can do it with something you want. You know, you can give up wanting something. But there's something that you can learn about loss, about how your mind works, how your heart works, if you pay attention to when something disappears. Don't try to replace it too soon. Let it be gone for a while. See what that feels like. Know what it is that attracts you about it. Really know what it is.

"Oh, that favorite thing is gone. You know what I liked about it was that it was so soft." It wasn't that thing. It was that it made me feel treasured. "Ah, it's feeling treasured that's important to me. Ah, I can let go of that thing." Think about what does it mean to be treasured? How am I treasured in other ways? It opens life up for you in a way that allows you to experience your life without making it about something specific that really isn't important. It only feels important because we've made something of it. We've made an idea into something that is about us. Letting go of that.

Notice that it's all about figuring out, "What do I have to let go of for this to be less painful?" So, it's not about giving something up. It's not about being better than you are. It's not about becoming saintly or even enlightened. "What do I have to give up for this to be less painful?" How can I just pause and see what is it that's snapping back at me? It doesn't make it a bad thing. It's just knowing it. The importance of seeing it. Just see it.

Reframing Grief

When I used to live in this amazing house that had soaring windows, it was out in the country and the house was full of light and it just had beautiful views. It was just a really wonderful place and very quiet. I loved living there. And when I had to leave, which you know, things happen, I had to leave there. I was really sad. I left that place and moved to an apartment in the city which was dark. It was just really different. And so I described myself as being quite depressed. And it was Gil² actually who said to me, "So why are you calling it depression? It sounds like grief to me."

And I thought, "Well, you know, I just doesn't feel like I have the right to be grieving." But that's what it was. It was loss. It was loss of all of that openness and light. And so then it became a search for openness and light and not about where I was. It changed everything when I could see what it was that I was grieving. So it isn't about fixing it so much as it is seeing clearly. I could let go of that attachment to that place. All of the people who said, "Well, just be grateful you got to live there," that didn't help me. I am grateful I got to live there. But now I can see that what I crave, what I love is light and openness. And I can find that. I don't have to be in a place. I don't have to be that specific. But it took me a while to see that.

Conclusion: A Poem of Kindness

So, one of the things I lost because I gave it to someone else was one of my favorite poetry books, this one. So, after nine months, when I didn't get my book back from the person I loaned it to, I bought another one and it arrived yesterday. Now, a good thing about it is it no longer has all of the stickers I had on all my favorite poems. So, now I can find new poems in my new old favorite book. And I'm going to share one with you. It's what I want to leave you with. This book, by the way, is While We've Still Got Feet by David Budbill³, who is a wonderful poet, no longer with us. So, we've lost him, but not his poems. So, here it is, "What We Need."

The emperor, his bullies, and henchmen terrorize the world every day. Which is why every day we need a little poem of kindness, a small song of peace, a brief moment of joy.

So, while you're contemplating loss and what you're attached to and how to develop non-attachment, may you have a little poem of kindness, a small song of peace, and a brief moment of joy.

Thank you.

Q&A

So, those are my thoughts. Do you have any thoughts that you'd like to share with us? Or complaints? I take complaints. Yes. Over here.

Questioner 1: One thing that came to mind is confusing knowing with like sort of an analysis or proliferation of analyses even.

Maria Straatman: Okay, two things. So I'm not necessarily talking about in meditation, right? So in meditation, we want to just see what's arising and we don't want the papañca⁴ of ideas where we go off analyzing everything. So that's one thing. There needs to be time for reflection in our practice, and so it is reflection that I am referring to. However, that is only useful in this context in the context of mindfulness where we see what's here and then reflect on what's here. So both things are required. And in mindfulness, we have to be in a place where we're not off fantasizing about what it means and analyzing what it all means, but rather we have to be able to see, "Oh, there's a stickiness here. There's a restlessness here. This doesn't feel right here. This feels like there is a sadness here. There's a hollowness here." So, to see that directly and not what I think about it is really the key. So, in that respect, your question is extremely important. You don't want to take a feeling of hollowness and then analyze it and decide what it means. That's not what we're trying to do. But to notice the hollowness and say, "Ah, what is this? What is this hollowness here? What is this feeling?"

If I can give you an example of that, I took myself out to the ocean because I find the ocean a great place to unload a lot of unhappiness. And as I sat there, I was expecting to yell into the ocean. And the ocean was so calm, it just didn't lend itself to that. And I had to be there with the dullness of the feeling. And what I had expected was that I was going to emote into the ocean. And there I was with dullness. So I sat there with dullness and said, "Okay, you're not paying attention. What's happening here?" So in the place of "what's happening here" is when I noticed that, "Oh, but I want, I want, I want." And feeling that "I want," I was saying, "What are you wanting here? What do you want?" "Well, I want to talk." "Oh, what's that? Pull on that. What is that I want?" Okay. So it's just with what is the feeling in the moment and not, "What do I think about the feeling?" Okay. Does that help?

Questioner 1: Yes. The questioning is more open.

Maria Straatman: Yeah. Keeping it open. There's a tendency when you find a word to describe especially an emotional state, it introduces stories. This word means... like depression and grief have lots of stories attached to them, right? And people who are grieving often have depression, right? So Gil wisely took me off of the word depression and gave me grieving to shift me from the way I was thinking about loss, to get me out of this recurring place that I was in by asking the question, "Was it really depression or was it grieving?" He opened it up for me so I could feel something different and not take that emptiness and decide it meant that I was... the sinking feeling I had, I had assigned the meaning of depression, but it actually was a sense of bottomlessness which was slightly different. I'm sorry there's no way for me to describe it very well. It's been eight years since I had that exact feeling.

Questioner 2: I was really close with my paternal grandfather. He was so honest, so wonderful. He even gave me his purple heart before he passed away that he got in World War II. And I was really sad. And then one day, I was meditating at the beach. I had something, I don't know what, maybe called a vision or something, and his name was Herb. I saw Herb standing in like a really nice beach house on a cliff looking out in the ocean. I don't know how to interpret that because I don't know if there is reincarnation. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But that just seeing that, it made it okay that he was not here anymore, that he had passed away. Whether that's his next life or not, for me, I was like, "Oh," it was really soothing to have that image of seeing Herb, you know, in that wonderful beach house as a young man just looking out.

Maria Straatman: Yeah. So I might characterize that as opening it to possibility as opposed to a shutting down of, "Everything has ended." And the exact whatever that might mean isn't what's important for you. There was a letting go.

Questioner 2: Yeah. Because I don't know if there's reincarnation or not. I don't know if anybody really knows for sure.

Maria Straatman: Right?

Questioner 2: But it was just the image was very soothing just to see it.

Maria Straatman: Yeah. When you let go of the belief that "this is a sad thing"—it's very easy to get caught into the "I miss this person so this is a sad place." You know, so I can miss my brother who has died. I can miss, you know, my parents died quite a long time ago but I can still miss them. My grandson was whistling yesterday and I remembered that my mother used to whistle and I had a picture of her whistling, and she's been dead for 60-some years. But it lightened my life. But if you think of it as "this is a terrible thing," then that possibility never exists. And so you can let go of "this is a terrible thing" and just let it be.

Questioner 3: This is just an insight that I'm aware because of impermanence that we will lose everything and everyone who's dear to us. And that shift in thinking really just made me appreciate everything more, everything and everyone more, while I still have them.

Maria Straatman: Yes.

Questioner 4: When I have uncomfortable feelings like loss, usually anxiety comes up. I start obsessing about something that doesn't mean anything, like my computer not working the way I want it to or something. I get angry and then it's like when I can recognize the feeling that, "Oh, this is loss, there's sadness there," then all of a sudden there's space and there's openness and I can feel the feeling a little bit. But it usually takes time. I get caught up in whatever story is being told about this and the anxiety and then like, "Oh, what's happening here? Why am I feeling this way about something that's so insignificant?" Something has happened. And then I can see, "All right, I'm just sad about whatever is happening." But also there's the second part of it which is, I guess it's something that's happened as I got older, it's like not everything's about me, right? And that makes it a lot easier. Like there's grief here. I feel sad, but it's not personal. It's just part of life. Life isn't about me. I don't always believe that, but when I do, it makes everything a lot easier.

Maria Straatman: Yeah. Thank you. That's very important. Usually, when we think about loss, it's usually my loss, right? My loss. For example, my talk only had half of it here because I forgot to save it on my computer. So, of course, when I opened it on my laptop, half of it wasn't here. The half I didn't save on the computer. It's still on my computer because I didn't shut it down. But it's not here. Okay. It's not here. I could make that my fault. I could spend a lot of time castigating myself, a lot of self-criticism of what a stupid move that was not to save the file so that it would be here. Or I could just say, "Oh, it's not here. It's not about me. It's just not here." Which is just what you said. So, a lot of things about loss are tied up with what I think of me and what I see of my life. And it's about that little string of our life that we carry along with us. "This is what this means about me. If this happens, this is what it means about me." And it's just, it happens. There would never be any good things if there were not bad things, because it's just these two words, ways of telling them apart. This is just the experience that we're having.

So, we will always know loss. May we always, along with loss, know the joy of being alive. And that we only experience loss because there's something that was lovely. And how we choose to experience now is a choice.

Thank you for your time. May you be well. Good night.