The mental and the physical.

Any Goal is an attachment, any value is an attachment, any opinion on the way things should be is an attachment, any concept of manners is an attachment, anything you desire is an attachment, any hope is an attachment, any idea that forms in our heads has an attachment to us. Certain forms of Love has an attachment to us. Things we are passionate about are attached to us. Our families are attached to us. Connections to other people are an attachment (is it you JL, or Fresco, or both that believe all beings are connected?)

Attachment as I see it, is a very human thing, and in many cases (goals, desires, hope, love) are good things.

The realisation that attachments aren't the be all and end all, that they lead us to anger, jealousy and other negative or sometimes negative emotions leads us to awareness of what causes our negative emotions. From there we are able to become more centred, loving people.

I follow what you say about detachment - I just don't think complete detachment is a good thing...and that may come down to how I define attachment, and what I define as good.

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love is a feeling of connection to another, it need not be an attachment to the feeling of connection. If you be the authentic you and recognize when you feel connected to other people but don't aim to be connected to other people you will not have less love in your life. you will have more, because your heart is more open to connecting.

the one area where attachment is of value is maintaining connection to certain individuals. For instance I have been married for 22 years, and this would not be possible with out attachment. I am attached to her and my family enough to be willing to work to keep the relationship functioning. Just as monogamy is not the natural state of human behaviour, I don't believe that long relationships are either. We force ourselves into these unnatural situations because we find value in them.

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What I sense is that is everything is conditioned by all other things. The Universe is, if anything, a "system" of interdependencies or relationships. Another way of putting it is that nothing is completely indepenent of and separate from everything else. Moreover, there are no things, only processes, and that complicates our discussion considerably.

I also love my attachments--it is what art and literature are about, I suppose. But the non-attachment of Buddhism does not exclude "desires" or "values", etc.. That would be the affliction of detachment. Paradoxical as it sounds, we can be unattached to our attachments without being detached (viz., devoid of feelings and values).

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I see all attachments as dangerous: they deprive us of the liberating realization that all thoughts--including these--are provisional and artificial,

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I also love my attachments--it is what art and literature are about, I suppose.

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Paradoxical as it sounds, we can be unattached to our attachments without being detached (viz., devoid of feelings and values).

Thanks for the clarification JL - by your above three quotes, can you see why I posted?

By the way, this is a point of contention that has been causing some argument. I don't think one can be 'unattached to ones attachments'.

I think only that one can realise their attachments can be flawed / meaningless to others (while being meaningful to you) / based on our reality(not others reality) etc...so as you say you can be 'unattached' to your attachments in the sense that you allow that your attachments :
1. to yourself - their meaning can pass
2. to others - may not hold any meaning

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Is it not true to say, that attachments to people and things, is the driving force behind all that humans do? If you had no attachment to anything, that is you were completely detached and felt that you had no "obligation" to act for anything, what else would cause you to act?

We do things because we benefit from doing that thing in some way, even when do something for someone else, you still do that because you get a good feeling from doing it.

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existential potential wrote:

Is it not true to say, that attachments to people and things, is the driving force behind all that humans do? If you had no attachment to anything, that is you were completely detached and felt that you had no "obligation" to act for anything, what else would cause you to act?

We do things because we benefit from doing that thing in some way, even when do something for someone else, you still do that because you get a good feeling from doing it.

an ego driven person will act thusly, and most who have not been on a spiritual journey are ego driven, but there are other options. I am Zen, when I act it is because my intuition tells me I should, and because I know enough to follow my nature. Christians can act on the basis of following God's will, Muslim can act based upon following Alla and the Koran. You can't even say that their must be an attachment to God or doing the right thing, as people can follow the path of God or Alla out of submission, and we zennist can follow our natures because we know that we must stay in our place in the universe in order to do our part to promote universal harmony. Submission requires none of the cult of the individual Ego driven motivation that you speak of.

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Was thinking about love and attachments a while ago, and this thing came of it... : :wink:

A sonnet for my love, a resolution
A poem to declare commitment's reach
A theory of affection's evolution
Of how us humans live to learn and teach
We're one and many, allies and opponents
We're bound by bloodlines each and every one
A greater scheme's invisible components
And by loving all we give our love to none
But still there's one I hold highest in favor
And this one holds me equally in grace
This lovely one would be this poet's savior
And find her song upon this poet's face
And even though we're all sisters and brothers
We hold to this and so forsake all others

We are our attachments, and they make us what we are... To master this dance is my idea of enlightenment.

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Cyracuz wrote:

Was thinking about love and attachments a while ago, and this thing came of it... : :wink:

We are our attachments, and they make us what we are... To master this dance is my idea of enlightenment.

Our attachments are the chains that bind us, and those who can choose their chains are better off then those who can't, but better still is the ability to live without chains if we so choose. We are in chains fully by choice.

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And what is choice without these chains?

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All reasonable and stimulating comments.
I want to respond to Victorr's reasonable reservation regarding the illogicality of being unattached to one's attachments. At a certain (higher?) level of consciousness we CAN--and should do so.
This is similar to Nietzsche's notion of AMOR FATI, the notion that spiritiual fulfillment (in a kind of "this-worldly" spirituality, not unlike that of zen) comes in the form of the full acceptance of everything that has happened to you--including a willingness to reexperience your life (exactly as it is) over and over again forever. This acceptance pertains even to the miserable moments and conditions of your existence: you embrace EVERYTHING. I see this as a "grand UNattachment" to all attachments, a non-discriminating larger perspective on what, at a lower practical level of living, we are continuously attaching.
Life is paradox; logic, when used as a "spiritual" tool, is not much more than antiseptic.

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JLNobody wrote:
"But the non-attachment of Buddhism does not exclude "desires" or "values"."

I thought that Buddhism held that the elimination of desire is what we must strive for.

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existential potential wrote:

JLNobody wrote:
"But the non-attachment of Buddhism does not exclude "desires" or "values"."

I thought that Buddhism held that the elimination of desire is what we must strive for.

the elimination of forced attachment, desire washes over like any other emotion. Buddhism does not do way with emotion, it frees us from being controlled by our emotions.

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EP, if Buddhism advocated the extirpation of emotion, the pre-frontal lobotomy would be more economical than meditation.

The "non-attachment" of Buddhism is a very subtle matter. Very few seem to intuit its meaning without sustained work.

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...the notion that spiritiual fulfillment (in a kind of "this-worldly" spirituality, not unlike that of zen) comes in the form of the full acceptance of everything that has happened to you...you embrace EVERYTHING. I see this as a "grand UNattachment" to all attachments, a non-discriminating larger perspective on what, at a lower practical level of living, we are continuously attaching.
Life is paradox; logic, when used as a "spiritual" tool, is not much more than antiseptic.

Hi JL,

I follow what you are saying, yet (in acceptance of/embracing all things) I still see attachment in there. However, the idea did pop into my head that accepting/believing/viewing all attachments as being unattached to yourself would be just the same as if they weren't (ie as a point of contention we would then just be playing word games, rather than debating anything meaningful)

I came across a saying a few days ago regarding the subconscious mind "it can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality", and "it can't tell right from wrong" - basically it accepted whatever input the conscious mind sent it. Or in otherwords, whatever we believe, is true for us. If we have a concept/belief of being unattached - that is true for us.

Hmmm, it is also possible that we can also make such a belief the primary basis through which we filter all other thoughts/experiences.

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Vikorr, I appreciate your rigour. There DOES seem to be a kind of attachment in the "acceptance" of EVERYTHING, good, bad, and otherwise. But I would contend that it is of a different nature than the attachment process based on picking and choosing. Nietzsche's "amor fati " or zen's "satori" make no such distinctions, and THAT is fundamental to their nature.

BTW, it does seem to me that the "subconscious" mind IS the ignorance of any difference between fantasy and reality. I should think this ignor-ance is its principal function. And the zen perspective, as I understand it at least, sees no absolute difference between the mental categories, right and wrong, good and bad, valuable and worthless, etc. It is non-dualistic, but does not hesitate to make artificial/conventional distinctions that serve relativistic pragmatic ends.

I would like to filter my experiences through a nondualistic perspective, but, being human, I find it irresistable to make polar distinctions even though I think I see them for what they are. The same applies to the illusory sense of self, a major attachment.

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I would like to filter my experiences through a nondualistic perspective, but, being human, I find it irresistable to make polar distinctions even though I think I see them for what they are.

I would think that the ability to make polar distinctions, while often (perhaps always) flawed, does serve a purpose. If you are striving to achieve something (which achievement will be long and difficult), do you use all tools that come your way, or do you select the ones you think will help you achieve the goal? In choosing, you must make polar distinctions.

That's on the grand end. Yet on the day to day end, I would say we use this ability for even the small day to day chores and goals.

As we are constantly in motion (enery/spiritual/mental wise if not always physically), we would want (by nature I think) people who are moving in the same direction as us, rather than against us. At it's very basic root, this is where people decide 'bad/good', 'right/wrong', 'friend/foe' (and of course, from such, we are capable of making up long term morals/values etc)

I think it's in the last paragraph where we are capable of using a different filter, like the one you want to use, but perhaps we also must realise that we can't do away with polar distinctions, as they serve a purpose.

Hmmm...that's probably (one part of) where my objection to 'unattached' making people indecisive - if they do away with polar distinctions entirely, I could see how that would contribute to being indecisive.

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I do not think it is possible to do without the "error" of dualism or the "illusion" of an ego/self. They are both essential to human life. But that, of course, does not make them philosophically correct. They are useful errors and illusions.
Our spiritual and philosophical well-being requires, however, the ability to do without them in refreshing/liberating moments of meditation/reflection.

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Hm... I am just wondering, how much time of any day does an average person spend in consciousness of the self?

I am not looking for any number or other sort of estimate for an answer.

The way I see it the ' "error" of dualism or the "illusion" of an ego/self ', are not universal aspects of experience, but rather situation specific. They are tools we utilize when the need arises.

The trouble is that when we involve ourselves in the daily bustle as if immersing ourselves in a tub of water, these tools are constantly applied. And we are so efficient at applying them that we come to think that they are there regardless of what we decide, that they are absolute and real . That is attachment, as I see it.

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Hehe...
I realize that perhaps I'm just recycling what others have already said...

Sorry :wink:

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If you are, you are saying it better.
I too find myself repeating you. But I take pleasure in finding other ways to say the same thing. Sometimes approaching a subtle point from more than one angle makes it clearer.

I like your original example of "attachment."

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The mental and the physical.

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