I have never lost a leg or two. I am attached to my legs, but I don't think that is what they mean by attachment is the root of suffering.
I do find I can see how attachment and suffering work by watching carefully in boring moments, and then bring the confidence of that seen experience into more challenging moments. Even in sitting zazen I can create the conditions for suffering! And I think that's the point: my grief when my father died or my fear when my I was threatened with death if I told anyone about the sexual abuse are to some extent just a normal part of life. There is the story of the aged master crying when a beloved senior student died. Setting down your belief in a separate self doesn't make one a robot, protected from life's juiciness. It lets one not add unnecessary suffering, it lets you just fix the fucking flat and move on, not missing the parent teacher conference because anger at the flat made your hands shake slowing up the tire change process, and not missing the pleasure at a tire well changed and not missing the interesting richness of the whole thing. It lets you be sad, just sad, when that is what the moment brings. Not adding to sadness not escaping from sadness Clean pure tears wiping the air clear. Sadness known, life is ready for another moment. Thanks, Chris Austin-Lane Sent from a cell phone On Aug 30, 2012, at 20:52, Email <[email protected]> wrote: > > > You need to think bigger here Chris instead of a flat tire think of the loss > of a leg or two. Real suffering. > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Aug 30, 2012, at 6:00 PM, Chris Austin-Lane <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Sorry, I can never tell how clearly my phrases are to others. "blessing" >> here is from math or computer science, meaning to mark one thing as having >> special meaning to the system. >> >> My point is that attachment is a mental attitude towards a mental formation, >> where the mental formation is given some special status above a mental >> formation , confusing "wanting x" with "deserving x", for example. >> >> So for example, I have a flat tire, but I would prefer that life were >> otherwise. the preference is not the attachment, but believing that the >> preference should be true and running from the moment of the flattire, shows >> I am attached to.what I expected the current moment to be like. >> >> I can have the same experience of a flat tire, disappointed, and see the >> disappointed feeling as just a disappointed feeling, and not move away from >> the moment of a flat tire, nor fight the right action of fixing a tire. >> >> The difference between living as an open container for life and feeling like >> a twisted up pissed off victim is not in the mental reactions, but in my >> believing the reactions, or blessing them, to borrow a math term. >> >> The above example is not pulling the desire for a full tire towards. A >> similar example could be found for not pushing away: imagine a situation >> where my feelings are hurt in some relationship, and my not acknowledging >> that hurt is blocking up the flow of the relationship. >> >> I hope I have done better in using words. >> >> Thanks, >> >> --Chris >> >> On Aug 30, 2012 3:35 PM, "Joe" <[email protected]> wrote: >> Chris, >> >> Gaa-a-ck. >> >> Bizarrely and unnecessarily contorted. I think that definition came out of >> a disaster-area, where people legitimately had better things on their minds. >> >> Attachment is to what you've GOT. >> >> Can't bear the thought of being without it?: then, you're attached. >> >> Like that. >> >> Come on; speak English. Or at least, a bona fide language of SOME kind, >> Chris? Eh? >> >> ;-) >> >> --Joe >> >> PS And, understand. >> >> > Chris Austin-Lane <chris@...> wrote: >> > >> > Attachment, my two cents: >> > >> > some sort of mental blessing or investment in a mental phenomenon which >> > makes the target seem more than just another mental entity; the opposite >> > being something "like neither pushing away nor pulling towards." >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------ >> >> Current Book Discussion: any Zen book that you recently have read or are >> reading! Talk about it today!Yahoo! Groups Links >> >> >> > > >
