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Attachment to Spouse and Children
I'm sure this topic has been visited and re-visit ad nauseum, so please forgive me.
What can I read and meditate on in regards to my attachment to my spouse and my children. The overwhelming love and fear of something happening to this unit that I feel is so all encompassing at times.
Some level of attachment, of course, is necessary to one's children. It makes me strive to be the most compassionate mother I can be; I strive to be a compassionate spouse.
Yet I see how even this joyous attachment can cause suffering at times.
Where can I turn to learn more about this issue?
Thank you in advance for your time and thoughtfulness.
What can I read and meditate on in regards to my attachment to my spouse and my children. The overwhelming love and fear of something happening to this unit that I feel is so all encompassing at times.
Some level of attachment, of course, is necessary to one's children. It makes me strive to be the most compassionate mother I can be; I strive to be a compassionate spouse.
Yet I see how even this joyous attachment can cause suffering at times.
Where can I turn to learn more about this issue?
Thank you in advance for your time and thoughtfulness.
0
Comments
Your spouse will die and your children will die. It's well within the realm of possibility that you will live to witness the death of one or more of your children. It's not fun to think about, but it is reality.
Embrace reality. It's scary, but it's reality and running from it only brings suffering.
I am married and a father of 4. I mention this so you know that I can relate to your experience.
I myself would also like to believe in "cluster reincarnation", although I would prefer that his mother not be in the cluster next time around.
I think it's just one of those things we have to deal with by virtue of being human.
I think from a Buddhist point of view it's impossible to know.
When a person dies, it's not a bad thing for them, it's a bad thing for us. I do want to acknowledge that if the process of dying involves suffering for the person dying that our suffering is not necessarily selfish in this sense. Empathy results in our experiencing their pain. This is compassion, not selfishness.
Once dead though, the person isn't suffering. If you believe in heaven/hell and believe the loved one is in heaven then that's a better place for them. If you believe in rebirth then their journey toward liberation just continues. If you have no belief in an afterlife then the loved one is 'extinct'. They are not suffering in any way.
The pain resulting from the death of a loved one is due to wrong view. We allowed ourselves to hold the view that our relationship with the person was permanent. We didn't come to understand that we are all processes flowing through time and that our lives are brief and fleeting. The pain is our inability to accept reality as it is. Intellectually we understand the impermanence of all things, but it takes great spiritual maturity to take this teaching from the intellectual level to the experiential level.
As I said in the first paragraph, it is not my intention to be judgmental and I will freely say that I am not of sufficient spiritual maturity to lose a loved one and not experience profound grief. I do, however, accept that it is due to wrong view on my part and it is my belief that with practice on the path my and anyone's view becomes more right.
I am not sutta savvy so I can't link to where this story is told, but one day two of the Buddha's most senior students died. When the Buddha heard the news he is said to have remarked something to the effect of 'It is like the world has just lost the sun and the moon'.
At first glance this may seem like the Buddha was sad in the wrong view sense, but I don't think that is the case. The symbols of the sun and the moon are that they are lights. These were two great lights (teachers) and the Buddha understood that with their death the world was a little darker. He seems (to me) have appreciated the loss of these two people in terms of the effect it would have on others suffering and their realizing the cessation of it with two great teachers no longer teaching.
Just food for thought.
It's wonderful to love your family but surely that love can be clarified.Not changed, not labelled, just clarified. To that end, meditation can help. The rest is bollocks. I am very happy for your blessing, for a family with genuine love is a wonderful blessing in my books.
Don't worry about it. It hurts as it should. That is the deal.
The Buddha?
Our teacher, an Ajahn in the Thai Forest tradition, was accused by a Lay person of being attached to his mother, who he was living with and caring for in her old age. His response?....... "Ofcourse, I'm attached to my mother she's my mother."
I think we are perhaps not making the necessary distinctions. Like, love, fondness, appreciation, enjoyment are not clinging or attachment. Noticing that the things a loved one did for us or with us can no longer be experienced after they have died is not attachment.
This statement from the OP " The overwhelming love and fear of something happening to this unit that I feel is so all encompassing at times." is attachment/clinging.
It's the result of wrong view.
I think attachment to things which are necessary to be attached to are part of being enlightened. Like you said, when he left everything is was prior to his awakening.
I think you are confused as to what attachment is.
If you think the Buddha leaving his family was because he was unenlightened then how do you explain his refusing his wife and mother(woman who raised him, not his birth mother who died) entrance to his monastery on the grounds they were female? His son got to go because he was male.
It's also beside the point as when I suggested the Buddha was an example of one who wouldn't have clinging toward his family I wasn't thinking of his leaving his family, I was thinking of his having ended all his attachment therefore there was nothing to cause suffering.
I was thinking of the first noble truth that there is suffering and the second noble truth that suffering is caused by our attachment|clinging|emotional reactivity|whatever term you prefer.
Loving and clinging are not synonyms. The 3rd noble truth doesn't say suffering (caused by attachment) can be ended EXCEPT as it pertains to one's family. The 4th noble truth doesn't say there is a path that leads to the end of suffering (caused by attachment) EXCEPT the suffering of losing a family member.
There is a sense of loss, of course. If there is a sense of despair then there was attachment. Despair is what we experience when our perceptions meet reality in a forceful way such as happens when we get complacent in thinking our loved ones are permanent. Intellectually we know they aren't, but experiencially we don't realize this or we wouldn't be clinging to them for our happiness and enjoyment of life. When we cling to them for happiness then when we lose them there is no happiness, just despair.
You just need to be mindful of change, be aware that change will happen and at some point it won't be pleasant. It is in that moment of change that mindfulness is key, it is in that moment that we must observe the change, accept the change for what it is, and refrain from clinging onto alternative, "better", realities that exist only within our minds. Because it is in the clinging to those alternatives "where everything is still ok" that suffering originates. That's the attachment you need to avoid.
Your lecture on the true meaning of attachment is hollow for this old dog.
I'm tired of cheap talk.
So perhaps those who forsake their life for the sake of enlightenment do so for their own personal liberation, while those who use dharma in their everyday life do so for the liberation of all? A bodhisattva?
I won't claim a canonical pedigree for this, but liberation is now, and now, and now. It includes a greater equinimity in the midst of attachment born suffering, where we know that the price of love/attachment is suffering, and accept it as such.
Let me see if I understand. Everything done must be done for the purpose of the benefit of all conscious beings and the time for enlightenment is now. What we are unsure of is if we are all simultaneously enlightened or if I am enlightened and then I help others to unbind.
Agree.
Baloney
A father who is attached/clinging to the relationship is emotionally reactive rather than emotionally responsive. This father will be happy when external conditions for happiness are present and angry when external conditions for anger are present and sad when external conditions for sadness are present. This father will not experience equanimity.
The only person who has mentioned the Buddha leaving his family is you. I didn't mention the Buddha in that context. This misunderstanding on your part is just that, a misunderstanding on your part. It is persisting even after you responded to a post where I corrected your misunderstanding.
It's textbook 4 noble truths. If that tires you so be it.
The Buddha walked away from his family, and those who joined his sangha did the same. One could remain a householder. How is this a misunderstanding. The non-attachment of the Buddha involved a life "unburdened by duties". Are we talking passed each other?
I am saying that if you think you are non-attached and a fully involved father you are kidding yourself, and if you are truly non-attached you are not an involved father, and quite possibly not one at all.
Experiencing the loss as loss. It wouldn't include despair or the sense that one's world came crashing down. It wouldn't include 'falling apart'. It would recognize the loss, the activities that used to occur that no longer do etc. This doesn't imply there wouldn't be an adjustment period as one adapts to life without the partner (or child who lived at home). It doesn't even mean there wouldn't be a sadness. It simply means the loss would not entail the suffering that comes from emotional reactivity. It wouldn't entail the despair that comes from not correctly perceiving the relationship as impermanent while the relationship is present. When this presence of mind isn't applied to relationships while they exist then it's inevitable that we will experience despair when they end.
Yes we are. You asked "Show me someone who isn't attached to his spouse and children". I answered with "The Buddha?" From this you assumed I was referring to the Buddha leaving the palace and his family in the middle of the night. I wasn't. I mentioned the Buddha as one who ended his suffering which means he was no longer emotionally reactive, he didn't cling to impermanent things or relationships though it's obvious he loved deeply.
This is the part that I don't follow. First, as I indicated upthread, I make no claims to high levels of spiritual attainment. I have a wife and 4 children and don't really like having the quality of my fatherhood questioned by someone who doesn't know me
The part I don't understand is the way you are using the word attachment. If you are using it in the same way as it is used in some explanations of the 2nd noble truth then consider me floored to hear that from a Buddhist. If you are using it in some other way consider me confused.
What part of the dharma does that come from?
Lets just disagree here.
Sorry for the mix up. My experience of mature practitioners is of monastics in the Thai Forest Tradition who embrace "the way it is" including attachment to old mum.
My bad. I meant general you, not you you. I am a father too .
Attachment to conditions, identification with conditions, being subject to birth and death. So , in a way maybe I'm being orthodox here. The good householder will not be an arhant, because he has chosen to be born into the world. There is another path that includes that, which is another thread.
Also I think some of the confusion is whether you must be a monk to actualize buddhahood or whether a non-monk can become aware of his buddha nature. I think it's clear that non monks are able to, as otherwise the ideal reality would be a world full of monks and that world would die out very quickly.
Lets agree to disagree on all of it
Anything more would just be redundant.
Good talking with you.
Not sure that having a family need entail attachment and suffering - experiences with them which lead us to feel all of the emotions that humans are capable of does not mean we are attached ... many times in the past few years I have been aware of being content to feel sad, at times intensely sad - seeing it for what it is. Family life has been a conscious choice for me and one that my parents also made in order for me to have this life ( their eventual divorce - put aside for one moment - lol ) and a healthy loving relationship does not mean it must develop attachment . As a good friend of mine wrote ... having children is a wonderful and ongoing lesson in impermanence - remember gazing at my daughter as a baby and almost seeing her grow in front of my eyes as she slept.
To address the OP most directly, and as my friend's comment was highlighting having children, spouse and family life can be enhanced and lived within the understandings of Buddhism. ( He has had his share of anxiety earlier in his life and has been a Buddhist practitioner of many years now and married and had children for the first time in his late 40's ).
There are recent parenting type books written, which I have not read, about Buddhism and being a mother and these may be of interest to you TransparentEyeball.
There are also many references to married life in the Tipitaka ( the recordings of the Pali Canon from the historical Buddha ) such as
http://http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.055.than.html.
For more on The Four Noble Truths, the online teachings by Ajahn Sumedho are very readable and practically applied in my experience, http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble.htm
Warmest wishes
Word.
Anyway...
I think I agree with the poster who said that the suffering to some extent is sublime. I think for me it boils down to trying to remain mindful in the now, as really my suffering is an illusion based on future possibilities. Even though I know this truth, I struggle so much. Great love is a blessing, but it also underscores duality to me. For with great love I face the great terror of the reality of its impermanence. Does that even make any sense. Again, exhaustion is coming through.
I think I'm going to go back through the thread again and try to digest a bit more of the wisdom contained within.