Attached to Attachment?

Very often when one is confronted with a term or concept which has been given a new or different meaning to the one customarily associated with it, it helps if one goes back to its roots. By determining what the original and proper meaning was, or what it’s common usage is, one can more readily relate to its adopted meaning.

When we refer to a dictionary, we are informed that ‘attach’ means to bind or fasten; to connect or associate; to join in action, function or affection; to seize or arrest. And attachment consequently is the continuing action of doing those very acts. But then how does this relate to ourselves, our ‘self’ and our mind. How did egocentric-grasping come to be related to attachment. After all, most of the descriptive terms refer to physical objects. Most, except ‘to associate’, which for the greater part is a mental act of comparison and relation, and then possibly also ‘to join in affection’.

Whenever we indulge in one of the mind poisons, like deluded thinking and ignorance, hatred and anger, desire, jealousy, or pride, we are inclined to linger on these thoughts. It is as if we want to savour every little bit of them. We are afraid that if we let go of them too soon, then we may not have exhausted their full potential. And in a way that is true. But, have you ever thought what exactly it is that you are trying to make the most of?

We experience our surroundings by means of our senses, i.e. we perceive by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting. And then from the information that is fed to our brain, we assimilate, interpret, analyse and finally create our reality. Depending on where, how, when and by whom we were raised, our reality might conform with the general reality of the people or community around us, we have a converging reality, or we may feel very out of place, consciously or other. With this is meant that we may feel contend in ourselves, but at the same time perceive everybody and everything around us as being out of place, i.e. wrong.

If we feel we fit into the present scenario as we are experiencing it, then we will be satisfied, possibly even ecstatic, with the way things are and we will want this situation to continue indefinitely. We will want to cling to this state of bliss, no matter how slight it may be. It is familiar to us, and it pleases us. But if it makes us feel uncomfortable, either due to it being unfamiliar and thus we cannot associate with it or relate to it, or because we can do exactly that but we do not recall it being to our liking, then we will deny or negate it. And again our mind will want to do something with this state of affairs. It just cannot leave it be and let go. There is after all so much emotion, sensation, and feeling in this perception that it is worth experiencing over and over, until every possible angle and approach has been examined to the nth degree.

Only once we, or our mind, is satisfied that it has totally exhausted all possibilities with regard to a particular situation, will that event be allowed to be put to rest, unless some other more intense or acute event distracts and allows the process to reengage on other sensations beforehand. Our mind attaches to the new sensations and perceptions, and the regurgitating drain begins again. Every single bit of imagery that we can recall, down to the tiniest detail, is replayed over and over in our mind. We really make sure that we experience this past event, or event to happen in the future, prim and proper. Nothing is left out. Every conceivable possibility or deviation is put to the test. How we should have handled, or will handle, the situation when it happens / again.

How many people ever seriously consider the fact that you can only experience a particular situation, or moment, once. And that is as it happens. Before it may never come to fruition, and thereafter it is the past and at most of academic value. You are not going to change anything about that which has happened. You can learn from it, if you are wise enough, but no matter what, you can not and will not change that which has happened. Nobody can turn back the hands of time. You can certainly review the past, but that is all. No chance of changing. No Sir! None what-so-ever. You most definitely can create a new set of events, related to that particular occurrence, but you are still not going to alter the original set of events. This is once again due to impermanence prevailing.

But this inherent characteristic of wanting to repeatedly shape the future or change the past is what attachment is all about. We cannot let things be the way they happen naturally. Our ego dictates that we will have an influence on our surroundings. They are after all our surroundings. Not the general surroundings. Not just surroundings. Nor even everybody’s surroundings. They are OUR surroundings. And we damn well will have them be the way WE desire. Not the way society wants, nor the way the community wants, and even less the way some other stranger wants. Whatever happens around ME must be to MY liking or I will be affected in a way I do not like. That is all there is to it.

After all, as soon as we start living in the moment, with the moment, for the moment, with our only aspiration being to benefit everybody else around us, we might loose our identity. That is how we have been brought up, or in more modern terminology, programmed. And horror over horror, we might even become detached from our concept of ‘self’. And without a ‘self’, or as it is more commonly referred to an ego, to relate to, what are we. If we do not have this ego to steer us through life, we seem to think we will become selfless and lost. The concept in most beings’ minds, at least if not all sentient beings then at the very least human beings, is that we are everything. Very few realise that it should actually be the other way around. Everything is us.

But, as soon as we come to this realisation, or have this awakening, then a lot of other things also start falling into place. Let go of your concept of ‘self’, and you loose your attachment to most other things in life. Real or imagined. And without the ‘self’ coming in the way of emotions, conversations, things other people say, what happens around you, what is expressed about the way you look, how you dress, your likes and dislikes (oh yes, your are still allowed to have preferences and make choices), and a myriad of other things, life suddenly becomes almost easy and painless. That’s right, you stop to suffer.

You may well still wonder what attachment has to do with this. It is simply because we attach so much relevance or importance to our ego and how it relates to everything else about and around it. You can have preferences, but as soon as you become attached to your likes or dislikes, you cause yourself suffering. You can form opinions, you can create your own heaven or hell around you, which in itself will cause you suffering, you can even try to structure the environment around you to your own liking, but the moment you try to impose, or even worse inflict, it upon other sentient beings, then you will also start to cause them suffering. Unless your concept of reality should converge with their concept of reality, in which case you could possibly have a co-merging reality. But that is another topic altogether. Just as why the creation of heaven around you can cause suffering, if not to others, most definitely to yourself.

And how does one remedy this aspect, or affliction, of attachment. Very simply by letting go. And this is once again easier said than done. Especially when most people have been brought up in a materially orientated world. That does not mean that you have to have grown up in affluence, but you will most certainly have become acutely aware of the material wealth around you, and that you are either a ‘have’ or a ‘have-not’. And generally it is perceived that the ‘haves’ are better of than the ‘have-nots’. Whether this is so, is totally irrelevant at this point in time. What does matter though is, that as soon as you awaken to the fact that there is nothing on this planet earth that you can take with you one day when you depart, your attachment to luxury and abundance also begins to wane.

Nobody is saying you now have to give up everything and that it is pointless to work for things you may need. What you should do though, is to reconsider the things you want. Contemplate why you want them, and whether you really need them. After all, does an expensive luxury car take you that much softer, quieter, faster or whatever to the end of your journey, than an average priced car? How often do you listen to the CD which you absolutely had to have. Or was it just being able to say you have got it, or had it the day it came out? And for how long will you continue to listen to it? Every day for a week. Thereafter once a week, then once a month, then once a year. And after that you can proudly say you have got it. But if you are perfectly honest, you can’t recall when last you played it. How many dresses or pants or shirts can you wear how often, and why can’t you be seen dead or alive in the same T-shirt or sweater twice. Just how many people are seriously going to remember what you were wearing on a particular day, unless of course it was so far-out and outrageous that nobody else would be seen dead or alive in it. Strange is it not, that most people will wear the same jacket, coat or windbreaker more than once, but not what is underneath?

And at the end of the day, what really matters is not what is underneath the coat, or even underneath the clothes underneath the coat, but what is inside them. Hmmm. Ever stop to think about that, and forget to start again?

Something to ponder on:

In an old Buddhist tale there were two monks who were walking to a monastery. On the way they had to cross a fairly deep, rapidly flowing river. At the rivers edge was a woman standing wondering how to get to the other side, since she did not want to get her dress wet, and couldn’t very well take it off. The older monk noticed the woman's dilemma and said to her, "Come, let me help you get across." He picked her up, waded through the waist deep river, and put her down on the other side. The two monks then continued their journey to the monastery. That night the younger monk had a restless sleep, knowing that as monks they had taken vows not to come in contact with women, and fretting about the fact that his brother had broken that vow. The next morning he said to the elder, "I cannot contain myself any longer. You know that as monks we are not supposed to look at women, let alone touch them. Why did you pick her up?" The older monk was totally surprised and said, "I only picked her up to put her down on the other side of the river. You are the one who is still carrying her around!"

(Originally written July 1999)

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