Defining Attachment

I usually write my posts on Thursdays, so I was expecting there to be one last post on Mindfulness on th 31st. However with a sick family at home and all the other busyness of life and motherhood, it is suddenly Sunday, and it's now June! So on to our next topic...Attachment!

According to Buddhist Scholar Jeffrey Hopkins, attachment in the Buddhist context means,
"The disturbing emotion that exaggerates the good qualities of an object that one possesses and does not wish to let go of it." Another Buddhist Scholar, Alex Berzin, explains that the concept is confusing for us westerners because in modern psychology the word attachment has a positive connotation in some contexts. It can refer to the bonding that occurs between a child and parent. Psychologists say that if a child does not have the initial attachment to the parents, there will be difficulties in the child's development. The Buddhist connotation of attachment is hard to translate into English because it refers to something very specific. When the Buddhist teachings instruct that we need to develop detachment, it does not mean that we do not want to develop bonds such as the parent-child bond. What is meant by "detachment" is ridding ourselves of clinging and craving for something or someone. It's the craving that is the problem, not the object or even the enjoyment of it.

One of hte most proficient teachers in the area of attachment is Venerable Robina Courtin. Ven. Robina is a fast-talking no-nonsense Buddhist Nun originally from Australia. I had the opportunity to stay with her and attend to her needs for two weeks some years back and she had a profound impression on me. As I was shaving her head on the first day she asked, "so do you want to be a nun?" Whether it was partnership or the nunhood that I wanted, she encouraged me to get on with it and do some work to get where I want to be. Lazy would never be used to describe this nun who used to be editor of Mandala Magazine. She now runs the Liberation Prison Project in addition to travelling around the world teaching. She also runs pilgramages to Buddhist holy sites for those with a lot of extra cash in their pockets. She often discusses attachment and karma in her talks and uses the example of chocolate cake to explain attachment, since it is one thing to which many of us have a strong attachment (don't worry she talks about sex too! No topic is off limits for Robina). Here is a link to a video of a teaching she did in California recently titled "Buddhism and Chocolate Cake: How to be Happy." There is a transcript version on the site too if you can't play the video. Following is a small piece of the transript to give you a little taste. Enjoy!

"Attachment is, you know, everyone in this room will have a different definition so please chuck-them out and hear this definition because this is Buddha's. It's a neurotic state of mind; all of them particularly do have a function of over exaggerating certain aspects of an object. So when you are attached to your boyfriend, assuming you have one, he will look, probably, especially in the beginning, he will look divine to you, won't he? Isn't it, when you're in love, you can't believe this divine person from their head to their toenails. Of course, after a while when he, you know, farts between the blanket instead of in the toilet, [Laughter]--you slowly, you start going down here and your attachment kind of gets punctured a bit and isn't so handsome after all. We all know that one, when you're really hungry for the chocolate cake, this is a simple point, but profound, it looks divine doesn't it? It's like vibrating deliciousness. And this is the point the Buddha's making: we think it comes from the cake, we think the cake is divine, you think your boyfriend is divine until you start realizing his mistakes, because you're blinded, because attachment in the mind, it's like you've got honey, what do you call them, rose-colored spectacles on. Everything will look just hunky-dory,just gorgeous, which is an exaggeration of reality. It's an exaggeration of reality, when you don't like that boyfriend, after 6 months you can't stand the sight of him, every time you look at him now, nothing looks nice. He looks really ugly, that's because now you've got your angry glasses on. You're aversion glasses on. When you've stuffed so full four pieces of cake, the cake looks disgusting now.

So we just go, this is normal, but these, Buddha says are states of mind. Attachment exaggerates the deliciousness and then has the energy of hankering after it, believing when I get it, that I'll get happy, which is expectations, and then possessing it, especially if it's people and things, it's mine! All of these are function of this cute, simple word, ―attachment.‖ And it comes from the deepest and the most energetic level. It is the expression, this attachment, of a deep, deep primordial sense of dissatisfaction. An aching sense of I'm just never enough. I do not have enough, whatever I do is never enough, whatever I get is never enough. Check our lives. This is a deep disease we have and this is the deepest habitual expression of this label,―attachment, which seems so abstract to us.

Dissatisfaction, what do you mean, with what? Well with everything. You get up in the morning and you just, something's just not right, you know. We can have it, some people have it very deeply, always unhappy, always, no matter what they get, they can be multimillionaires and be the best body in the world, dissatisfied. Always unhappy and that gives rise to, therefore I must get this, and I must get that and when I get this it'll fill up the gaping hole. This is the way attachment works. And Buddha says it’s the default road for life, it's what runs all of us, it's the motor that propels us from second to second of our experiences. This, and it gets down in the big bones, right down deep where we can only see it when we practice meditation and concentration and really be our own therapist, we get to hear the words how easily exaggeration, not just some physical feeling, you know. Anger's the same, depression the same, so because of this deep attachment that cultivated of that gorgeous grandma's cup or my handsome boyfriend, then desperately I don't want it to change. So we live in the fantasy world. We know very well intellectually things change, we think we're--we would never admit that they don't, we know damn well they do! But, emotionally, experientially, we cling to everything as if it won't change.

So when you have finally found happiness. Look at the words. ―I have finally found happiness, we say. And you've got this divine person, you've written the novel for the rest of your life. and it's like you locked it away in a cabinet and as far as you're concerned, it's permanent. And look at the devastation when it changes. I always remember reading an article in the ―Vanity Fair. I like reading magazines, learn about human beings. And it was an interview with Nicole Kidman when she was with Tom Cruise. Now she's with that nasty Australian bloke, what's his name? Anyway, the singer, you know. And she has two children [inaudible], Faith and Sunday, that's right. I read the papers. So anyway, whatever. When she was being interviewed in Vanity Fair when she was with Tom Cruise still, she said at the end of the article, ―We will be together until we're 80. [Pause] Of course, that's how we think isn't it? And then she covered herself and said, ―Well, of course if we won't be, I will be devastated."  Venerable Robina Courtin Feb 9, 2012 Chico California

If you want to hear more from Venerable Robina check her out on Judith Lucy's Spiritual Journey or on this show. There was also a documentary written about her and her work for the Liberation Prison Project called Chasing Buddha. It's great if you can find a copy!

Practice: This week try to recognise the clinging nature of attachment. At this stage let's just look at the sticky feeling when we are attached to something. Maybe even try some chocolate cake and see how it looks to you before eating, after eating a few bites and when you are finished. And let me know how it goes.


Metta,

Dharma Mama