Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Thubten Chodron guides a meditation on attachment, the Buddhist concept of superimposing exaggerated qualities onto people, objects, or ideas, then clinging to them as sources of happiness. She walks practitioners through a self-inventory of what they’re attached to, then asks them to select one and examine it closely: how does it actually appear to you? Are the good qualities real or projected? What unrealistic expectations arise from that attachment—that the person will always be there, always make you happy, that you’ll be protected or valued through having it? She then explores how attachment shapes behavior: the manipulative things we do for approval, the ways we compromise our ethics to obtain what we’re attached to, the dysfunctional patterns it creates. The meditation concludes by recognizing attachment as an enemy to peace of mind rather than a friend, and making a determination to counteract it rather than follow it blindly.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 GM.mp3
UUID: 46709673-ea56-4e70-8762-3ef3e403e36e
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~628
To follow-up examining how our mind is the source of happiness and pain, we’re going to look at how attachment attachment works in our life. So when we use the word attachment, it has a very specific meaning in the dharma, and it refers to a mental attitude or a mental emotion in which we exaggerate or superimpose good qualities on a person or an object or an idea, whatever. And then because we’ve superimposed projected fabulous qualities onto something, then we cling to it. We don’t wanna be separated from it. We regard it as the source of our happiness.
So that’s the meaning of attachment. So first, begin by checking a little and asking yourself, what things am I attached to? So you might think of different possessions or material objects, various people that you don’t wanna be separated from, ideas that you cling tightly to, or places. So spend a few minutes and do a little bit of an inventory and see what you’re attached to. Initially, it might be hard to recognize what we’re attached to because we don’t think that we’re superimposing good qualities or exaggerating good qualities.
Usually, we think those good qualities are there in the person or the object. So even if you don’t think you’re projecting good qualities, in order to identify what you’re attached to, think of the things that you hold on to very dearly that you don’t, by any means, want to be separated from. And that’s also a good indication of what we’re attached to. Now select one of the things that you’re attached to. Maybe a person or a place, an object, an idea, and ask yourself, how does that appear to me?
And listen to how your mind makes this story describing that person or thing. And as you’re listening to that, ask yourself, is that really correct? Does that person or thing really have all the good qualities that I’m attributing to it? Or is there some exaggeration, some overestimation? And then examine if because of the good qualities that you’re perceiving in that person or thing.
Examine if you then develop unrealistic expectations of them, expecting them always to be there, always to make you happy, always to feel satisfied. Is there some sort of unrealistic expectation that if you’re with that person or have that thing that then you’re gonna be safe? Forever. You’re gonna be protected. Or is there an expectation, for example, that if you’re with them, that then you’ll be worthwhile, you’ll be successful and respected?
So just check up when there’s attachment towards an object, how we then develop unrealistic expectations of it. And then check how you act when you’re attached to someone or something. Often, to get somebody else’s approval or attention, we do very manipulative things, or we drop hints. We change our behavior so that somebody will notice us. Sometimes to get possessions that we’re attached to or to get somebody else’s approval will undermine our own ethical standards.
Other times when we’re attached, we get into dysfunctional relationships. So check out using your own experience and the examples that you’ve made from your own life, how you act when your mind is under the influence of attachment. And as a conclusion, recognize attachment as your enemy. We usually think of attachment as our friend that makes us happy. But when we really check carefully our own experience as we did in this meditation, we begin to see how clinging to things actually destroys our peace of mind and destroys our happiness.
And when we see this, then that gives us some energy to want to counteract our attachment and not just to follow it blindly. So make that kind of determination.