How to give up attachment?

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Whoknows11
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:34 pm

How to give up attachment?

Post by Whoknows11 »

Hey
I've been following this forum for a while now, and have finally decided to create an account.
I'm familiar with the concept of enlightenment and how it is attained. However, I have been struggling within my own life to put this into practice fully. When I find my time consumed with responsibilities it becomes near impossible to detach. I am fully conscious of this massive flaw and how hypocritical it is to my overall thinking, yet in the end I cannot reason myself to fully detach from these responsibilities. Hence my dilemma, I cannot be free of all attachment and my sense of self/ego only builds.
How do you all deal with this in your own lives? How can I practice non-attachment whilst continuing to work, clean, cook etc. (despite the obvious contradiction)?
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: How to give up attachment?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Whoknows11 wrote:Hey
I've been following this forum for a while now, and have finally decided to create an account.
I'm familiar with the concept of enlightenment and how it is attained. However, I have been struggling within my own life to put this into practice fully. When I find my time consumed with responsibilities it becomes near impossible to detach. I am fully conscious of this massive flaw and how hypocritical it is to my overall thinking, yet in the end I cannot reason myself to fully detach from these responsibilities. Hence my dilemma, I cannot be free of all attachment and my sense of self/ego only builds.
How do you all deal with this in your own lives? How can I practice non-attachment whilst continuing to work, clean, cook etc. (despite the obvious contradiction)?
Whoknows, why do you think your responsibilities like working, cleaning and cooking are attachments? Or are these activities so amazingly complex and involving that they leave no space for anything else? Or what do you think attachments are? Or do you think that non-attachment is some giant activity or a lack of it altogether? Perhaps you could start with casting some doubt on your conceptual grasp on how enlightenment "is attained". Questioning your self is always a good start instead of starting with declaring this or that.
Whoknows11
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:34 pm

Re: How to give up attachment?

Post by Whoknows11 »

Diebert, thanks for the response.
I used the examples of working, cleaning and cooking to try convey my attachment, as these are things which do occupy a vast majority of my time awake and can cause me significant stress in trying to stay on top of it all. I associate these activities as attachments because I have emotional attachment to them, I feel they're a necessity, my mood will even alter based on their status.
I think non-attachment isn't necessarily a lack of activity, more a dissociation with activities that you are doing. Acting without emotional reaction.
I agree, questioning is vital, but I have come to a dead end myself, hence I am here asking for some direction or at least a few new perspectives.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: How to give up attachment?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Who knows, it seems to me like you're too focused on those attachments as problems. Solving the problem of how to manage the more obvious ones would be closer to a self-help program or advice from a psychologist. The philosophical interest is more about knowing and addressing the root of all attachment including the issues you're not seeing right now. It's not concerned that much about "ridding" oneself of this or that. If activities give such a significant and obvious stress then the solution is often more practical and based in common sense. Not a pure philosophical issue as such. So a new perspective would be not to add to the stress the idea of having these "bad" attachments. If you're really interested in knowing "root causes" and value the wisdom of that, your interests will start to shift spontaneously when the time is ripe. So perhaps it's a question of surrendering to the very process, the "dead end" which is needed because you still might think there's "somewhere" to go, the idea to self-improve while you can only tend to your garden of thought and attention while letting nature decide the course.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: How to give up attachment?

Post by Dan Rowden »

Stop thinking about non-attachment immediately. Think about what you are instead.
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