Dealing With Attachments

We are attached to everything and everyone. What makes attachment wrong, why does it cause us so much pain. In this meditation, we will take a look at these questions, and invite a sense of discovery that few know about attachment and how we can use it in our lives.

Transcript

Let's take a nice deep breath or two.

And when we do this we're bringing our attention to the body.

Working with the body is always a wonderful way to bring ourselves into presence,

The stillness of mind.

It relieves the mind and gives it direction so that it doesn't wander about.

So we often talk about the breath,

Focusing on the breath,

But actually we can use many different areas of the body.

But when I speak of the breath I'm referring to the body itself.

So just find some nice easy breathing.

We're not trying to force anything.

This is not a pramayana exercise.

Our breathing is just natural and flowing.

We just want to notice the breath for a few moments.

And do that while I'm speaking here.

Just notice the breath.

We'll be doing kind of a two-sided meditation.

I'll be speaking to you in the same way that I would speak to somebody that would be able to give me 100% undivided attention.

And so I'll speak very carefully and try to use the most proper words I can.

Try to use the most beneficial language that I can.

And you never want to feel as if you have to memorize any of this material while you're meditating.

And you certainly don't want to have to worry about taking notes while you're meditating.

So just remain as open as you can.

That's just setting an intention to be open-minded and relaxed and enjoy yourself.

Listen to my voice.

And any information should be retained either subconsciously or consciously.

And if we identify any attachments,

It's important to remember that we're really preparing ourselves for the obvious.

Because we will be separated from all of our attachments at some point.

I think we should know this by now,

But it helps to remind ourselves that everything that we have,

We will be separated from.

Either during this lifetime,

While we're walking and working in this world the way we're doing it now.

Or at the end of this lifetime when this body dies,

There will be a separation from everything that we feel that we own,

Everything that we care for.

This is not necessarily meant to be a sad thing,

But it is a fact.

And usually when we understand this and remember this,

We find a new zest for life,

An appreciation for life.

So it can be a very,

Very good,

Rewarding thing to remind ourselves about our mortality.

So each of us have already lost many,

Many things in this life.

When we were children,

We lost toys.

When we grew up,

We lost relationships.

Maybe some friends moved out of town or maybe we moved.

Things got really much worse when we became interested in the opposite sex.

We lost relationships and had hard feelings at that time.

Not to mention some of us that are mothers and fathers,

We lost maybe some of our freedoms and that type of thing.

We understand what loss is,

So in that respect we understand what attachments are and how hard it can be to lose something.

When we lose something,

We feel bad that it's gone,

That means that it was an attachment of some sort.

And it usually helps to remember that if it's a relationship that there is still that thread of energy that connects us from us to that person.

It will always be there,

Even if they're gone.

Because this energy that we call consciousness or this energy of life,

This life force,

This aliveness is alive both in the past,

Now,

And in the future.

It's really timeless.

Also a part of karma.

This field records and maintains the history of everything.

Everything that was,

Is,

And will be.

So in reality you're connected with everything in our universe,

We're all connected.

And if we could see this connection,

It would look like strands,

Different colors,

Different thicknesses,

Different lengths.

It would look like a web that we're actually moving through.

Like an ocean of energy.

Except these strands go through the air.

And we humans have the ability to strengthen these strands.

And basically sometimes we do it in such a way that it is not that healthy for us.

Because we forget that this strand is going to change as everything does.

Not the strand,

But the thing that it's connected to.

Everything is constantly changing.

And we can see this.

If we could see these strands of energy we would see that they're always changing.

Always moving about,

Changing color,

Changing form.

And so when we become attached to something we want it to stay the same.

We want it to produce the same feeling for us.

But it can't happen.

And that's why some attachments can be very unhealthy and very much a source of suffering for us.

And that's why it's important to understand and be aware that these attachments are happening.

And we all have them.

We're all attached to certain things in life.

If it isn't a worldly thing then it's a belief.

Or just the attachment to the freedoms that we have in this world.

Or attachment to our way of life that we don't want to lose it.

And so we will do anything.

We will fight to preserve this attachment that we have.

We probably don't even like to hear that it's an attachment because it's something that's so dear to us we don't even want to believe that it could be called an attachment.

Because it's so definite,

Something so important.

But we are attached to everything.

It could be physical or it could be mental.

Often times it's our actions of body or mind that causes these attachments.

Sometimes they're completely unintentional.

And sometimes they're very much planned by us or planned by others.

So we can become attached to a number of material things in this world.

We can become attached to mental objects,

Things that we believe.

And probably the biggest attachment of all is our own bodies for many people or the bodies of others.

Because we feel that the death or the end of this body is the end of existence for us.

And that's another trick of the ego.

We want to protect ourselves.

We want to protect others.

This is natural.

This is a natural attachment but it's still an attachment.

Good or bad,

Right or wrong,

It's still there.

So we don't have to look for more connections in the world because they're happening without us being behind the activity.

The connections happen on their own and it's not our job to force a connection or to sever a connection.

In other words,

It's not really up to us to attach or detach from something because it can happen on its own based on awareness and intention.

That's why in manifestation,

The spiritual law of detachment is that if we want to manifest something,

We have to give up the idea or our idea of the result or the end result of our manifestation to give up the idea of what we want as a result of manifesting something.

Because if we try to make this connection,

It only gets in the way.

So we can't force really anything and make it work the way we want it to work.

It's our spiritual lesson or we could say that it's nature's way of taking care of things.

That's really the power that we have is to be aware and to understand.

So attachment is a word that means grasping,

Upadana.

Upadana is a Pali term that the Buddha used as one of our stages of developing and that is the reason that we are here now.

We are here born into this world because of our attachments.

When we died in our previous life,

There was something in mind that wasn't complete,

That something drew us into the next rebirth.

It was a strong enough attachment for us to be reborn into this world.

The result is that we are here right now meditating together.

This is the law of rebirth.

That attachment is enough for us to have the karmic consequence of coming into this world again and having another rebirth.

When a person dies at the end of their life and they die an awakened being,

There is no more attachment and no more rebirth.

All of these are simple lessons that we can easily remember as we go out throughout our days.

Very easy to work with our attachments when we keep these things in mind that everything is a flow of energy.

Everything is connected and that's why we get introduced to these things,

Good or bad,

Whatever they might be.

Because we are always connected with them.

If we have an attachment to something,

We can lessen that attachment but we will still be connected to it.

We will still be aware that it's there.

It might not affect us anymore.

We may not crave it and desire it the way we did but it will always be there because of that connection.

These are just the lessons that we must learn in life so that we can grow.

Bring your attention to the breath.

And again,

When we bring our attention to the body,

We are coming into a moment of presence.

I must remind you that in this still presence,

There is no attachment.

There is nothing needed to make this moment any better than what it currently is.

There is no desire for things to be different in any way.

If we are truly present.

See if you can feel this within the body,

Within the mind,

This presence and see how it feels for you.

This is a training ground.

This is where we practice here in meditation.

The idea is to be able to take this out into the world with you.

Two ways to deal with attachments.

The first way was to understand and be aware of them as we just got done doing.

The next is to rest in the still presence at this moment and see how that feels within.

Keep focusing on the breath,

Which means some aspect of the body.

No concerns about the past,

No desires or earning for the future.

The next is to be aware of the past.

The key in being able to let go of attachments is to do it without force.

And what that means is that we're actually giving up any kind of control.

We're renouncing the idea that we have to be in control of this change.

It might sound paradoxical in many cases,

But attachment is really the desire to control how we feel about that thing which we are attached to.

If we give up our need for control,

We're actually giving up our need to be attached.

When we let go,

When we surrender,

What we're letting go and surrendering of is the control itself.

See if you can feel that presence,

Feel that freedom from attachment,

That freedom from the uneasiness and the feeling of incompleteness that it can provide for us when it's not dealt with.

Invite you to take a couple of nice,

Little deeper than normal inhalations of the breath.

Bringing your palms together in front of your heart center,

If you like.

May each one of us and all beings be well,

Happy,

And peaceful.

May no harm come to us.

May no difficulties come to us.

May we all meet with spiritual and worldly success.

And may we have the patience,

Courage,

And understanding to meet and overcome any problems or difficulties that we might face in life.

Thank you all.

Reviews

Thank you 🙏

I think this talk is fascinating & definitely resonated. Thank you!! 🙏🏻