Search results for: "Attachment"

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  2. The Problem of Suffering
     … Anything that comes up in the meditation that disturbs your concentration, that disturbs your stillness, you can apply those teachings to pry the mind loose from its attachments to those things. And it gets easier: If the thought happens to come back, you can really ignore it, you don’t have to get involved. And you find that by not getting involved, you begin … 
  3. Nimble with Your Questions
     … If you find that attachment to food is a problem, maybe part of the problem is your attachment to aversion. So look at your relationship to aversion. If you find that sitting long periods is a problem, ask yourself: What is it in you that doesn’t want to sit long periods of time? And there will be a part of the mind that … 
  4. Scramble the Image
     … This is one way of digging up unknown attachments—or some old known attachments that you finally decide you’re going to take on. And see what the mind has to say. Whatever comes up—good, bad, indifferent, whatever—scramble it. Some of the forest ajaans say that if you have an image of the body, think of having a knife that you can … 
  5. An End to the Stories
     … You’re fighting with your own greed, aversion, and delusion—and all your attachments. The hardest attachments to let go of, they say, is the sense of having been wronged. There’s usually a desire to want to get back or, at the very least, to have the other side acknowledge that they did wrong. But remember, we’re living in a world where … 
  6. Lighter & Stronger
     … Even though it’s a useful tool, it can bring a lot of suffering if you’re attached to it. And you’re better off not being attached. Again, these perceptions have to be used together with all four of the noble truths. The truths teach you to get the mind into concentration, and one of the things you’ll learn as you begin … 
  7. Seeing with the Body
     … That helps loosen up your attachment to the suffering. So it’s important to understand this process: that you’re clinging to, identifying with, the very things that cause you to suffer. Even though that’s what defines you, it’s simply a definition you’ve imposed on things. You don’t really need it to function. You don’t really have to worry … 
  8. Duties in the Present
     … If you feel attached, it’s a healthy attachment, because it can help you let go of more unskillful attachments. When the mind is well centered, then it’s in a position to really see where there’s stress, what element of craving in your present intentions creates that stress, so that you can let go of the craving, let go of the craving … 
  9. A Path of Aggregates
     … form, feeling, perceptions, fabrication, consciousness? For one thing, he says it’s through our attachment to these things that we create our sense of being a being. And it’s this attachment that keeps grabbing on to new aggregates as the old ones pass away, and goes from one life to the next. Attachments just keep happening again and again and again. It’s … 
  10. Guardian Meditations
     … This is a particularly good if you’re attached to your body, you’re attached to your health, fixated on the idea that the body has to be in a certain way, you want it to be perfect in this way or that. It’s got to eat certain kinds of food in order to stay alive and healthy. Is that attachment getting in … 
  11. The Lessons of Good Kamma
     … So look at your opportunities to be generous as opportunities to see and understand the Dhamma, to practice the internal dialogue that’s needed in areas where you discover you’re more attached than you thought you were. Certain things you can give away and it’s no big deal, but certain of your defilements, certain types of greed or aversion, things you really … 
  12. Respect for Heedfulness
     … If we can understand how the mind puts suffering together, we begin to untangle all the mind’s attachments, all the ways it makes and creates unnecessary problems for itself. At the same time we start opening ourselves up to something better. So we focus on suffering because it’s a learning opportunity. In fact, the Buddha actually has us treat suffering with respect … 
  13. A Point of Balance
     … Don’t be too quick to throw them away, because otherwise you’ll never find a way out of that dilemma of being too attached to the idea of becoming something, or too attached to the idea of wanting everything to be annihilated. You want to stand right here in the present moment and see things arising and passing away, arising and passing away … 
  14. Respect for the Precepts
     … The purpose of protecting your precepts in this way is to ferret out and question the views you’re attached to. Are they really worthy of attachment, especially if they get you to end up doing something really unskillful? You decide you’re going to protect this person by killing that person, but what are the consequences down the line? Those things begin to … 
  15. There Is This
     … They have to learn how to let go of that attachment. It’s very subtle and very strong. So when you have to let go of even the really good things, all the more so for things that are unskillful. Notice that, yes, you do have these attachments. Try to look into why. You’re going to see some things that you don’t … 
  16. A Full Heart
     … As the Buddha said, our identity as a being comes from attachment, and beings have to subsist on food. So the attachment is the lack. We hold on to things thinking that they’ll fill the lack, but it’s interesting to note that the things we’re holding on to are the things that actually create the lack to begin with. So how … 
  17. Intelligent about Change
     … And if something is inconstant and stressful, is it worth calling your self? Is it worth identifying with? Is it worth pursuing as your basis for happiness? These perceptions are tools for peeling away your attachments to things that change in that way. But what are you going to do, as you keep pulling away your attachments? Where are you left? That’s where … 
  18. Unlearning Unskillful Behavior
     … You can’t bypass the everyday problems of how you engage with other people, how you engage with addictions, attachments, all your unskillful habits. You’ve got to think them through. Think of the situations in which you tend to be unskillful, and then pose that question in the mind: “What would be a better way of dealing with these? Why am I tempted … 
  19. Unhindered at Death
     … As long as you’re attached to thoughts of sensuality, you’ll fear that you could go to some place where those pleasures no longer exist. This is one of the reasons why, when the Buddha is giving Mahanama some instructions on how to counsel somebody who is dying, after making sure that the person is not worried about his family, not worried about … 
  20. The Identity Crutch
     … Sometimes you’re warned about not getting attached to concentration, but you’ve got to be attached to concentration if you’re going to do it well. You have to see the pleasure of concentration as something you really like, something you really are interested in. That way, you put in the energy you need in order to master the concentration. So don’t … 
  21. Look in the Mirror
     … But if you’re alert to the fact, “Okay, there’s still something fabricated here, even though it seems very, very solid and very secure,” then you can take apart your attachment to that, too. After all, as the Buddha said, concentration has its allure and its drawbacks. Discernment has its allure and its drawbacks as well. It’s interesting how he talks about … 
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