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A practice for dispersing attachments.
banned_crab
Veteran
in Meditation
I began to think about my meditation and how it effects me. I realized that instead of trying to relax I should be trying to truly understand my feelings. There is a huge difference between reading/thinking as opposed to understanding and judgment. I created my own practice for letting go of feelings. I am now able to renounce most attachments .With this practice I feel lighter. Now please dont be scared away by the length of the description or if it confuses you. This exercise has been extremely effective and I would like for you to also practice it, than maybe we can all help improve the practice together. This practice can help you truly understand what impermanence is.
The secret to this practice- I realized that whenever we feel pleasure we try to associate it with our selfs, thats why we form thoughts. We feel pleasure and we dont want to let go of it, so we try and drag on the feelings of pleasure by using thoughts. "This bread is so good, im gonna go talk about it with somebody(or talk about it to myself)." We dont realize that by the time we start thinking about this pleasure, the pleasure aspect has already dissapeared. The pleasure has come and gone, it no longer exists in time, you cant change that . Its hard for us to accept that a feeling has come and gone so we think about the feeling to try and keep the feeling alive, because we believe that the feeling keeps us alive. Its sad that through our whole lives most of us dont actually realize that thinking about it only create stress instead of the pleasure that we want it to create. This stress is of carrying weight around because we refuse to let go of the fact that these things once gave us pleasure. Just like when you force yourself to re-watch something really good but you dont enjoy it as much, for some reason your somewhat surprised that it didnt quite give you the same great feeling as it once did.
The practice- Whenever you enjoy something and thoughts about it start to arise, instead of indulging in the thoughts this is what you do. You must concentrate only on the judgment aspect of the pleasure.
Judgment- judgment is a feeling, it has nothing to do with thoughts. Judgement is an impermanent bias towards something that gave you a feeling. Judgment is the pleasure that occurs fter an experience.When you concentrate on the judgment/feeling the pleasure disappears in a few seconds and your mind becomes bored with it. So instead of thinking about the pleasure your body just says " okay whatever its kinda boring now , I don't really care anymore."
Key- The key to doing this correctly is to not mix up "thoughts" and "judgment". There is a huge difference between the two. Thoughts are a false manipulation of reality, the thoughts try to manipulate judgment in a permanent form. The problem with thoughts is that they never include the factor of time . Time plays a key role in feelings, thoughts cant manipulate time the way that judgment can. In our thoughts if we had a girl friend who loved us we believed that for our entire relationship she never for one moment ever just stopped feeling love for us. When in reality her feelings were on and off the whole time. The feeling only lasts for a few seconds, than it disperses.The feeling may re appear some time in the future but it doesnt mean the feeling is permanent. You may think about the feelings and base a relationship based on thought but the reality is that those feelings were not there for every moment of the relation ship. That is why it is so hard for us to let go of somebody we were once attached to, because we believed the feelings towards us were constant, when in reality feelings are not constant. The only thing that is constant is change. Sure we can tell ourselves " alright I know that she didnt love me for every single moment of the relationship". But thinking something isnt enough,thinking is not enough to form an understanding or a realization, thoughts are only words. You have to manipulate the judgment in your head, keep trying until you realize the feelings people have towards you are not permanent, they dont even last for longer than 10 seconds. . If nobody remembers something, does it really happen? does it really impact the present or future if nobody remembers? Thats the point of this exercise, its about realizing those judgments are not just impermanent but they are so insignificant that they last no longer than a few seconds. Thinking about the judgement seems like it keeps something alive but the feelings will no longer exist, so is it really alive?. You believe that your thoughts are real, that their delusions influence reality, but they dont. Because they cant even properly manipulate the most important aspect of reality, time.
Remember - when doing this practice try to manipulate judgment/feelings within visions. To manipulate judgement you are not day dreaming or thinking about it. Its almost like you are dreaming about it, you create a vision of what is giving you pleasure or displeasure than allow it to pass on its own, also allow it to play out like a dream on its own. Dont try and control the dream, the biggest difference between day dreaming and dreams is that you cant control dreams. Daydreams and thoughts alike try to control feelings and judgment, but we dont realize that when controlling them they lose their influence on us or may even influence us more than they actually should.
Steps:
1- So envision the person/thing/attachment that makes you feel pleasure. Make sure you try and manipulate the feeling as well.
2- Allow the vision to play out like a dream, on its own.
3- You will realize that the feeling you manipulated towards that person/thing/attachment just dissapears after a few seconds, after your mind gets bored with it.
4- If its a person it may be more difficult .Just imagine somebody feeling "love" for you, than allow the vision and judgment to just sit there for a bit and play out on its own. The love feeling gets boring and goes away on its own after like 30 seconds.
5- The key is to experience the coming and going aspect of the feelings within your vision. The feelings will dissapear after a few seconds.It should take however long it takes for you to lose interest or just get distracted by other thoughts or feelings.
6-it is important to allow the manipulation of the feelings to play out on its own like a dream, the more vivid the experience the more effective. The less control you have the better, just put in the touches that you need.
Something is realized after those few seconds, something is understood. What is realized is that the feelings are impermanent! the feelings come and go, unlike in your thoughts in which the feelings were permanent. You are not telling yourself that it comes and goes, but you are actually experiencing it .
Depending on how strong the attachment was you will have to put in more efforts and more sittings to eventually disperse the attachment.
If you do not understand something please ask me questions.
The secret to this practice- I realized that whenever we feel pleasure we try to associate it with our selfs, thats why we form thoughts. We feel pleasure and we dont want to let go of it, so we try and drag on the feelings of pleasure by using thoughts. "This bread is so good, im gonna go talk about it with somebody(or talk about it to myself)." We dont realize that by the time we start thinking about this pleasure, the pleasure aspect has already dissapeared. The pleasure has come and gone, it no longer exists in time, you cant change that . Its hard for us to accept that a feeling has come and gone so we think about the feeling to try and keep the feeling alive, because we believe that the feeling keeps us alive. Its sad that through our whole lives most of us dont actually realize that thinking about it only create stress instead of the pleasure that we want it to create. This stress is of carrying weight around because we refuse to let go of the fact that these things once gave us pleasure. Just like when you force yourself to re-watch something really good but you dont enjoy it as much, for some reason your somewhat surprised that it didnt quite give you the same great feeling as it once did.
The practice- Whenever you enjoy something and thoughts about it start to arise, instead of indulging in the thoughts this is what you do. You must concentrate only on the judgment aspect of the pleasure.
Judgment- judgment is a feeling, it has nothing to do with thoughts. Judgement is an impermanent bias towards something that gave you a feeling. Judgment is the pleasure that occurs fter an experience.When you concentrate on the judgment/feeling the pleasure disappears in a few seconds and your mind becomes bored with it. So instead of thinking about the pleasure your body just says " okay whatever its kinda boring now , I don't really care anymore."
Key- The key to doing this correctly is to not mix up "thoughts" and "judgment". There is a huge difference between the two. Thoughts are a false manipulation of reality, the thoughts try to manipulate judgment in a permanent form. The problem with thoughts is that they never include the factor of time . Time plays a key role in feelings, thoughts cant manipulate time the way that judgment can. In our thoughts if we had a girl friend who loved us we believed that for our entire relationship she never for one moment ever just stopped feeling love for us. When in reality her feelings were on and off the whole time. The feeling only lasts for a few seconds, than it disperses.The feeling may re appear some time in the future but it doesnt mean the feeling is permanent. You may think about the feelings and base a relationship based on thought but the reality is that those feelings were not there for every moment of the relation ship. That is why it is so hard for us to let go of somebody we were once attached to, because we believed the feelings towards us were constant, when in reality feelings are not constant. The only thing that is constant is change. Sure we can tell ourselves " alright I know that she didnt love me for every single moment of the relationship". But thinking something isnt enough,thinking is not enough to form an understanding or a realization, thoughts are only words. You have to manipulate the judgment in your head, keep trying until you realize the feelings people have towards you are not permanent, they dont even last for longer than 10 seconds. . If nobody remembers something, does it really happen? does it really impact the present or future if nobody remembers? Thats the point of this exercise, its about realizing those judgments are not just impermanent but they are so insignificant that they last no longer than a few seconds. Thinking about the judgement seems like it keeps something alive but the feelings will no longer exist, so is it really alive?. You believe that your thoughts are real, that their delusions influence reality, but they dont. Because they cant even properly manipulate the most important aspect of reality, time.
Remember - when doing this practice try to manipulate judgment/feelings within visions. To manipulate judgement you are not day dreaming or thinking about it. Its almost like you are dreaming about it, you create a vision of what is giving you pleasure or displeasure than allow it to pass on its own, also allow it to play out like a dream on its own. Dont try and control the dream, the biggest difference between day dreaming and dreams is that you cant control dreams. Daydreams and thoughts alike try to control feelings and judgment, but we dont realize that when controlling them they lose their influence on us or may even influence us more than they actually should.
Steps:
1- So envision the person/thing/attachment that makes you feel pleasure. Make sure you try and manipulate the feeling as well.
2- Allow the vision to play out like a dream, on its own.
3- You will realize that the feeling you manipulated towards that person/thing/attachment just dissapears after a few seconds, after your mind gets bored with it.
4- If its a person it may be more difficult .Just imagine somebody feeling "love" for you, than allow the vision and judgment to just sit there for a bit and play out on its own. The love feeling gets boring and goes away on its own after like 30 seconds.
5- The key is to experience the coming and going aspect of the feelings within your vision. The feelings will dissapear after a few seconds.It should take however long it takes for you to lose interest or just get distracted by other thoughts or feelings.
6-it is important to allow the manipulation of the feelings to play out on its own like a dream, the more vivid the experience the more effective. The less control you have the better, just put in the touches that you need.
Something is realized after those few seconds, something is understood. What is realized is that the feelings are impermanent! the feelings come and go, unlike in your thoughts in which the feelings were permanent. You are not telling yourself that it comes and goes, but you are actually experiencing it .
Depending on how strong the attachment was you will have to put in more efforts and more sittings to eventually disperse the attachment.
If you do not understand something please ask me questions.
1
Comments
It's amazing how quickly you have to let go of something once it's irretrievable.
If I need to practice letting go of my attachments, I think of all the people who lost absolutely everything they ever possessed in The spate of tornadoes the USA had recently, or in Hurricane Katrina, or the Japanese Tsunami.....
The best people to ask about how to release attachments, are those who have actually been obliged to do so.
someone who has lost something they were attached to, due to external conditions
and
someone who has deliberately let go of something for the attachment that it had become for them.
While they both have to deal with suffering, the former is a victim of attachment
where as the latter is moving beyond it's reach.
Other wise hell would just be filled with enlightened beings.
@heyimacrab I am just wondering what you mean when you say "Make sure you try and manipulate the feeling as well". How would a person go about doing that?
It seems like an interesting approach to try.
The degree of the suffering is a moot point; one person's discomfort could be another person's agony. Personal suffering is incomparable, and it's an insult to those concerned, to attempt comparisons. It takes a lot more than a lack of attachment, to attain enlightenment.
Suffering is optional. Is that not a part of your practise?
I was not inferring that the first noble truth was untrue, just that the point of the 4 NT was the inclusion of the other 3.
Oh..and my partner seems surprisingly resistant to your bonfire solution to dealing with my attachments to her.
Suffering is suffering.
It's what we do with it, that makes the difference.
I for one, certainly put myself through habitual 'suffering' every day, idiot that I am.....
Yes, resist the temptation to experiment pyromanically with your partner. I would concur.
Unless, of course, her name happens to be Jeanne.....
Between the black and white is a whole lot of grey. It's just a sliding scale where our varying degrees of our commitment to manifesting the Buddha's lessons is what determines the efficacy of their promised results. Every attachment is only as strong or as weak as the identity that we feed.
The maintenance of an attachment is just where we act as if the phenomena which we cling to or push away, is more important than the suffering that it creates.
The dissipation of an attachment is where we act as if alleviating the suffering engendered by our clinging and pushing away of phenomena, is more important than our identity which it maintains.
This choice is the moment to moment reality that all of us face in a practice.
All forms. sensations, thoughts, activities and consciousness and their attending sense gates of eye, ear, nose, tongue body and mind can be multiplied against each other to see the plethora of attachments that are possible.
Fortunately the meditation to deal with such a wide range attachments only requires our willingness to try not to energize each habituated impulse to affect phenomena as they come, stay & go.
Suffice to say some of your observations are not correct.
This guy becomes enlightened. Perfect. He gets it. What next? Decides to just evaporate into nothingness. Oh wait . . .
The Buddha (for she was that gal) decides to suffer the disbelief, questions, tribulations and life of a wandering ascetic teacher. Thanks guy.
When an ordinary man attains knowledge he becomes a sage.
When a sage attains understanding, he becomes an ordinary man.
- Zen Saying
Older Woman Customer: [to waiter] I'll have what she's having.
'When Harry met Sally'
. . . and they all lived happily ever after . . .