"A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It is not our thoughts, but the attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. "
Overcoming attachment does not mean becoming cold and indifferent.
On the contrary, it means learning to have relaxed control over our mind
through understanding the real causes of happiness and fulfillment,
and this enables us to enjoy life more and suffer less.
"Demons frighten us because we set ourselves up to be frightened. We are overly attached to our reputations and possessions. When we love and desire what we should be rejecting, we are in conflict with our true selves.That's when the negative energies catch us and use our weapons against us. Instead of taking up what we have to defend ourselves, we put our swords in the hands of our enemies and make them attack us."
Central to the Buddha's teaching is the doctrine of anatman: "not-self." This does not deny that the notion of an "I" works in the everyday world. In fact, we need a solid, stable ego to function in society. However, "I" is not real in an ultimate sense. It is a "name": a fictional construct that bears no correspondence to what is really the case. Because of this disjunction all kinds of problems ensue. Once our minds have constructed the notion of "I," it becomes our central reference point. We attach to it and identify with it totally. We attempt to advance what appears to be its interests, to defend it against real or apparent threats and menaces. And we look for ego-affirmation at every turn: confirmation that we exist and are valued. The Gordian Knot of preoccupations arising from all this absorbs us exclusively, at times to the point of obsession. This is, however, a narrow and constricted way of being. Though we cannot see it when caught in the convolutions of ego, there is something in us that is larger and deeper: a wholly other way of being.
Attachment to beliefs and ideologies have led to global war, famine, political, social and economi upheavals, destrruction of our habitat and general dysfunction on all levels of society because they divide us from each other.
If you want to know why and how reincarnation happens, let us make an experiment. Lie down, and see that the body, and above all the nerves, are completely relaxed. Then repeat, slowly and with attention, these words, trying as you do so to convince yourself that they are entirely true; “I abandon here and now all worry, all preoccupations, all personal will . . . I wash away all grief and regret, all spite and vengeance....I give up all personal love, all plans, all longings, and all hopes for earthly things.”
If you really try to be sincere in making these assertions, I defy you to speak the words without misgivings. Certain flame-hot fibers will revolt in you, will refuse such a surrender and contradict any such undertaking. Those are the threads that will drag you back to earth. Inevitably!
Spiritual states have nothing in common with your memories, or with the imaginings and intellectual interests of your earthly being; but those memories impress their emotional attraction upon your Ego-consciousness, and this prevents its liberation and causes you to return to earthly existence, by attraction, by the yearning for completeness. This is one of the most important aspects of the law of karma.
"Many spiritual seekers get "stuck" in emptiness, in the absolute, in transcendence. They cling to bliss, or peace, or indifference. When the self-centered motivation for living disappears, many seekers become indifferent. They see the perfection of all existence and find no reason for doing anything, including caring for themselves or others. I call this "taking a false refuge." It is a very subtle egoic trap; it's a fixation in the absolute and all unconscious form of attachment that masquerades as liberation. It can be very difficult to wake someone up from this deceptive fixation because they literally have no motivation to let go of it. Stuck in a form of divine indifference, such people believe they have reached the top of the mountain when actually they are hiding out halfway up its slope. Enlightenment does not mean one should disappear into the realm of transcendence. To be fixated in the absolute is simply the polar opposite of being fixated in the relative. With the dawning of true enlightenment, there is a tremendous birthing of impersonal Love and wisdom that never fixates in any realm of experience. To awaken to the absolute view is profound and transformative, but to awaken from all fixed points of view is the birth of true nonduality. If emptiness cannot dance, it is not true Emptiness. If moonlight does not flood the empty night sky and reflect in every drop of water, on every blade of grass, then you are only looking at your own empty dream. I say, Wake up! Then, your heart will be flooded with a Love that you cannot contain."
Monks, when ignorance is abandoned, and knowledge arises in the monk, with the ending of ignorance and the arising of knowledge he clings neither to sense-pleasures, nor does he cling to views, nor to precepts and vows, nor to a Self-doctrine. Not clinking, he is not disturbed; not disturbed, he attains individually nibbana.
Being attached is what prevents us from seeing, it is what clouds this miraculous awareness.
My body, thus, and all my good besides,
And all my merits gained and to be gained,
I give them all away withholding nothing
To bring about the benefit of beings.
Attachment to the results of love's labour destroys it all.
The World Is Your Oyster.
The world is your oyster. Yes, but in that oyster is the pearl; and to get to the pearl one has to first discard the shell and the flesh.
I'm not [a Buddhist]. The whole point of anything that is really, truly valuable to your soul, and your own growth, is not to attach to a teacher, but rather to find out what the real deal is in the world itself. You become your own guide. The teachings can help you, but really, we're all here with the opportunity the reality of hereness. We all have that. I trust that...I'm just not interested in labels. I find all of them constrictive. They're hard to wear. And they're hard to wear because we're always - hopefully - growing.
Sometimes we find that we like our thoughts so much that we don’t want to let them go.
Once you stop clinging and let things be, you’ll be free, even of birth and death. You’ll transform everything.
The essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances.
A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there's work to be done.
No words, phrases, or sentences are capable of describing or naming the Way, because once it is named, it is a false name and has to be eliminated. Once it is eliminated, only emptiness is left. When the false is abandoned, the true emerges.
Clear mind is like the full moon in the sky. Sometimes clouds come and cover it, but the moon is always behind them. Clouds go away, then the moon shines brightly. So don't worry about clear mind: it is always there. When thinking comes, behind it is clear mind. When thinking goes, there is only clear mind. Thinking comes and goes, comes and goes, You must not be attached to the coming or the going.
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
There is pleasure when a sore is scratched,
But to be without sores is more pleasurable still.
Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires,
But to be without desires is more pleasurable still.
It's not the appearance that binds you, it's the attachment to the appearance that binds you.
First we conceive the "I" and grasp onto it.
Then we conceive the "mine" and clink to the material world.
Like water trapped on the water wheel, we spin in circles, powerless.
I praise the compassion that embraces all beings.
To Karma (action) alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction.
The more attached we are to a vision of the future,
the less present we are to what is actually trying to emerge here and now.
Contrary to what some people might believe, there is nothing wrong with having
pleasures and enjoyments. What is wrong is the confused way we grasp onto these
pleasures, turning them from a source of happiness into a source of pain and
dissatisfaction
So often it is only when people suddenly feel they are losing their partner that they realize how much they love them. Then they cling on even tighter. But the more they grasp, the more the other person escapes them, and the more fragile the relationship becomes.
So often we want happiness, but the very way we pursue it is so clumsy and unskillful that it brings only more sorrow. Usually we assume we must grasp in order to have that something that will ensure our happiness. We ask ourselves: “How can we possibly enjoy anything if we cannot own it?” How often attachment is mistaken for love!
Even when the relationship is a good one, love can be spoiled by attachment with its insecurity, possessiveness, and pride; and then when love is gone, all you have left to show for it are the “souvenirs” of love, the scars of attachment.
The Buhha was a monastic, but the practice of mindfulness in the context of any lifestyle is one of renunciation. Every moment of mindfulness renounces the reflexive, self-protecting response of the mind in favor of clear and balanced understanding. In the light of the wisdom that comes from balanced undertanding, attachment to having things be other than what they ar falls away.
[The] path of self-purification is hard and steep. [One] has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms.
There are those who will dismiss love as a naïve and romantic construct of our culture. Others will wax poetic and tell you that “love is all,””love is the bird call and the glint in a young girl’s eyes on a summer night.” Some will be dogmatic and tell you emphatically that “God is Love.” And some, according to their own experience, will tell us, “Love is a strong emotional attachment to another…”etc. In some cases you will find that people have never thought of questioning love, much less defining it, and object violently even to the suggestion that they think about it. To them love is not to be pondered, it is simply to be experienced. It is true to some degree all of these statements are correct, but to assume that any one is best or all there is to love, is rather simple. So each man lives love in his limited fashion and does not seem to relate the resultant confusion and loneliness to this lack of knowledge about love.
