The Path Of Non-Attachment...
Hello my friends,
As I mentioned in my previous post regarding the "Things I believe in..." I 've decided try and write a post on something I have been thinking about a lot lately. It is something that I feel is important and at the same time very hard to put into words. Anyone familiar with Buddhism will know this as The Path Of Non-Attachment. A quote from the The Dalai Lama can basically sum up how Buddhist feel regarding how we attach our selves (mostly our egos) to things that we feel will make us happy or feel good:"Attachment is the origin, the root of suffering; hence it is the cause of suffering."
Another quote that I found on the Wikipedia page for Buddhism that might help us understand this theory of Attachment is the following:
"Suffering is caused by craving or attachments to worldly pleasures of all kinds. This is often expressed as a deluded clinging to a certain sense of existence, to selfhood, or to the things or phenomena that we consider the cause of happiness or unhappiness."
I will be the first to say I don't totally understand the entire Buddhism religion or beliefs and that I'm not writing to preach Buddhism, but I do believe in a lot of the principles and I'm realising the more I can detach myself from things, the more things seem to just "be" and aren't as heavy and in turn they aren't as big a deal (good and bad). I am writing this post in hopes that someone can read it and think it makes sense and possibly start thinking about attachment and suffering in their own lives. It takes a lot of work and we have to work on this everyday if we want to detach from certain things like our phone when we leave it somewhere, our sports team when they lose at the end of a game, our favorite shirt that rips, or even at a deeper level the things we love very much . This might sound crazy and these ones still have a ? by them in my mind but if we want to be free from suffering than we have to detach from everything. This doesn't mean we stop living and loving, just the opposite happens when we are not so attached and dependent on things for our happiness. It seems more than ever we depend on "things" to bring us happiness. We've heard it 1000 times, if we get that raise we'll be happy, when we go on vacation we'll be happy, when we meet the right person it'll be great, when we get rid of that piece of shit car we'll be better... when "this" happens we'll be happy! We'll guess what? Things in life are never stable (it's a fact) and we really don't know what is going to happen from moment to moment so there is no reason to attach yourself to anything because most times you'll just be let down which will then cause suffering (and who wants that!). Again, I'm not trying to preach here, just hoping that someone may see what I've begin to see over the past little while, that we really shouldn't be attached to anything. This might sound odd but when you start working on it, it can really change how you perceive things and open your mind. I've read a few times that a good way to get used to this is to give something that you really, really, really like (and are probably attached to) to someone else. I'm sure it'll be hard at first but after you do it you will hopefully realise your not that attached to it anymore and it really had no affect on your happiness! If anyone decides to give this a shot, please leave a comment and tell us how it goes... thanks for checking out the blog and take care! Adrian
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