Search results for: "Attachment"

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  2. At Home with the Breath
     … If part of the mind asks, “Isn’t this an attachment?” well, it’s a good attachment because it enables you to make real changes in the mind. The mind is always going to be holding onto something until the very last moment before awakening. And the whole strategy of the path is to give you good things to hold onto, good habits to … 
  3. Gratitude to Things
     … The reason that this is an important distinction—that you’re grateful to the people for the things, rather than being grateful to the things themselves—is that if you feel gratitude to your bed, it’s hard not to get attached to your bed, and to think that the goodness lies in the bed as a thing. Whereas if you’re grateful to … 
  4. Concentration & Renunciation
     … When we were in Paris, one of the questions came up, “How do you practice concentration without getting stuck in the pleasure?” And the answer was, “Go ahead and get stuck.” Allow yourself to enjoy it—enjoy it without leaving the breath—because that kind of attachment is a relatively easy one to overcome. It’s a lot easier to overcome than the attachment … 
  5. Pleasing to the Noble Ones
     … Now, some teachers say that grasping at precepts and practices means you don’t care about any particular precept, or care about any particular practice—you’re not attached to any of them. But that would mean that just anybody walking down the street would have the quality of a stream-enterer, because a lot of people are not attached to precepts or practices … 
  6. Freedom from Fear
     … But as for unskillful fear, it’s usually related to an attachment of some kind. It’s greed about something, anger about something, or delusion about things. You have to look at what you’re attached to. In almost every case, it’s something that’s totally or partially beyond your control. That’s what’s maddening. If it were totally beyond your control … 
  7. Lust
     … You get so attached to that pleasure that you really don’t want to start taking apart your sense of self, the way you create a sense of self around your desires. The Buddha says that this attachment is like grabbing hold of a sappy twig on a tree, and your hand sticks to the twig because of the sap. But that’s an … 
  8. A Refuge Inside
     … Or to put it another way, the mind’s attachment to the body is the real problem. We want a real happiness out of the body, and yet it can’t provide it—and you can’t blame it. That’s just the way it is. It’s inconstant, stressful, and not-self, and yet we try to create happiness out of it. We … 
  9. Compassion for People on Fire
     … Are we beyond that yet? What are we still attached to? Wherever we’re attached, we’re flammable. Think of the way people thought of fire back in those days: Fire held on, it clung. Wherever there’s clinging, there’s going to be heat, there are going to be flames. So look at where you’re clinging. Try to get some perspective on … 
  10. Mindfulness of Death
     … So if you can overcome your attachment to the body through that contemplation, it makes you a lot less afraid of leaving it when the time comes. Otherwise, you’ll hover around after you die, like that spirit the woman saw in the envelopes behind Wat Makut. Envelopes in Thailand are little structures that are just a bit larger than a coffin. You stick … 
  11. When Attacked by Distractions
     … This is the Buddha’s main strategy for dealing with distractions, any kind of attachment. He never talks about things as being empty, aside from being empty of self in a way that it’s meant to make you feel dispassionate for whatever it is. It’s not really yours, so why are you holding on to it? That old idea that things are … 
  12. Guardian Meditations
     … We’ve got to learn to ferret that out because a lot of our defilements come from our attachment to the body, which then spills over to attachment to other people’s bodies. So the Buddha has you do this analysis first on yourself, then on others. If you have a really bad unhealthy body image, sometimes it’s useful to start doing it … 
  13. Clinging, Addictions, Obsessions
     … But our suffering is strong, so it needs something that goes very strongly against the grain, against our attachment to our suffering, if we’re going to end it. As Ajaan Suwat used to like to say, “Our likes are what makes us suffer.” Food is one of the big likes in life, and the act of feeding is one of the big likes … 
  14. Willing to Question Yourself
     … We have to keep contemplating this again and again because we’re so attached to the body, and the issues of the body loom so large in our minds. It requires a certain amount of desire and willingness to submit to this kind of practice. It’s something you have to do again and again and again. Ajaan MahaBoowa talks about how you can … 
  15. A Soiled, Oily Rag
     … You look first at your other attachments—to things aside from the path—so that you’re ready for the insight that sees, “Oh, this isn’t worth holding on to. All these things that I’ve identified as me or mine: They’re just soiled, oily rags. Or like that Far Side cartoon of a cow, out in the pasture with a lot … 
  16. The Ten Priorities
     … As the Buddha said, one of the reasons we fear death is because of our attachment to sensual pleasures and to our sensual desires. So, it’s an important thing to learn how to give up. Realize that there are better forms of happiness. The dangers of being attached to sensuality are much greater than the dangers of being attached to, say, jhana. Often … 
  17. Invest in the Breath
     … So try on his concepts and see what kind of questions they ask about you, about your sense of the body and how you can use them to peel away any attachments, any unskillful ways of approaching your body or relating to the body and relating to your mind. This way, you can find that pleasure has its uses. Pain has its uses. Physical … 
  18. What Focus? What Breath?
     … You’re not going to overcome sensual attachments and sensual desire unless you have a better place to stay inside. Otherwise, you’d be denying yourself up to a certain point, then the issue of frustrated desire will come in, take over, and drive you out. But if you can actually give yourself a viscerally pleasant place to stay, then you have more of … 
  19. Self View & Conceit
     … If you’re going to be attached to the pleasure, it’s better than not having this pleasure to be attached to—because otherwise, you’re just going to go back to your old ways, attached to looking for pleasure in sensuality. So you learn how to enjoy the pleasure of concentration but without losing your focus. This is one of the practices you … 
  20. The Perception of Space
     … After all, the third noble truth is letting go, letting go without any strings attached, without any nostalgia for the things you let go. This is a quality, again, that we want to develop from the very beginning. With generosity, when you give something, you let go. This was one of Ajaan Fuang’s major pet peeves, when people would come and give things … 
  21. Putting Out the Fires
     … trying to put the fires out, to free the mind from its attachment to the various kinds of fuel it latches on to. Even though we may think that things outside provoke lust, greed, or anger, the potential for lust, greed, and anger is there, just waiting in the mind, ready to pounce on things and latch onto them. What we have to do … 
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