Search results for: "Attachment"

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  2. Skillful Attachments
     … This is the attachment that actually is helpful. Not every form of attachment, not every form of desire is a problem. There are skillful attachments and unskillful ones. Ajaan Maha Boowa gives the analogy of climbing a ladder. Before you let go of a lower rung, you have to hold on to a higher rung. Once you’re holding on firmly there, then you … 
  3. The Right Attitude to the Body
     … The main obstacle is our attachment to the body, our attachment to unskillful mental states. So do what you can to clear those away, and the confusion and ignorance that fills the body right now will be replaced gradually by greater and greater awareness, until ultimately this spot right here where you’re sensitive to the body becomes the means through which you’re … 
  4. Negative Emotions
     … Our attachment to the body goes really, really deep. Even for people who feel they don’t sense much lust in any way, there’s still a very strong attachment to the body. It goes right into the bone, and it’s amazing how deep it is. So we constantly have to keep hammering away at this issue. Look at the aspects of the … 
  5. Fear of Death
     … As for attachment to the body and to sensual pleasures, the Buddha has a double-pronged attack. One prong is to see the drawbacks of being attached to these things. If you’re attached to the body, where is it going to take you? It’s going to take you to aging, illness, and death, for sure, no matter how much you exercise or … 
  6. Putting out the Flame
     … He calls it “a being.” Elsewhere, he defines a being by saying that wherever there’s attachment, there’s a being. Attachment to form, feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness: Wherever there’s attachment, there’s going to be a being. You’ve taken on the identity of being a being through your attachments. But by taking those attachments apart, you go beyond being a … 
  7. Renunciation
     … Are you just going to go the same old natural way you’ve gone before, or are you going to try something new? Because if you’re attached to sensuality, then you’re really going to fear death. This is one of the main causes for fearing death: We’re attached to all the fascination we have for the sensual pleasures in the human … 
  8. A Refuge from Death
     … One is that they’re attached to sensual pleasures. They’re afraid that at death they’ll be deprived of their sensual pleasures. The second is that they’re attached to their body. They know that at death they’ll have to leave the body. The third is that they’ve done cruel and harmful things in their lives, and are afraid of the … 
  9. The Challenge of Right View
     … Simply telling us that these things are empty of self-essence is not going to overcome our attachment to them. Say that you’re attached to food, and someone tells you that food is empty of any self-nature, food is empty of any inherent existence. Does that overcome your attachment to food? No. You’re not attached to food because of its inherent … 
  10. Dhamma for Laypeople
     … Sariputta and Ananda go to visit him, and Sariputta teaches him how to not be attached to anything at all, giving him a long, very thorough list of things to let go of. And he gets to the last item in the list, where he recommends training oneself, “My consciousness will not be attached to consciousness.” And Anathapindika starts to cry. Ananda’s concerned … 
  11. Three Stages in the Practice
     … It’s not just a matter of watching things come and watching things go: “That’s okay, there goes concentration, I’m not attached to it.” We haven’t given it any opportunity to show its potential. The Buddha wants you to get attached to it, to devote yourself to developing it. How else are you going to get free? If you’re not … 
  12. Meditator, Mediator
     … So even though there may be a germ of attachment in there, it’s a skillful attachment, a useful attachment. It creates space, creates a sense of having some time, having patience, being in the mood to want to get into a dialogue and not feel so threatened by everything all the time. When issues do come up in the mind, you’ve got … 
  13. Skillful Fears
     … As for fear of death, as he points out, there are four reasons why we’re afraid of death: (1) We’re attached to our body. (2) We’re attached to the pleasures of the human realm. (3) We realize that we’ve done some unskillful things, and that there’s always the possibility that there will be punishment after death for the unskillful … 
  14. Afraid of Pleasure
     … When he tells the monks to go out and meditate, he says, “Go do jhana.” There will come a time when you have to overcome your attachment to this, but first develop an attachment here. Because what happens to your attachments otherwise? They go back to their old ways. Other things are easier. You may tend to be good at thinking through things, so … 
  15. From Compunction to Release
     … Even the insights, though, are an activity, and a part of insight is going to be that once you’ve used the insights that pry you away from your attachment to concentration, you have to let go of your attachment to the insights as well, because they, too, are activities. You’re finally getting to something that’s not an activity. Ajaan Mun talks … 
  16. The Brahmaviharas Are Not Enough
     … Even in equanimity there can be attachment to the equanimity. If you don’t analyze it, if you just have goodwill for the equanimity or goodwill for the attachment, it won’t go away. You’ve got to question it. In Ajaan Maha Boowa’s language, you actually have to destroy it. Try to find where the attachment is and tear it to shreds … 
  17. Stick to Your Duties
     … There are schools of Buddhism that say that you’re attached to things because you don’t understand their true nature. If you realized that they were empty of self-nature, then that would be the end of the problem. But we’re not attached to things because we think they have self-nature. We’re attached to our thoughts, we’re attached to … 
  18. Respect for Emptiness
     … The problem is our attachment to them, the attachment that keeps destroying our concentration, destroying our stillness of mind. When you see things as inconstant, stressful, and empty of self from the perspective of trying to maintain this dwelling in emptiness, then the contemplation of their emptiness serves a positive purpose. It makes it easier not to get disturbed by them. The two different … 
  19. The Taste Is Release
     … As you develop more and more of a taste for the food of concentration—and it does take time for this taste to develop—you find that this becomes your new attachment. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard it said when you’re meditating you shouldn’t get attached to the pleasure of concentration. But as a Ajaan Fuang would … 
  20. The Saints Don’t Grieve
     … When you see the rewards, you’re more and more willing to let go of the things that you’re normally attached to in favor of the freedom of not being attached. This impulse to mistrust the principle of renunciation isn’t just an American or a Western issue. It goes way back in Buddhist history. For example, there’s the Mahayana ideal that … 
  21. Beyond Likes & Dislikes
     … We’re attached to it. Of all the things we’re attached to in life, that’s probably the hardest thing to let go: our attachment to our cravings. And it’s precisely here that the Buddha says, “That’s the problem.” So it’s a question of how much we’re willing to suffer before we say, “Maybe he’s right,” and give … 
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