Search results for: "Attachment"

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  2. Not Resolved on Self
     … We can either be enthusiastically resolved, in the sense that we really like our self—attached to our wants, attached to our thoughts, attached to however we identify ourselves—or we can be resolved in a negative way: We look at ourselves, we don’t like our habits, we don’t like the way we interact with the world. We see how we create … 
  3. Stupid about Pleasure
     … It gives you a solid place where you can stand outside your attachments and really look at them. For the most part, we just jump into our attachments, jump into our pleasures, and totally lose perspective. When they slosh around, we get sloshed around as well. But being able to step back from these things gives us a solid place to stand. And that … 
  4. The Same for Everyone
     … But the ultimate truth is that liberation is gained through not clinging, and not clinging is most effective when you train the mind to be still—so that as attachments grow fewer and fewer until you have just that one attachment left: the attachment to the stillness and clarity of your mind when it’s in concentration. And then when everything is ready, you … 
  5. Perception
     … It’s all a matter of learning how to perceive the body as not worthy of attachment. We come in with the perception that it is worthy of attachment. We correctly identify it. We know it’s a body, but we have a wrong perception about its meaning and value. So we contemplate the parts of the body. We contemplate the drawbacks of the … 
  6. Getting into the Body
     … The whole purpose of concentration is not only to give you an alternative to your attachments in the world, it’s also to provide a very steady attachment here so that you can look long and hard at this process of attachment. The Buddha says that if you really want to see your attachment to form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness, this is the … 
  7. Relating to Results
    Sometimes we’re told that in our practice of meditation, and in our approach to practice of the Buddha’s teachings as a whole, we shouldn’t be attached to results. Now, this statement can be taken in a wrong way and a right way. The wrong way would be that we don’t care about the results, that we just do what we … 
  8. Feelings Not of the Flesh
     … Another thing you hear all too often is that you shouldn’t let yourself get attached to concentration practice or attached to the pleasure of concentration. But actually that pleasure is something you should get attached to, again as motivation to develop it further. Eventually you can wean yourself away from that attachment, but in the beginning you need that kind of attachment to … 
  9. Active Truth
     … And somehow in that way you transcend the attachment. Well, that’s not what the Buddha taught. Concentration is to be developed. You take time, you work at it. Even if it involves a certain amount of attachment, it’s attachment to a good thing. It’s like holding on to the rungs of a ladder: You don’t want to let go of … 
  10. Who Are You Trying to Please?
    Someone called this evening, to say he’d been reading the Bhagava Gita, and he said he finally understood the principle of not being attached to the outcome of your actions. And I had to tell him, No. There’s one way in which you don’t want to be attached, but there’s another way in which you have to be very much … 
  11. Rites of Passage
     … It tends to distrust people who try to get away from sensual attachments — partly because the economy would collapse and partly because of the old Judaic-Protestant prejudice that people who try to abandon sensual attachments must be weird. The truth of the matter, though, is that there’s a part of the mind that flourishes when it’s not burdened with sensual attachments … 
  12. Right View
     … I don’t think that anyone has ever gone to war over attachment to jhana, attachment to concentration. But we kill, steal, have illicit sex, lie to one another, indulge in intoxicants, all because of sensual craving, sensual attachment—none of which happens because of our attachment to jhana. The only danger of being stuck on jhana is that as long as you’re … 
  13. Mistakes
     … We’re attached to wrong ways of doing things. When they talk about attachment, it’s not so much that you’re attached to things. You’re usually attached to what you can do with the things. You’re attached to actions. After all, the mind doesn’t have a hand that can grasp onto things. But it does have intentions, the intentions lead … 
  14. Skills to Make You Free
     … We’re working on a skill here, so you really want to be attached to mastering the skill—attached properly in the sense that you take a mature attitude toward it. But don’t be afraid of being attached. You can work on removing your attachment to concentration later, after you’ve used the concentration to pry away your attachments to other things. Think … 
  15. Analyzing Suffering
     … You can be attached to a view of total acceptance or you can be attached to a view of broad-mindedness. That’s another form of clinging. The third one is to precepts and practice. Most often this has to do with rituals, saying that somehow by following a ritual way of practice, you’re going to gain security. It also can refer to … 
  16. Breath Meditation, Step by Step
     … You can take the Dhamma, which is often compared to a knife, so you can cut away your attachments, the attachments that keep the mind tied down. We’re here for the sake of liberation, for the sake of freedom, and no matter how much other people may be keeping us oppressed or tied down outside, finally, the real liberation is liberation from our … 
  17. A Pleasure Not to Be Feared
     … Is there something even better than this? Sometimes you hear about the danger of being attached to the pleasures of deep concentration. But if you compare those to the dangers of being attached to sensuality, they’re very minor. When people are attached to sensuality, they can kill, steal, have illicit sex, lie, take intoxicants, harm one another, and harm themselves. That’s the … 
  18. Insight from Jhana
     … Seeing this makes you less interested in them and, as a result, your attachment to the concentration gets stronger. Now there’s healthy attachment to concentration and pathological attachment. Pathological is when you just want to hide away in the concentration and don’t want to do your duties. You don’t want to engage with the world outside. You don’t want to … 
  19. Useful Vocabulary
     … Otherwise, you can just say, “Well I’m just going to practice no craving, no attachment,” and make it a blanket thing. But then everything gets smothered under the blanket. You don’t see precisely what’s happening. The dark corners of your mind stay hidden, and that creates problems because attachment and craving tend to hide out in dark spaces: spaces where you … 
  20. How We Cling
     … Our attachment to things comes down to our fantasies about what those things mean to us. Our attachment to our family is basically an attachment to sensuality. Our attachment to our possessions is attachment to sensuality. We think we’re holding on to things, but as the Buddha said, we’re actually holding on to activities: the activity of giving meaning to these things … 
  21. Three Perceptions
     … As long as you perceive it in that way, there’s going to be attachment, there’s going to be a dhamma to hold on to. So you have to learn how to overcome that attachment by applying the perception of not-self to the dhamma of the deathless. Then, the texts say, you let go of all dhammas, which allows you to see … 
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