Search results for: "Attachment"

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  2. Observe Your Concentration
     … He analyzes that attachment to what seems to be deathless. Even though you have actually had an experience of the deathless, you cover it over with some very subtle, subtle levels of aggregates. So it may have been the case that the question, “Are the aggregates worthy of being called self?” was an option for people to become arahants simply because they could see … 
  3. Fear
     … One is because they’re attached to the body. Another is because they’re attached to sensual pleasures. A third is that they don’t really understand the Dhamma, they haven’t resolved their doubts about the Dhamma. These are three things that can be cured only through meditation. The other reason for fearing death is when you know that you’ve harmed other … 
  4. Dethinking Thinking
     … where your attachments are, why you’re attached. Think of those five steps the Buddha lays out for us to figure out: What’s the origination of the problem—where does it come from within the mind? How does the problem stop? How does it start up again? And why do you dig it up again—what’s the allure? Can you see the … 
  5. A Complete Training
     … As you get attached to them, you realize you’re getting attached to very subtle levels of stress. You want something better. And we’re fortunate that we have the Buddha’s teachings on the four noble truths to remind us that when you let go, it can bring the end of suffering. That way, you’re more willing to let go. This is … 
  6. The Right Time at the Right Place
     … But if you’re coming with a sense of well-being—a sense of really belonging here, so that you have a sense of awareness that’s not necessarily tied down to a lot of its other attachments—then you can look at those attachments and realize they’re pretty dumb. You knew better but you went for them anyhow. But now you’ve … 
  7. The Challenge
     … There are many gradations of pleasure, many types of pleasure, and many things we are really attached to that we have to learn how to give up. The unfortunate thing is we don’t have the same certainty as someone who’s already gained awakening. Those who have actually gotten on the noble path see that, Yes, what the Buddha said is true. As … 
  8. Anti-slacker Dhamma
     … In terms of virtue, if you find that your attachment to your relatives or your wealth or your health would prevent you from observing the precepts, you’ve got to let go of that attachment. So you apply the three perceptions to your wealth or your relatives or your health. In terms of concentration, anything that comes up in the mind that’s going … 
  9. Thinking About Your Fears
     … Yet here we are, attached to it. Of course, a lot of attachment has to do not with the parts of the body, but with what we can do with the human body. This is why it’s good to be able to get the mind into a state where you can focus on the sense of space, realizing that the mind can be … 
  10. Together but Separate
     … Another animal comes tomorrow—which means that the work of discernment is going to require a fair amount of patience and ingenuity as you try to figure out, “Well, what’s the assumption, what’s the attachment today? How am I defining myself with regard to the pain? Or what aggregate am I identifying with that the pain seems to be attacking?” You learn … 
  11. Strong & Heedful
     … Discernment protects your conviction, persistence, mindfulness, and concentration, and makes them even more solid, so that the dangers posed by the mind, its inclinations for delusion, craving, attachment—which, when you come right down to it, are weakness in the mind, things you have to watch out for—can be replaced with strengths. The reason these weaknesses have control is because we tend to … 
  12. Disenchantment
     … It’s an antidote to our strong attachment to feeding on things. That attachment, the Buddha said, is the essence of suffering. The word upadana, which means clinging, also means the act of eating, of taking sustenance. He says that upadana lies at the essence of suffering and stress. So what we need to learn is how to look at the things we feed … 
  13. Right View as Tool
    There’s a line toward the end of the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta that describes the ideal meditator as “not attached to fixed views, but consummate in vision.” That’s how it’s often translated. It turns out, though, that the word “fixed” is not in the original. In other words, “not attached to views but consummate in vision”: That’s what the line actually … 
  14. Is ‘I Am’ the Problem?
     … We’re more attached to things we make than we are with the things we simply experience in a passive way. A lot of things we like about our experiences are what we can make out of them. So when you find that making good states of mind is more enthralling, more enjoyable, than what you can make out of sights, sounds, etc., it … 
  15. Take Good Aim
     … With arahants, as he said, you can’t define them because people define themselves around their desires and their attachments, whereas someone who has no desires, no attachments—because they’ve found true happiness—can’t be defined. As far as they’re concerned, the question of who they are is a non-question. The question of what happiness can be found in the … 
  16. Right Speech
     … But with yourself, you should be a lot more frank about where your friendship with your various ideas and attachments really is leading you. But learn how to do it in a way that shows that you’re operating with the mind’s best interest at heart. So there’s a skill to right speech, both inside and out. There are nuances. When you … 
  17. Equanimity Isn’t Nibbana
     … The Buddha makes the point that our intentions for sensuality are what we’re really attached to. The idea of sensual pleasure, the activity of thinking about sensuality, is a lot more attractive than the actual pleasure itself. You can obsess about the idea over and over and over again, whereas the actual pleasure, once you’ve experienced it, quickly grows stale and is … 
  18. Looking in Three Directions
     … These are all different perceptions that you can apply to peel the mind away from its attachments, or to peel the attachments off of it. And the fact that the insight that has liberated you from a particular thought doesn’t fit into a classical term doesn’t mean that it’s not Dhamma. It doesn’t mean that it’s not insight. Whatever … 
  19. Attachment vs. Affection
    Attachment vs. Affection November 5, 2008 The word for clinging, upadana, also means to feed. The upadana of a tree is the soil it feeds on. The upadana of a fire is the fuel it clings to in order to burn. So upadana means food and sustenance, and also the act of taking sustenance: i.e., feeding. When we apply it to the mind … 
  20. Beyond Natural Suffering
     … Notice he says “being.” The word “being” he defines as a creation of attachment. If it weren’t for the mind’s attachments, we wouldn’t take on this identity as a being. We wouldn’t have kept this body going. The earth, water, wind, fire would just be earth, water, wind, fire in some other form. And they’re perfectly neutral about the … 
  21. Choices Now & at Death
     … your craving, your attachments. The only people who are not beings are arahants, because they have no attachments. That’s why they don’t get reborn. We create our identity as beings, then we sustain it with our craving. And then, when we find we can’t stay here in this body, we grab at whatever. If you’re not prepared, you will grab … 
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