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| Repeat action, form habit, deal with addiction |
What is
attachment? It's basically a kind of
addiction, trying to find happiness in things that have never given true happiness, in things that aren't worth the effort. And we do it again and again and again.
Partly, this is from a lack of imagination. We can't imagine other ways of finding happiness. Partly, it's from a lack of skill. We haven't [yet] mastered other ways, other approaches for finding happiness.
And partly, it's simply a lack of knowledge. We're not paying careful attention to what's going on. So in the practice [of Buddhist meditation or cultivation] we try to develop more imagination, more skills, more knowledge..
What sort of dis-ease is there in the body, what sort of dis-ease is there in the mind, that incites you with a sudden urge to try to alleviate that sense of dis-ease in the same old way you've tried before?
Exactly what are the triggers, what are the feelings? Watch them arise; watch them pass away. You'll begin to realize that the need you have, say, for a particular kind of food or particular kind of pleasure, a particular kind of object, a particular kind of relationship is not permanent.
In other words, if you don't give in to that old impulse, the need is not going to stay there. It goes away. If it's a basic hunger, you may need to feed the body, but you don't necessarily have to feed it with something that's going to cause trouble later on.
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| I'm addicted to this enlightenment show! |
But so many of our other "needs" last for just a little while. If you have enough endurance to watch them from a different vantage point, you can watch them go away and you're done with them for the time being.
A whispering voice in your mind might say that the impulse may be gone for now, but it's going to return, so why don't you just go ahead and give in now. But you don't have to be intimidated by that whispering voice.
You can tell it, "We'll deal with its return when it returns. Right now I want to get over this one hurdle." If you get good at watching the need arise and pass away, you develop a greater sense of
detachment from it.
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| Hmm, sex is frustrating as soon as I desire it. |
The Buddha also says to look for the actual gratification you get out of trying to fill that need in the old way.
After all, if there weren't any gratification at all, you wouldn't go for it. And you won't understand it enough to really
let go of it if you keep trying to deny that the gratification is there.
At the same time, look for the drawbacks. Learn to compare the two. Is the gratification really worth the price?
If you can't think of any other way of alleviating that need or desire, that's where you need to develop skill and imagination. A lot of the training is aimed at expanding your range of imagination.
ATTACHMENT: "clinging" (upadana), according to the Path of Purification (Vis.M. XVII), is an intensified degree of craving (tanhā, lit. "thirst"). There are four kinds:
- clinging to sense pleasures
- clinging to views
- clinging to [the belief that merely following] rules and rituals [can bring one to enlightenment]
- clinging to personality-belief.
Happinesss
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| Meditation is for the dogs, the good dogs. |
It's possible to find happiness in life without giving in to your old attachments. The more you see the drawbacks of the attachments, the more willing you'll be to listen to the Dharma to expand your imagination of what's possible.
The Buddha himself said that as he was practicing, the idea of having to give up his sensual pleasures didn't appeal to him. But then he allowed himself to imagine that a higher type of pleasure was possible.
And he realized that to find that higher level of happiness, that more gratifying and more rewarding level of happiness, he'd have to give up his sensual pleasures. So for the time being, that's what he did. He didn't totally undercut sensual passions at first, but for the time being he told himself to put them aside.
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| Deep meditative states are pleasurable (piti), bubbly, full of bliss, zest, and energy. |
That's how he was able to get the mind into states of concentration that provided an even deeper and more gratifying pleasure than sensual passion could provide.
You'll notice this as you work with the breath. There come times when just the process of breathing can feel really gratifying. There's a very strong,
intense feeling of pleasure [
piti] that feels almost sensual.
But as the Buddha says, it [
jhana] is not sensual. It has to do with the form of the body, as opposed to sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and outside tactile sensations. But it can feel really good in a very visceral way. That's important.
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| Processed sugars are poisons to the body. |
Once you see that there's this possibility, it's easier to let go of your other desires as they arise. You've got something better.
There's a passage where the Buddha says that the reason we get so stuck on sensual desires, sensual pleasures, is because we don't see any
other alternative to pain. But when you see that there
is an alternative and, as you reflect on it, you see that it has fewer drawbacks, greater rewards, and that you can learn how to tap into it when you need it, then it can be your new attachment -- a much better one.
If you want to call it an addiction, it's
a healthy addiction, as opposed to the unhealthy ones you've pursued in the past.
So in the beginning it's a matter of learning to imagine yourself accessing the pleasure of concentration, realizing that there is that possibility, and then developing the skill. That way, having developed the skill, your knowledge gets more precise.
After a while you begin to see that the level of concentration you've obtained is not as gratifying as you might like. So you can ask yourself: Are there deeper, more gratifying levels of concentration?
The Buddha says there are. Again, open your imagination to that idea and see what's there in your present state of concentration that's still a burden, still stressful, still unsatisfactory. Learn to let go of that. ...
Antidotes for Clinging
But if you don't grab [seize, clasp, cling to] these things, your mind doesn't suffer. It's when you grab on, it's when you cling, that stress comes into the mind. You create a clinging-aggregate.
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