Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Nostalgia
rivercane
Veteran
Would nostalgia be considered the same thing as attachment?
I've always been a very sentimental person, and the older I've gotten, the more nostalgic I've become. I often think of the past, and I am very nostalgic about certain places I've lived, people I've known, and experiences I've had. I often think of the "old days" or the "way it used to be" and it is a bitter sweet feeling.
I've always considered this a character defect on my part - I'm way too sensitive. I'm not sure if it is exactly the same as attachment though, as relates to Buddhism. Although a lot of what I think about involves people from the past that I still think about all the time and I'm sure this would be considered attachment.
Perhaps it is the same with certain places like old apartments. A few no longer physically exist but I will still drive by and picture the building in my mind and think of the past. In a way, I think it is good to be sentimental to a point; better than being cold hearted, but I'm not sure how much of this I should try to change and let go of as I continue to learn more about Buddhism.
I've always been a very sentimental person, and the older I've gotten, the more nostalgic I've become. I often think of the past, and I am very nostalgic about certain places I've lived, people I've known, and experiences I've had. I often think of the "old days" or the "way it used to be" and it is a bitter sweet feeling.
I've always considered this a character defect on my part - I'm way too sensitive. I'm not sure if it is exactly the same as attachment though, as relates to Buddhism. Although a lot of what I think about involves people from the past that I still think about all the time and I'm sure this would be considered attachment.
Perhaps it is the same with certain places like old apartments. A few no longer physically exist but I will still drive by and picture the building in my mind and think of the past. In a way, I think it is good to be sentimental to a point; better than being cold hearted, but I'm not sure how much of this I should try to change and let go of as I continue to learn more about Buddhism.
0
Comments
As my kids grow, I am happy to watch them do so. But sometimes I look through baby books or photos or boxes of memories and I sigh and think time goes too fast, and that I'm proud of who they are becoming but I miss their little hands in mine and their voices calling to me at night and so on. But I don't stay there. I don't spend hours or days dwelling on the fact that I miss the little boys they were rather than appreciating who they are now. If you are always living in the past, you cannot see what is right in front of you. But recognizing and remembering the past is ok, I think.
There probably is some amount of attachment involved with nostalgia. It essentially is remembering a positive feeling associated with whatever and then longing for its return. In the big scheme of Buddhist things to let go of it seems like pretty small potatoes. I'd just focus on your core practice and see if this doesn't fade away as you grow into it rather than making a big deal out of it.
This does not mean that such things are not sometimes quite intense. So, OK ... they're intense: Pay attention to them in the same way you might pay attention to anything else in practice. Pay attention and see what happens.
Just my take.
If you occasionally enjoy a little nostalgia...that's just life.
I guess we can get too attached to the past, like anything else. But you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with allowing ourselves a bit of nostalgia once in a while. After all, our memories good and bad are a big part of what we are today.
For some reason, that reminds me of when I was standing in line at the checkout at a store yesterday, and a very smelly, dirty old man came up behind me holding a quart bottle. He smelled like he'd been living on booze for a long time. Out of the blue, he asked me if I'd heard of Woodstock, then said his parents took him there when he was 6 years old and went on to describe what it was like in detail, from naked hippies to the bands that played. I bet he told everyone who would stand still long enough about his trip to Woodstock. But what else is he going to talk about? What it feels like to get the shakes at the homeless shelter because the booze wore off too soon? This was obviously his happier time he preferred to live in.
And I have no idea why that popped out here, except that man made an impression on me.
I guess for most of us, a bit of longing for simpler, happier times is part of being human. Long as we don't let a bit of nostalgia get in the way of making today one of those happy memories for our future self.
Recognising it as an attachment, is there anyone here that can suggest a means of letting it go, or diminish it to some degree?
I feel that some nostalgia is fine, after all, my past did shape me, but i feel that it hinders my progress somewhat.
http://aromeditation.org/
Being outside the present moment, nostalgically, futuristically, fantasy wise, distraction wise etc is why we live in a dream realm, rather than the actual real aware, awake world.
Solution = practice mind training.
Magic does not work . . . as far as I remember. If it did, waive your wandering.
I guess my situation is that meditation up to this point for me has been more about clearing the inner talking and 'monkeying' as opposed to tackling hindrances, so i'm not sure how to progress from stilling the mind to changing how i see things.
Practice is about living in the present moment, so maybe nostalgia is a signal that we are clinging onto something in the past for some reason, perhaps as a way of avoiding the future with all its strangeness.
we all do it! we all look back in to our own past and remember happy times in a certain place, age, people that we once known such as favourite teacher, friend or family member and even Era - such as Victorian, Edwardian, Elizabethan or even such as the Renascence period.
We all have past lives and memories that we have build up overtime and times gone by; and hold dear to us,
But we also have to think about our own future, Our own impermanence, and liberation from Samsara. It's ok to reminisce and think about people we used to know that have passed away and left our lives, but we must focus our attentions on their future lives and wishing that they have a favourable re birth.
I would ask myself, "Wow... how does she even enjoy the day when she's so worried about documenting everything? Does she document how she's reviewed the writings and journals after that has happened as well? Is it just this never-ending cycle of writing things down and taking photos, and revisiting them and writing about that experience as well?" What a trippy time warp that must be.
I find I take less pictures myself now as well. If I am out somewhere with someone who has children, I make sure to take pictures of them sharing experiences together and later send them the photos. Or I like to take pictures of nature or unique things I see. Otherwise? I really don't see the point in taking photos or photo albums anymore. I know there are people who would say that if their house was on fire, that they'd save their photo albums over any other material item since those photos "cannot be replaced." Me? Aside from any sentient being that I would save, there's really no desire in me to save childhood photos/videos or current ones for that matter. I figure I have the memories in my mind. And once those memories fade, so be it. Nothing lasts forever.
My girlfriend was heartbroken too, though I think I had a harder time trying to let go. Some days were better than others, but anything that reminded me of New Zealand would set me off on a nostalgic plunge (the Portuguese have a special word for it: saudade). Even seemingly non-related things would set me off just because of certain associations I would make (it got to the point where I couldn't listen to Sigur Ros or Ralph Vaughan Williams because I somehow associated their music with New Zealand and/or my GF).
The middle of last year it finally came to a head and I felt like I was dying inside. It wasn't helping me and it certainly wasn't helping my girlfriend. I think I clung so hard last year that after that I simply didn't have the strength to cling anymore. I wrote some poems last year that helped me deal with five years of moping, self-pity, and this terrible helpless feeling. I kept feeding on it in a way that was not helpful to me at all.
I do plan eventually to move back, permanently next time, but the urgency is no longer there, thankfully. I have memories of New Zealand now, but they are no longer accompanied by that same nostalgia. I've learned how to let go of that (though I have retained, purely out of habit, writing with Anglicanised spellings, if only because of the emails my GF and I write to one another). I am glad to be cured of that severe case of clingingitis!