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Dont cling to anything
Namada
Veteran
Buddhas teaching can be summed up in four words, as Ajahn Amaro said:
"Dont Cling to anything".
There are many weapons we can use to overcome clinging.
But the main weapon is to be aware, and observe.
And use wisdom to let go: See things as not self, impermanent and unsatisfactionary.
But do we use these "weapons" well enough?
Its easy to think things are impermanent, but its easy to forget when you are stuck in dukkha.
We all know how difficult this is not to cling to things in our life.
We are clinging to sensual pleasure, what is right and wrong, opinions, likes and dislikes and so on.
We often say "Yes" when it goes our way and "NOOO" when things turns out to be bad.
What do you cling to in your life? Can you let it go?
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Comments
Awesome straight-to-the-point advice. Even the teachings are just tools to be used as dispassionately as a hammer striking the nail. Don't cling to anything!
The list is probably too long for this forum to be honest. I like to think I am very slowly lettimg go of at least some of these things though.
Does he give any practical tips on how to let go?
Undrstand it as Annica, Anatta and Dukkha.
When you are the observer it created a space between you and what's perceived. This helps with not clinging
Well that is one worthy platitude. In the real world I tend to go for more clinging - tenacious clinging even . . .
Yep. Fight fiery clinging with fiery practice.
I iz so into clinging to everything . . .
I still don't really get that anatta stuff.
I guess for me it's about developing spaciousness, so the stuff that does arise can be seen from ( in? ) a bigger perspective.
Yes there are many practical tips for letting go, from teachers like Ajahn Chah,
and his students, Ajahn Amaro, Ajahn Jaysaro...
To see that everything are impermanent are important, your body is getting older, your mental formations always change, your breathing change, everything in this world are in the same boat. And thats why its nothing to hold on to, because its just a mass of suffering, (we will get sick old and one day die).
So when we see this we can therefor let go of things:
Tools for letting go.
-Make your breath as an anker, or the here and the now.
one day, you are thinking about something like "why the heck did i Do this, Iam a big Idiot".
you are aware about this and then you can count your breaths from one to ten, (many times) it will then dissapear after a while.
And at the same time use your wisdom and put in the category of: Impermanence, you know for yourself this is not going to be forever so, therfore its nothing to hold on to and you can more easily forgive your self and others.
Then you will devlop equanumity and wisdom. Things are impermanent put everything in this category.
That can work but it's only a preparatory stage really. Not wanting something and waiting for it to go away is sort of missing the point. I think it's more like allowing stuff to rise and fall without indulging and attaching, but that's a state of mind more than a method. The subtleties of Right Effort.
Yes, bad written, i didnt mean "wanting it to go away" But just observe it, if you just want, it will be craving, and just make it bigger than it is. Just observe it, with out any judgment, not telling your self this thing is bad this is good, but it is what it is.
and understand it will be a impermanent phenomen.
Ofcourse you are not escaping from things, you will face it, but with a mind of letting go.
I will call it a method, because first your are aware of what happens, and then putting everyhting in to three categories, (or one of them)
impermanent, not self and unsatisfactionary.
Lobster, you cling to tools for letting things go, that dosent count I think...
The parable of the raft applies.
Yes, the raft need to stay behind
Oh, sorry, my mistake.
Personally I don't focus on my cling film, afflictive emotions, heretical tendencies etc. I practice what I can-can rather than clinging to the anti-clinging dance . . .
I have this uncontrollable and unquenchable clinging to antique, rare books.
I have a long wish-list on Amazon and Abebooks and automatically every 24 of each month after 11 pm (25th is payday), my fingers click the right buttons to get the list shorter.
Everything is impermanent, but these books have been around for well over a hundred years.
They have survived world wars, the indifference of new technological media, and provide the link for at least five generations of human beings.
I prefer to read my Nyanatiloka Thera from my 1914 tattered copy than from the latest Tolino.
There is some illusion of permanence in impermanence after all.
It would be nice if they developed psychic teflon.
@SpinyNorman They did its called meditation practice.
Yeah I know, but that's a lot of effort, it would be nice if they came up with something in a spray can.
@SpinyNorman You have a point buddy, I feel an all pervasive sense of dukkha today.
I disagree categorically... something I cling to dontcha know.
Genkaku, yes, its a grey zone for clinging. Clinging to chocolate dosent count either
The Dalai Lama himself, clings to watches. He loves them. He's a dab hand at repairing broken ones, apparently.... He has been given quite a few, and loves his collection....
I dont think its any harm to have one collection of antique books, watches and so on, its just to go the middelway...hold on to it, and then put it down when nessesary.
I don’t think anyone really clings to stuff or feelings. There is literally nothing to cling to. Words vanish in the air. Books are paper and ink. I think the point is that all clinging is to self. That’s the only thing we really cling to.
Knowing some people as I do, I would beg to differ...
.
Well that's comforting!
I guess it's ok then (sorta) if I continue clinging to my sports car. I've wanted one since I was old enough to start thinking cars were cool - 50 years ago. I finally indulged myself a couple years ago.
Yes, but I bet if someone stole his watch collection, he would then stop clinging to it!
I read an anecdote in one of Lama Surya Das' Trilogy books (I forget which one) with regard to a lady who had a beautiful and plentiful collection of paperweights, I believe ... but decided to cut down on them because she knew she was exercising too much clinging/attachment... so she kept a chosen, special, particularly favoured few, and gave the remainder to charity shops, and some friends.
Sadly, one awful day, she suffered a severe house fire, which destroyed everything she had - including the few chosen, special particularly few favoured paperweights....
How much time do you have? I could get through my list of what I don't cling to in about four and a half minutes, including "uhhhhhh" silences.
Yes. In spite of my habitual, forgetful, and yet delusional relationship with reality, I can and will. Most of it will be let go of for lack of alternatives (sickness, old age and death).
I was just reading Rodney Smith's latest book (he's the head teacher at Seattle Insight). He is WAYYYY out there, I can barely understand him and am unsure even then! But I was reading a chapter of his book while waiting to get a chest xray for my new job. The chapter was similar in topic to this thread, and so while waiting to be called back, I sat in a hot stuffy room with fellow humans and their viruses or sore knees. The doctor's office; what an existential space where comfort is exchanged for discomfort, faith into fear, fear to relief. But beneath all that (or above it? surrounding it?) is awareness and no narrative, unless I provide the narrative. The narrative IS NOT reality. What a relief, I think.
Personally for my self (something completely satisfactory and permanently changeable) I am disarming when it comes to weapons.
Letting go does not mean we need to give up our car, partners, book collection, children, footwear, poverty, job, soft furnishings, Buddha statues or intake of dharma.
No sir.
It means letting them be. Letting their attachment to us be at rest and acceptable, gently abiding as part of our being.
We stop beating ourself up over living.
Well that is my plan.
Indeed. Well said.
Create space between internal objects too: my opinions, past, present, future, thoughts, dreams, anxieties, truths, perceptions etc.
In other words don't cling to non clinging either . . . I guess we all knew that really . . .
I'm still clingy, just not so much where myself is concerned. I cling to experiences... pleasurable experiences (ooh la la!). However the longer I've had a Buddhist practice, the less "I" matter in the grand scheme of things. I've been able to let go of clinging to myself, something that was already half untethered because I've never believed in a soul (so never took myself to be anything but a temporary being). There's a long way yet to go, but "don't cling to anything" is the direction of movement.
"Dont Cling to anything".
Even this to teaching.
You still experience dukkha just by the effort to not cling to anything.
Relax and learn to let things be.
Who you think you are, your likes and dislikes. Your hopes, your fears. Drop wanting anything, don't try and do anything! You are not the body, you are not the mind.
1...2...3... Drop everything!
Did it work? Worked for me for 3 seconds. XD
Hey, man, let's all chill like the hippys used to. Be here now!
@SpinyNorman "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass, now that was a trippy book.
Funnily enough it was that book which originally "turned me on" to the whole Boodhist thing.
Not sayin' I used to be a dope-smoking hippy or anything or course....
I only became aware of that book a few months ago, and the content itself is one thing... but the design of the book really catches you. I've never seen a book like that in my life, and I wonder why!
I actually liked a lot of it but some of it was silly. Cops create hippies, hippies create cops... That kind of stuff. I do like the blend of Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism though.
Very cool book on whole and a part of me wishes I didn't wrap it up like a present and leave it in a phone booth with a card that said "you" on it at 2 am on a university campus.
Cool!
Then it almost goes against the nature of my reading it as I was not meant to cling to it. Also why it fit so well with the thread. If I go buy it, maybe I should buy 2 and give a copy away randomly again... I think she screwed me. It's the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance all over again... I've owned that book four times and I still don't have a copy.
It's not so much the content of Be Here Now but how it is presented that makes me want to add it to my collection.
@Lobster "Letting go does not mean we need to give up our car, partners, book collection, children, footwear, poverty, job, soft furnishings, Buddha statues or intake of dharm"
Yes, letting go dosent mean to throw everything out the window, but letting go means not to identify with things, opinoins, conventions and so on, and belive its "yours" and therfor hold on to it and belive it is someting permanent. Because everything is actually unsertain.
As Ajahn Chah said:
“If our body really belonged to us, then it would obey our commands. But if we say “don’t get old”, or “I forbid you to get sick”, does it obey us? No... It takes no notice.
We only rent this house -- We don’t own it. If we think the house belongs to us; when we have to leave it, to die, we suffer. In reality, there is no such thing as a Self”