No Attachment Necessary For Buddhism

[scameter]

*sigh*... Mispelled the damned title. Well, anyways: is unattachment necessary for one to become enlightened?

[Sersta]

Don't worry Scameter, i have never been overly attached to spelling either, and have found some degree of enlightenment in my freedom of not caring about it. :P

Please know that if my computer didn't spellcheck for me, you all would have a field day with my dyslexia. lol As per my haiku posted many moons ago in the haiku thread:

i am dyslexic so five
might be where seven
lives and seven where five is

cheers.

[scameter]

:D Yes indeed. I do enjoy spelling though, as I love English, and I try to pursue it as much as possible. But, messing up spelling doesn't disqualify the idea shared.

[Starry_Canopy]

scameter,

Is unattachment necessary for one to become enlightened?

I think so, yes.

Attachment is a form of mental 'possession'. We become more 'pro' something than other things. This, it seems, invariably creates disturbances in our minds like desire for its perpetuity, anger when its existence is threatened, greed for more of it, jealousy towards others who have more of it and so on.

It seems that when our mind is in a disturbed state we cannot become enlightened, that is, see everything as it absolutely is, but see things only in a distorted/ clouded way. The analogy given is that it is not possible to see the bottom of a lake without distortion or clearly when its waters are chaotic with large waves on its surface and the mud is all stirred up. Only when the waters are still and clear, we can see the bottom of the lake as it is. This is just an analogy.

Similar to the analogy, it is said, we need an undisturbed mind, one that equanimous, that has the same uniform attitude towards everything, to get enlightenment. Unattachment, or non-attachment, is a step towards making a habit of having an undisturbed mind, just like gymnasts need to first make a habit of balancing on the high beam before they can start practising back flips on it.

In one of Adi Shankara's shlokas (devotional poems or hymns) it says:

From being together with, in the company of, spiritual persons, comes dissassociation with worldly pursuits/ worldly life as we know it.

From disassociation with the 'normal' worldly life comes non-attachment towards worldly things.

From this non-attachment comes equanimity.

From equanimity, freedom from samsara while living (being in the world and not of it, enlightenment).

[scameter]

Ah, I see. Just making sure more than anything. It is funny, however, how many other spiritual traditions bear similar ideas, even if the dogma is different. If only someone could interpret religion without dogmatic bias, and with accompanying objectivism and realism.

[Taeguk]

Hi, scameter!

You wrote:

If only someone could interpret religion without dogmatic bias, and with accompanying objectivism and realism.

What makes you sure people aren't interpreting it thusly?

In my experience, quite a few people do exactly this! It's just that the fanatics get more press :lol: A bunch of suicide bombers or Biblical fundamentalists can easily garner a lot more attention then people quietly living their lives, aware that every moment is luminous with the divine.

And from the brief time I've spent on thebigview,it would seem that just about everyone here tries to do exactly that!

Incidentally, you may want to check out Aldous Huxley's book The Perrenial Philosophy, scameter. Its focus is on the similarities between different religions, and what that similarity implies.

[scameter]

Indeed, perhaps it is simply because more are quiet. But, still, even with those attempting to be objective, dogma, or some other bias, often inhibits them, myself included, unfortunately. I think the simple existence of emotion in individuals can cause this. Thanks for the book suggestion, I'll certainly try it out, when I can afford to that is. I've heard of Huxley before, but really only in name. Could you tell me more about him? :)

[Taeguk]

Hi! :)

scameter, you asked:

I've heard of Huxley before, but really only in name. Could you tell me more about him?

Sure! :)

Aldous Huxley was a writer, psychologist, and philosopher. His best known work is the dystopian novel Brave New World, which I think is relevent now more than ever. He was also very much interested in mysticism, psychic phenomenona, and the effects of mescaline and LSD. Another famous work of his was The Doors of Perception, about the effects of mind-altering drugs. He took the title from a poem by William Blake, and the title inspired Jim Morrison to name his psychadelic rock band The Doors (they later went on to win fame, and fortune, culminating in a burnout that was all too common for young artists in the 60s.)

Anyway, if you get a chance, check him out! I really think he's one of the lesser appreciated thinkers of the 20th century!

[scameter]

Yes indeed, he does sound interesting. My only problem with people like him, Jim Morrison and Aleister Crowley that thought of drugs as being capable of "opening the doors of perception", is that I disagree with that viewpoint. I personally agree with Colin Wilson on this, that drugs simply narrow the mind even further; even if they do open our perception more, it is much less directed than our normal mind. People like Blake, the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and others didn't have to use those drugs to be intelligent and perceptive.

[Taeguk]

Hi, scameter!

You wrote:

Yes indeed, he does sound interesting. My only problem with people like him, Jim Morrison and Aleister Crowley that thought of drugs as being capable of "opening the doors of perception", is that I disagree with that viewpoint. I personally agree with Colin Wilson on this, that drugs simply narrow the mind even further; even if they do open our perception more, it is much less directed than our normal mind. People like Blake, the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and others didn't have to use those drugs to be intelligent and perceptive.

Oh, I'd agree with you 100% on this!

I'm not actually sure what Huxley concluded in The Doors of Perception (I haven't read it, although it's by far his second most famous work), but his conclusions about acid and mescaline shouldn't influence his overall view expressed in The Perennial Philosophy.

He was also acutely aware of the dangers that can come from people being too accepting of drugs---that's (one of several) central messages of Brave New World (which I've read many many times).

It's interesting you mentioned Crowley (...:devilish: ...); according to a story I heard somewhere, it was Crowley who introduced Huxley to mescaline at some crazy party in London! :lol:

[scameter]

I'm not actually sure what Huxley concluded in The Doors of Perception (I haven't read it, although it's by far his second most famous work), but his conclusions about acid and mescaline shouldn't influence his overall view expressed in The Perennial Philosophy.

What makes you say that? :)

It's interesting you mentioned Crowley (... ...); according to a story I heard somewhere, it was Crowley who introduced Huxley to mescaline at some crazy party in London!

:D Well, actually that is why I mentioned him. I read that Crowley, in the 50s I think it said, introduced him to peyote, from which mascaline derives.

[oboe2damax]

Welcome to the forum!! :)

Obviously people have become enlightened in the past without attributing it purely to the effects of drugs, but then again, where were these people raised, in what environment, and what was the surrounding society like when they lived.

The influence of money, power, success and failure are not new to our environment. Trade and politics were potent forces in the old days as well. However, what I do think is different is the amount of noise, distraction, and polution in our society. Think about loud sounds of city life, bright lights that keep us from experiencing the dark of night, the constant stressors in a fast paced digital lifestyle. There is much more polution these days that cloud our minds. Drugs seem to offer a quick escape from this polution. However, while it seems like a quick fix, our mental faculties do not assist in it. Our minds our pulled along and given the experience that we ache for. Sure, such an experience is irreversible and our outlook on the world may seem more "enlightened" but it is a passive experience. It may be important to give us a taste of an experience we are naturally seeking, but not as an end in a spiritual quest. Our minds can achieve such states without alteration. Even in a society saturated with all kinds of mental polution, our minds can still break away and develop through meditation. Meditation enables you to achieve desired states of clarity without the limitations of a drug. For example, to increase the effects of a drug, you have to take more or move to a harder drug. But with meditation, your mind is under your control and the possibilities are limitless.

That's my take on the drug thing.

We are taught growing up that money is equivalent to success, poverty is equivalent to failure, and that drugs are bad so DON'T EVER TRY THEM. Basically I feel as though we are raised to believe many things that are not true, but they are simply taught to us to avoid the consequences of the alternative, scare your children into success and they will never be a failure

Maybe we need to use an authoritarian "JUST SAY NO" campaign until people are mature enough to see and think for themselves. People can rationally decide and experience why drugs are a bad way to go, but it takes a certain level of maturity. But there is a danger in this approach. When people are in the questioning/rebelling teenage phase, and they decide to experience things for themselves, they may think "my parents lied to me! This drug feels pretty good, that's just another reason to distrust my parents's stupid law." By this phase a mature personalized reality-based conversation may be required. Such an approach would show respect and maturity and elevate the level of discourse between the parent and the child.

[sahyo]

the silence of meditation is the one and only fool proof in all cases and under all belief systems way to feeling and being good

meditation not a "way to feeling and being good"

cannot "of mediation"?


:)

[Taeguk]

Hi, sahyo!

You wrote:

meditation not a "way to feeling and being good"

Why not?

You also said:

cannot "of mediation"?

Why no "of"?

[Noway2Zero]

cannot "of mediation"?

Why no "of"?

either you are meditating or you are thinking "of" meditation as though seperated from the action

[sahyo]

:)


yes

would explain using word "action"?

[sahyo]

meditation not a "way to feeling and being good"

Why not?

meditating cannot 'about'

[Eidelweis]

meditation not a "way to feeling and being good"

Why not?

meditating cannot 'about'

Isn't it truer to say "meditating cannot 'about' " for sahyo? For me, meditating can and does 'about'; it can and does promote my inner peace and happiness ('feeling good') and this relects in greater positivity in my attitude towards my environment (a necessary condition, I think, for 'being good').

[Taeguk]

Hi! :)

Eidelweis, you wrote:

Isn't it truer to say "meditating cannot 'about' " for sahyo? For me, meditating can and does 'about'; it can and does promote my inner peace and happiness ('feeling good') and this relects in greater positivity in my attitude towards my environment (a necessary condition, I think, for 'being good').

It does for me, as well! And it would appear that psyche has a similiar experience with it, as well.

What I think sahyo is trying to get at is that meditation should have "no goals" (in the "Zen" sense of that phrase); that is, one shouldn't try to use it to seek some particular "state" since to seek any given state is to set up a speration or duality that doesn't exist.

I believe she's suggesting you're already "there"; any sense of "lack" or "abscence" is an illusion, an imaginary seperation you've created. You're already "there" and in point of fact there is no "there".

(this is what I think she's saying! Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, sahyo :) )

Of course, however true the above interpretation might be, it also doesn't change the fact that people do experience "inner peace" or "good feelings" from meditation. Granted, after a certain point it seems these experiences of "good feelings" are dissolved (where there are no "bad feelings", or attachment to any sort of "feeling", how can there be "good"), but many people do still experience good feelings.

Given that psyche's comment was originally in the context of drugs and addictions, I think it makes perfect sense to look at meditation in terms of "feeling good/being good without detrimental consequences to one's physical and mental well-being, or the well-being of others".

As an example of this, meditation techniques are increasingly being used as means to help people get off drugs and sort out their lives. Since the 1970s non-religious (but obviously Buddhist inspired) "mindfulness therapy" has been available in most hospitals in the United States, and more recently Buddhist activists have been teaching the Dharma to troubled youth.

[Noway2Zero]

would explain using word "action"?

ing ;)

one shouldn't try to use it to seek some particular "state" since to seek any given state is to set up a speration or duality that doesn't exist.

nice.. :)

the imaginary circle :think:

wanting happiness - wanting = happiness..

remove the goal.. not reverse it.. not create a new goal like not wanting happiness, that would be the same.. only in reverse ;)

remove even thought.. a "happiness" to work towards

let go,

faith,

meditation

as a way of life.. as life.. Living

[sahyo]

Isn't it truer to say "meditating cannot 'about' " for sahyo?

no

For me, meditating can and does 'about'; it can and does promote my inner peace and happiness ('feeling good') and this relects in greater positivity in my attitude towards my environment (a necessary condition, I think, for 'being good').

if are imagining-I (me-my-mine), are thinking-about, are not meditating

[sahyo]

one shouldn't try to use it to seek some particular "state" since to seek any given state is to set up a speration or duality that doesn't exist.

yes but imagining-separation-seeks, so seeking doesn't "set up a separation or duality that doesn't exist"


taeguk...when sahyo no wording for posting, search net for wording:

In the state of passion without a cause there is intensity free of all attachment; but when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginning of sorrow. Most of us are attached, we cling to a person, to a country, to a belief, to an idea, and when the object of our attachment is taken away or otherwise loses its significance, we find ourselves empty, insufficient. This emptiness we try to fill by clinging to something else, which again becomes the object of our passion.

When passion has a cause it becomes lust. When there is passion for something - for a person, for an idea, for some kind of fulfillment - then out of that passion there comes contradiction, conflict, effort. You strive to achieve or maintain a partcular state, or to recapture one that has been and is gone. But the passion of which I am speaking does not give rise to contradiction, conflict. It is totally unrelated to a cause, and therefore it is not an effect.

[sahyo]

n2z

:thumbsup:

[sahyo]

you're already "there"; any sense of "lack" or "abscence" is an illusion, an imaginary seperation you've created. You're already "there" and in point of fact there is no "there".



:thumbsup:



seperation you've created



would explain, please, "you've created"?