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Non attachment/ Disidentification
WesternBuddhism
England New
Eckhart Tolle calls it disidentification with the mind/ Ego and Buddhists call it Non-Attachment to things, but is it best not to try and do these and just become aware instead? As in trying to do these more mind activity is created as a result.
2
Comments
Go ahead and make a mistake. Over time, it is the mistakes that float to the surface as the most credible and useful lessons no matter what name is used.
Just my guess.
Yeah, the goal isn't really about trying to get something. It's more about letting go over and over.
We aren't building something up, we are clearing away or letting our mind settle out.
Awareness is a natural human faculty. To develop it is a very Buddhist thing to do. That awareness is a mind activity, a becoming, conditioned, impermanent, unsatisfactory and not self, that any identification with it or attachment to it inevitably leads to suffering reeks of Buddhism. Develop awareness on one track and study on the other and see how long you can keep the two separate.
First, @WesternBuddhism , I have appreciated your questions and i hope they have been answered adequately.
Your intuition "not to try and do these" i feel is accurate. Doing interferes with being, and being is what we experience in the Dharma. Unfortunately, to "become aware instead "is still doing. I understand what you mean and don't mean to be picky, but your comment brings out some aspects of Buddhism that may be of help.
We don't have to become aware, we already are. Of course in meditation we drift off and then come back to awareness and feel like we have become aware again or worse that we have created the awareness, Awareness is actually self existing. Nobody creates it; it is a thing or no thing unto itself.
Yes, trying of any type causes more mind activity, but our reaction to our mind activity creates even more activity. There will always be mind activity so sit in meditation and let it come and go, don't take a position on it, no matter if the thought is ' "good" or "bad".' Slowly the mind activity will lessen.
I hope this is helpful. Just sit naively and don't look for or try to do anything and you'll be OK.( you may have a bare attention to the breath, to help you be with yourself.) Keep going, if it seems hard that's because it is, but it will get better over time.. "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"by Suzuki Roshi may be of help. Don't be discouraged if some of it is opaque, with sitting you will begin to understand it little by little.
It depends ... on you ...
Our sense of identity, our persona and karmic starting point is a fabrication. True enough. There is something amidst this personhood that is universal. It is free, unformed and goes by many explanations ...
How to get from A [insert naming] to Be? Or to put it another way, how to move from busy-body to bodhi?
Meditation and mindfulness focus are easy if we let go. Breathing is simple, gentle, an indication of our tension or natural relaxing ...
https://m.wikihow.com/Practice-Buddhism
I don’t think those two approaches... Eckhart Tolle’s disidentification with the mind and Buddhism’s non-attachment to things... are exactly identical. Non-attachment happens inside the mind, although it eventually leads to disidentification.
As I understand it both Eckhart’s spirituality and Buddhism are a shortcut on the path of awareness. Yes, you can choose to “just try and become aware”, but in doing so you are replicating work that has already been done in ancient times by the Buddha. It is useful to try and understand what you are trying to do through listening to the teachings.
The Buddha’s path is a path of gradual awakening, where sila and insight meditation leads to eventual direct experience of the mind. Dharma teachings condition the mind, practice eventually loosens the mind’s grip on awareness.
I think these are mental training means to that very end.
The less we identify or cling the more we can be objective which leads to clearer understanding and a higher degree of awareness.
Buddhism is an ongoing process of egoic deconstruction and pruning of inessentials.
As in removing our delusional blinkers and constantly questioning and shedding opinions and received ideas about ourselves, a static reality, boundaries.
@DhammaDragon is describing the mind training, the polishing of impediments, the dissipation of needless mind, body and sprat (like spirit but less fishy) attachments ...
Mind activity is part of our practice. In vajrayana, the mind is given all kinds of sadhana or practices. In mantrayana we may concentrate and let go at the end. Walking meditation and prostrations turn the body into a practice ...
In a sense we use the mind activity tendencies to tame the activity ...
I would suggest a good read and digestion of this article; it may help.
You're welcome.
Will do! In a sense it is all I have ever done
Tee hee.
If I was wise enough to learn from my mistakes, I would be an arhat asset instead of an ass hat!