Search results for: "Attachment"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. Smart About Lust
     … That’s a fairly standard reaction among people who are attached to their passions, and particularly attached to their lust: that anyone who’s not giving in to lust, not following a life of lust, is a loser. All of the glamour, all the prestige, and all the intelligence seem to be on the side of those who give in to their lust: the … 
  12. An Inside Job
     … Of all the things in the world, what are you most attached to? You’re most attached to the body. What do you live with 24/7? You live with the body. So develop the right attitude toward your body. Develop a skillful way of interacting with it. As you get to know the breath in the different parts of the body, you learn … 
  13. Unraveling the Present
     … You want to maintain that, keep it going, because it’s your tool, your fulcrum point for prying loose a lot of other attachments. You look at the pleasure that you used to get from outside things and you begin to realize that there’s not much real pleasure, not much essence to that at all. Think of all the pleasures you’ve felt … 
  14. Pleasures & Pains on the Middle Way
     … That’s where our real attachment is, in the fantasizing. The things themselves, the people, whatever, that we get the pleasure out of: We’re not nearly as attached to them as we are with the mind’s fascination with thinking about the pleasures, planning for them. That kind of pleasure, the Buddha said, is off the path. Also any pleasures that could come … 
  15. Treating the Diseases of the Mind
     … The question always is, are you ready? And the answer almost always is, “Not yet.” Ask yourself, “Why? What’s standing in the way? What attachments do you have?” Maybe you can work on those a little bit—learn how to think them through. See the attachment as something strange. Why would awareness want to hold on to that? Especially when it’s going … 
  16. All About Change
     … If you see that your attachments are unskillful, try to see their drawbacks so that you really feel that the attachment is not worth it. At the same time, you provide yourself with something good to hold on to. Otherwise, no matter how much you may let go, you just grab hold again. It’s like climbing a ladder. If you have only one … 
  17. The Not-Self Discourse
     … First you’ve got to learn how to let go of everything except the path, and then when that’s done, you can focus on your attachment to the path. When you can let that go, then your letting-go is all around. You’re released everywhere. So look at your attachments right now, to see which ones are really worth holding on to … 
  18. What Are You Doing Right Now?
     … This is one way that meditation helps you overcome your addictive patterns, your old attachments, your old unskillful habits. You’ve simply got something better to feed on, something more nourishing, something that really goes deep down inside, something you experience with your whole body. You work on concentration so as to have a wider range of habits, a wider range of opportunities and … 
  19. Because the Mind Is Purposeful
     … We’re attached to certain things and we’re afraid that something will come along and destroy what we have—or what we want to have. So if you want to understand your fears, look for your attachments. To understand your aversion, look for your desires, realizing that sometimes it’s not simply a case of thwarted desire leading to aversion. There’s also … 
  20. A Genius about Your own Mind
     … There was a writer a while back who said, “Desire is okay as long as you’re not attached to the object.” But as the Buddha noticed, we’re really not attached as much to the object as we are to the act of desiring itself. We can sit and fantasize for hours about a sensual pleasure of one kind or another, even though … 
  21. Look after Yourself with Ease
     … So as long as the mind is going to have its attachments, get attached to this: a sense of the body as it’s felt from within, with the breath energies flowing smoothly through the body. As the Buddha said, this is part of the wind element, the breath that flows throughout the entire body. It’s a very subtle set of sensations, but … 
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