Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Feeling guilty about my attachments... but can't let go.
Hey all,
I'm a newbie buddhist and I've been trying to be mindful of the precepts and live a modest life.
Currently, one of the biggest things I'm attached to is my looks. I have a low self-esteem possibly stemming from being overweight in my younger years.
After high school, I started working out hardcore and even had plastic surgery to make me feel and look better.
I'm constantly thinking about how I look and trying to think of ways I can improve my appearance.
I don't expect myself to become "enlightened" and detached from everything. Yet, the more I try to get serious with buddhism, the more guilt I feel about my attachment to my appearance.
I know it's better to let go since everything is impermanent but I honestly don't think I'm ready to let go of my attachment yet.
How do you guys deal with attachments or obsessions while trying to follow Buddha's teachings? How do I prevent myself from feeling guilty?
I'm a newbie buddhist and I've been trying to be mindful of the precepts and live a modest life.
Currently, one of the biggest things I'm attached to is my looks. I have a low self-esteem possibly stemming from being overweight in my younger years.
After high school, I started working out hardcore and even had plastic surgery to make me feel and look better.
I'm constantly thinking about how I look and trying to think of ways I can improve my appearance.
I don't expect myself to become "enlightened" and detached from everything. Yet, the more I try to get serious with buddhism, the more guilt I feel about my attachment to my appearance.
I know it's better to let go since everything is impermanent but I honestly don't think I'm ready to let go of my attachment yet.
How do you guys deal with attachments or obsessions while trying to follow Buddha's teachings? How do I prevent myself from feeling guilty?
0
Comments
Realize that buddhism is a practice; this means you will make mistakes. Instead of feeling guilty or bad, you should learn from them and move forward.
When you practice an instrument and you hit the wrong note, you don't feel guilty or bad, you just start playing again and try to hit the right note the next time.
To continue the metaphor, you don't play advanced songs until you learn basic techniques. What is advanced is different for each person. Some people are more attached to their looks, others their possessions, etc.
Just keep being mindful about all the thoughts/emotions/feelings surrounding your attachments. Don't judge them, just see them. Your attachments will slowly become less and less, because you will see them for what they are
Keep mindful and keep meditating you will find the answers you seek
my suggestion is practise unconditional love (metta), which is a Buddhist practise
to begin, look at or think about other people that you regard as not good looking
then cultivate an unconditional non-judging respectful friendship attitude towards them
practise until you feel in your heart that each human being is worthy of your love, good-will and respect
once you are adept at practising unconditional love towards others, then start to practise the same attitude towards yourself
with metta DD
So..... Why wait?
Buddhism as a practice requires a lot of patience... really a lot. To be patient in Buddhism means to be patient with yourself. This is easy to say and sounds slick, but it is pretty hard to do. So ... be patient.
Finding a daily meditation practice -- something you can actually-factually DO -- is useful. Using the same determination you once put into slimming down, just sit down, erect the spine, shut up, and focus the mind ... perhaps once a day for 15 or 20 minutes. Attention and responsibility are your allies in this practice. Just pay attention. Just take responsibility. Just keep doing this day after day after day. A little at a time, you will gather strength. A little at a time you will find that what you pay attention to shifts and changes and evaporates. But it takes patience and constancy.
Best wishes.
I really like what @tmottes had to say, and I second it. Self-compassion is huge, as is the realization that we are on a lifelong journey, and that it make take that entire lifetime - perhaps even more - to completely rid ourselves of all attachments. So we must be patient and loving with ourselves along the path.
I agree also with @genkaku - mediation is the one practice that I have gotten the most results from. Strangely enough, I can't even explain exactly how it works, or what precisely it changes or affects. But I know that when I am practicing it regularly, I feel more connected to the world, and perhaps even more importantly, my self.
Best of luck on your path - namaste'
Kwan Kev