living without attachment but with love

Isis SG

Living Without Attachment but with Love

by Ajahn Sumedho

First you must recognize what attachment is, and then you let go. That's when you realize non-attachment. However, if you are coming from the view that you shouldn't be attached, then that's still not it. The point is not to take a position against attachment, as if there were a commandment against it; the point is to observe. We ask the questions, " What is attachment ?"

"Does being attached to things bring happiness or suffering?" Then we begin to have insight. We begin to see what attachment is, and then we can let go.

If you're coming from a high-minded position in which you think you shouldn't be attached to anything, then you come up with ideas like, " Well, I can't be a Buddhist because i love my wife, because I'm attached to my wife. I love her, and i just can't let her go. I can't send her away."

Those kinds of thoughts come from the view that you shouldn't be attached. The recognition of attachment doesn't mean that you get rid of your wife. It means you free yourself from wrong views about yourself and your wife. Then you find yourself that there's love there, but it is not attached. It's not distorting, clinging and grasping. The empty mind is quite capable of caring about others and loving in the pure sense of love. But any attachment will always distort that.

If you love someone and start grasping, things get complicated; then what you love cause you pain. For example you love your children, but if you become attached to them, then you don't really love them anymore because you're not with them as they are. You have all kinds of ideas about what they should be and what you want them to be good, and you want them to pass their exams. With this attitude, you are not really loving them, because if they don't fulfill your wishes, you feel angry and frustrated and averse to them.

So attachment to children prevents us from loving them. But we let go of attachment, we find that our natural way of relating is love. We find that we are able to allow our children to be as they are, rather than having fixed ideas of what we want them to be. When i talk to parents, they say how much suffering there is in children, because there's a lot of wanting.

When we're wanting them to be a certain way and not wanting them to be another way, we create this anguish and suffering in our minds. But the more we let go of them, the more we discover an amazing ability to be sensitive to, and aware of, children as they are. Then, of course, that openness allows them to respond rather than just to react to our attachment. You know, a lot of children are just reacting to our saying, " I want you to be like this." The empty mind-the pure mind-is not a blank where you're not feeling or caring about anything. It's an effulgence of the mind. It is a brightness that is truly sensitive and accepting.

It's an ability to accept life as it is. When we accept life as it is, we can respond appropriately to the way we're experiencing it, rather than just reacting out of fear and aversion.

Isis SG

Taking personal responsibility also by Ajahn Sumedho

With mindfulness, we can be independent of the positions other people are taking. We can stand on our own two feet and take responsibility for acting in a virtuous way, regardless of what the rest of society is doing. I can be kind, generous, and loving towards you, and that is a joy to me. But if i make my happiness dependent upon your being kind to me, then it will always be threatened, because the world might not behave as i want it to.

It's clear that i would spend the rest of my life being terribly disappointed if i expected everything to change - if i expected everyone to become virtuous, wars to stop, money not to be wasted, governments to be compassionate, sharing and giving - everything to be just exactly the way i want it! Actually, i don't expect to see very much of that in my lifetime, but there is no point in being miserable about it; happiness based on what i want is not all that important.

Joy isn't dependent on getting things, or on the world going the way you want, or on people behaving the way they should, or on giving you all the things you like and want. Joyfulness isn't dependent upon anything but your own willingness to be generous, kind, and loving. It's that mature experience of giving, sharing and developing the science of goodness. Virtuousness is the joy we can experience in this human realm. So although what society is doing or what everyone else is doing is beyond my control - I can't go around making everything how i want it - still, i can be kind, generous, and patient, and do good, and develop virtue. That i can do, and that's worth doing, and not something anyone can stop me from doing. However rotten or corrupted society is doesn't make any difference to our ability to be virtuous and to do good.

AndrewPKYap SG

as far as compassion or love is concerned, you cannot have attachment because the best love or compassion does not come with attachment.

for example a surgeon that has no attachment to the patient will do a much better job than the surgeon that is the patient's lover...

hahaha... this is too chim for many people bah... just concentrate on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path if it is too chim for you....

Isis SG

The English is simple.. where got chim wah ?

Good for reading loh.

An Eternal Now SG

Good article.