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Attachment
Choephal
UK Veteran
in Philosophy
“Attachment is the root of suffering”
Sunakkhatta Sutra..
“ But still worth it”...Drew Mackintyre.
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It’s something that is often not fully explored, that as humans we form intense attachments to mother and father, to partners, to children, and that many thinkers on self development consider life to be incomplete without these attachments. That in a way they make you more mature, while also creating a full range of emotional responses from affection and love to irritation and anger.
It reminds me of an Osho quote:
“Do not fear experiences, because the more you experience, the more mature you become.”
Are we all not masters in the development of our own dissatisfaction?
If only there was some teacher or teaching that can justify the development of some attachments because without attachments what reason would our egos have to rule their imaginary kingdoms.
Why threaten a lifetimes devotion to dreaming when a Budddha's awakening offers little more than the loss of the only identity one's ever known?
@Kerome I think that attachment to peace can lead us to avoid attachment to other pleasurable (sometimes
) things like relationships.
I think that’s certainly true @Jeffrey ... we come to Buddhism because we seek peace and refuge from the turmoil of our minds, and then when we find peace it’s rare that those people realise that part of the price they pay is the intensity of their relationships.
It certainly seems like there are more than a few Buddhists who are good at being alone. Whether that is because they sought peace or some other natural inclination I find it hard to discern.
Relationships between Buddhists, or at least those I have known, seem to be at a different level than relationships between ordinary people. It’s as if two beings who are both focussing on peace meet up, and there is love but less passion.
If one wanted to develop an attachment, an attachment to peace is one of the less harmful attachments to have.
Keep in mind though that the degree to which one develops an attachment to peace is the same degree to which quietism and the tendency to be unable to act when it is appropriate to do so, is really just another one of suffering's causes.
I guess it depends on whether one believes that using one attachment to overcome another one can be done with skillful means or if it just adds another complexity to a problem that always had a much simpler solution.
Some of the warnings to monastic's to not become like a Pratyekabuddha Buddha, stem from the problems of indulging in such attachments.
Do you not think that peace will come, regardless of whether you seek it and form an attachment to it? It felt to me like as soon as you start to seriously deal with the defilements, you achieve a quiet mind and peace is there, to a certain degree.
The problem of quietism becomes less when you train in alertness, although one also needs a deeper openness and a readiness to action. Often one can be alert in the senses but not alert in the deepness of the mind.
How so? What are your favs?
Attachment is so interesting. There are so many questions invoked when I examine it closely.
The greater the attachment, the greater the anguish when we suffer the loss but what is lost and where does it go?
Did my relationship with my Mom cease when she transitioned from her physical form or did it get shifted to another level? Did my Mom herself cease to exist? In what sense did she ever exist in the first place? Does it even make sense to think in terms of existence and non-existence?
Maybe it is true that everything is right here and now. No coming, no going. No birth, no death. When conditions allow, things happen. Until then, they stay hidden within the potential for everything.
I don't see family life and love as an attachment like the kind of attachment born of craving but as a personal responsibility reflecting the way the whole of society should see each other.
Yes, but don't forget to let go when the time comes.
You can't let go while living and you can't hold on when you are dying.
Just to be clear, I am not Drew Macintyre.🙂
I saw this quoted on another site.
It got me thinking. I have had a lot of joy and a lot of pain.
Would I do it all again? Yup. It’s all worth it.
Does that constitute an unchanging personality/soul/entity?
No.
Well, it is impossible. Even if you were to encounter all those same circumstances again, you are changed by having gone through them once, and your choices would not be the same. After going through everything a second time you would be different again, changed by your new choices.
Of course. The point being that I wouldn’t attempt to avoid the joys or sorrows as a means of achieving upeksha. I would take them as they are. What Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche called “scotch on the rocks with no soda or ice...straight up”. Of course one doesn’t have to take that metaphor as literally as he did..
There are more efficient ways of achieving upeksha than attempting to avoid or flatten emotion.
Being fully present to them is one way.