non attachment

[Bindi]

I'm contemplating non attachment at the moment, and this is where I've got to so far, I'd like some feedback on this though. 

 

Non attachment, I gather, is the basis of Buddhism. The place to carry out non attachment, as far as I can see, is in the heart. This idea is from a dream where I am in a warm room with a fire in the fireplace before non attachment is attempted.

 

Non attachment from what? Keeping it really simple here, from desire (or desires, more generally?).

 

What about anger? I am perceiving something more than non attachment? I suspect that anger needs to be completely extinguished, not just detached from?

 

And lastly, can anyone tell me if there is a Taoist equivalent to non attachment, and to extinguishing anger?

Edited February 16, 2015 by Bindi

[Seeker of Wisdom]

From:

*Physical and mental things - like cakes, jhana, etc.

*Rituals and practices - 'I must have this exact zafu!'.

*Views - ie. wrapping yourself up in conjecture about stuff, grasping concepts.

*Views of the self - 'I am this' 'I am not separate from anything' 'I am everything' 'I do not exist'.

 

Non-attachment comes in Buddhism from directly perceiving how attachment is problematic, so that the mind realises attachment just isn't a great idea. Grasping onto stuff is the key problem and recognising this naturally flowers into letting go.

 

Anger is also an issue which has its basis in ignorance and attachment, so as insight drops attachment, it will also drop anything that anger could root itself on. With no holding on to views of self, for example, there is no idea of 'them vs me'.

[rex]

Attachment is one of the Three Poisons that helps to keep the Wheel of Samsara turning. In the Mahayana there's a teaching spoken by Manjushri called "Parting from the Four Attachments" which goes:

 

“If you are attached to this life, you are not a true spiritual practitioner.

If you are attached to samsara, you do not have renunciation.

If you are attached to your own self-interest, you have no bodhichitta.

If there is grasping, you do not have the View.”

 

There're lots of commentaries on it on the web.

 

Anger and other emotional poisons are treated differently by the different Buddhist yanas/vehicles. The posions are either eradicated, neutralised with an anitidote or transformed. Here's an explanation:

To illustrate the differences taught in the various yanas [i.e., paths], Dudjom Rinpoche always used to recount the story of the poisonous plant. The plant is a symbol for emotional defilements or negativity.

 

A group of people discover that a poisonous plant is growing in their backyard. They begin to panic, as they recognize that this is very dangerous. So they try to cut down the plant. This is the approach of renunciation, which is taught in Hinayana as the method to eradicate the ego and the negative emotions.

 

Another group of people arrive, and, realizing that the plant is dangerous, but that simply cutting it will not be sufficient since its roots remain to sprout anew, they throw hot ash or boiling water over the roots to prevent the plant from ever growing again. This is the approach of the Mahayana, which applies the realization of emptiness as the antidote of ignorance, the root of ego and negativity.

 

The next group of people to appear on the scene are the doctors, and when they see this poison they are not alarmed; on the contrary, they are very pleased, since they have been looking for this particular poison. They know how to transform the poison into medicine rather than destroying it. This is the tantric approach of the Vajrayana, which does not abandon the negative emotions, but through the power of transformation uses their energy as a vehicle to bring realization.

Quote taken from here.

 

Edit: tpyos

Edited February 17, 2015 by rex

[Ish]

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Edited April 4, 2018 by Ish

[Marblehead]

Well....I cannot say exactly about taoism.

Taoism allows us to have attachments with our vacuum cleaner.

[Bindi]

 

Attachment is one of the Three Poisons that helps to keep the Wheel of Samsara turning. In the Mahayana there's a teaching spoken by Manjushri called "Parting from the Four Attachments" which goes:

 

“If you are attached to this life, you are not a true spiritual practitioner.

If you are attached to samsara, you do not have renunciation.

If you are attached to your own self-interest, you have no bodhichitta.

If there is grasping, you do not have the View.”

 

There're lots of commentaries on it on the web.

 

Anger and other emotional poisons are treated differently by the different Buddhist yanas/vehicles. The posions are either eradicated, neutralised with an anitidote or transformed. Here's an explanation:

 

Quote taken from here.

 

Edit: tpyos

 

Thanks for this overview, and I really appreciate your great quote from Dudjom Rinpoche regarding the various paths. It allows me to follow my perception, and go directly to the Mahayana path

[rex]

Thanks for this overview, and I really appreciate your great quote from Dudjom Rinpoche regarding the various paths. It allows me to follow my perception, and go directly to the Mahayana path

[Anderson]

I'm contemplating non attachment at the moment, and this is where I've got to so far, I'd like some feedback on this though. 

 

 

?

 

Dont contemplate.

Non-atachement doesnt exist.

[dawei]

 

And lastly, can anyone tell me if there is a Taoist equivalent to non attachment, and to extinguishing anger?

 

I think in Laozi, I would say the equivalent is:  Embrace the One; Hold the Center.

 

In Zhuangzi, I would say the equivalent is to get beyond 'this or that'; there can be nothing upon which one 'depends' on something.

 

 Stevenson mentions the difference "between physical flight that rides on physical wind and metaphysical flight which needs no wind:"

 

Lieh Tzu [列子] could ride the wind […] but after fifteen days he came back to earth. […] He escaped the trouble of walking [while riding the wind], but he still had to depend on something to get around. If he had onlymounted on the truth of Heaven and Earth, ridden the changes of the six breaths [liu qi 六氣], and thus wandered through the boundless [wu qiong 無窮], then what would he have had to depend on? Therefore I say, the Perfect Man has no self [wu ji 無己], the Holy Man no merit; the Sage no fame (Watson, 26).

 

 

Source:  The Question of the Wind in Zhuangzi