Attachment and compassion

As a Buddhist, I am conscious of not forming emotional attachments and the impermanence of things. Still, when people whom I knew died, my emotions get a knocking, especially with so many cases happening one after another, that my compassion for them made me felt like bawling.

I have known most of them only for a short time, HH for 2-3 years, LY about a year, and the rest I have only met them a couple of times, and yet, I felt for them.

Death is one event every living thing, human or animal, or even plants, will experience one day, it's only a matter of time. So, why do I still feel sad at their passing? In fact, for cancer patients, death brings relief, it's an end to their suffering.

I realised that I am sad because I understand what they were going through, I saw their sufferings and their struggles, the frustrations, the hopes rising and fading, and the pain they had to endure not only from cancer but from chemo also. After going through so much and the brave fights they put up, death made everything seemed so futile.

LY was the first group member that I was following. I had not been fully aware of how serious she was and had been optimistic about her recovery. I had felt strongly for her that I cried when I saw her suddenly become immbolized, I cried when I saw her lying in the coffin, and I cried too when she was setting off for cremation.

I had felt strongly for Ja too. When I first saw her, she was cheerful and chirpy despite her illness. She had passed on just before LY.

When HH passed on, I had been more prepared as I had seen her decline. I had been steady through her eulogies, and only teared when her family members cried as her coffin went into the crematorium.

Maybe, it was not attachment, but rather, it was the compassion for them that made me felt in such a manner. But I admit that with LY, there was some attachment as I had missed her but am now coming to terms with it.

The more emotionally attached I am, the more I will feel its absence. I should be able to detach emotionally, only then can I feel peace.