I wrote a wonderful post about the power of letting go. And then somehow my laptop ate it, and I lost the post in the either. Just gone. Fitting, no? Not only was I forced to let go of my oh so brilliant hard work, but I also had to stop my futile attempts to salvage it. And then I had to stop trying to rewrite it.
Letting go, it seems, is letting go. And now the post is about attachment, of course.
So here goes…
THE SPECTRUM OF ATTACHMENT – THE STRONGER OUR NEED, THE GREATER WE CLING
Pema Chodron once said, the Buddha was someone who walked out the door, and just kept walking. HIs life stands as a testament of liberation from economic, spiritual or emotional encumberments. Many people interpret this to mean that attachments are bad, and that we should let go of everything at all cost. But while renunciation is the foot of meditation, once we have loosened our grip on things, the path to liberation continues back to service to our world. What about our families, friends and communities? And what of the Buddha’s own family? Were they actually smiling beatifically in shining light as he walked away? Probably not, as they undoubtedly had their own attachments. It always hurts to free our attachments. Sometimes it has to happen for our own growth and the health of others. But, when we do release the attachment, it’s possible to come back with a fresh perspective. Siddhartha left family and position, but when he became awakened, the Buddha gathered sangha and his family around him in a community of wakefulness.
It is possible to see the path of the Buddha in stages. The blissful ignorance of his self absorbed privilege, the renunciation of entitlement, his enlightenment, and his return to the world as a teacher, healer and sage. The first stages can be seen as allegorical. We are kept in the darkness of comfortable entitlement until we give in to the nagging internal pressure to discover what else there is for us. In order to do that, we might turn away from our attachment to the life we know, especially if that attachment is causing pain for ourselves or others. At some point, however, we might return to the things with which we were attached with love and awareness and in so doing find healthy ways to express our love. Modern psychologists talk of attachment theory, delineating a spectrum of pathological and healthy attachments. From the perspective of our spiritual path, we can look at the phenomenon of attachment and similarly see it has positive and negative qualities depending on our intention. Aside from seeing its positive possibilities, we might even see that demonizing attachment is in itself an attachment. It all depends on our intention.
When we are feeling confident, comfortable and content, we are less likely to cling to our attachments. The worse we feel, the lower our self-assessment, the harder we cling to things. This clinging becomes a panicked grasping at golden straws, enticing but ultimately without essence. The more we cling , the more we strangle the object of our clinging and the less we are able receive sustenance from our connection. When we don’t receive sustenance, our hunger grows. The hungrier we are, the more we cling. THe more we cling, the less we see. This is a shame, particularly when the things to which we are clinging are important to us. So we have an understandable attachment. But when we lose our sense of self-worth, we begin to grip and cling. Then we stop seeing the object. We have gone from appreciation to need. At that point, we no longer see the object of our clinging for who they are. They have become merely bling in our narcissistic ensemble, accessories to our masquerading. Even those we pretend to love become conflated into two dimensional tools. How often are we not seen even surrounded by those who profess to love us? We are objects of attachment. This feels hollow. And when we feel hollow? The reflexive remedy is for us to cling to something else.
But it is important to remember the doctrine of Basic Goodness. If we are able to see the goodness in anything, we can develop the ability to understand it. Attachment is the same energy, in essence, as mindfulness. The word for mindfulness in Tibetan is “Trenpa” which means “to hold to”. But mindfulness in the meditative sense implies awareness. And attachment in the pathological sense implies non-awareness. This apparent binary can be seen more clearly as a spectrum that extends from the open awareness of appreciation to the bling panic grasping of reflex. The role of confidence is key. Confidence allows us to hold to that which we love with open palms. Confidence, or you may say faith allows us to see and appreciate the things we love. Confidence also allows us to let them grow and become what they are meant to be. On the other hand, the greater our feeling of emotional poverty, the more need. The more we need, the more fearful we are, and the tighter we cling. The tighter we cling, the less we see. The less we see the more fearful we are, the tighter we cling. So our work is to begin to see this process, so that we can honor our world instead of trying to control it.
I have developed a map of the spectrums to help recognize the stages of mindfulness / attachment. But the basic point is, are we opening up in confident awareness or shutting down in reaction to fear?
This is not a solid system. In fact, it’s pretty much made up. You can create your own map, or your own words. Although, I am particularly attached to mine, so here we go:
PERCEPTION > APPRECIATION > OPENING > CONFIDENCE > INQUISITIVENESS > COMMUNICATION / GROWTH >
PERCEPTION > FEAR > NARROWING > PROJECTION > OWNERSHIP > IDENTIFICATION > ADDICTION / ISOLATION
