Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Thubten Dondrub leads a retreat session examining attachment and its role as the engine of suffering. He argues that attachment to objects, pleasures, and experiences—whether gross or subtle—creates the false belief that satisfaction lies outside ourselves. Through a series of pointed examples (desire for money, food, relationships, art, nature), he shows how attachment generates anger, aversion, and all other afflictions, keeping us trapped in cycles of disappointment. The core method he offers is developing a calmer, clearer mind through meditation and simplified living, so we can observe our own desire and attachment with honesty rather than intellectual distance. Only when we feel the actual pain and futility of attachment, rather than merely thinking about it, can we begin to let go. He emphasizes that this is not rejection of beauty or goodness in the world, but recognition that these things cannot deliver the deep, lasting inner peace available through Buddhist practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 Letting go of Attachment 1998 02 21.mp3
UUID: 104b3463-ec65-4c8c-b3de-c3cea9015c24
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Retreat (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 1998-02-21
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.3 minutes
Words: ~5,348
The more attached, the more dependent, the more one can’t separate from it. So this desire attachment would be great if they produced what we think they produce. But they don’t. They don’t produce what we think they produce, what we want them to produce. They don’t bring satisfaction. They don’t bring lasting happiness.
It doesn’t bring freedom from problems. You become a heroin addict to solve one’s problems, the dissatisfaction in one’s life, but it doesn’t solve the problem. It just creates more. So we’re all heroin addicts. We just have different objects.
Some are more socially acceptable than others. But we all have this problem. So the sooner we allow ourselves to really acknowledge that, the sooner we can let go of it, we can solve the problem. But if we don’t acknowledge it and really allow ourselves to feel our own confusion, our own dissatisfaction, and to allow ourselves to feel that desire attachment itself is suffering.
It actually is painful. Yeah. It actually is painful. And it is painful and it produces dissatisfaction in the long run. If you give up desire, one won’t become some kind of meaningless blob, some worrying, hopeless blob lying in a corner, in a black hole of depression and boredom.
The very opposite will happen if one gives up desire. And I hope I can try and make that clear throughout the day, but I think you all seem to agree with me already. I hope so. Well, you don’t have to. We can have some arguments about this, some fights.
But maybe we can take a tea break, short tea break. Yeah? Okay. Thank you very much.
Ideas, some understanding how this wisdom is not something passive, but it’s an active mind that cannot be distorted because it’s seeing things exactly as they are. Not from guesswork, you know, because sometimes we know things, but we don’t know we know. We just make the right guess, you know. You know, like on these quiz shows, what’s the capital of something? Is it this, that, the other?
And the lady, you can see she—oh, it’s blah. And she gets the right answer just by pure fluke. You know? So she’s right, but not by really knowing. But when you really know things, that knowledge is not something that can be undermined in any way.
So the point is that that state could never have existed in the past because if it had existed in the past of having this perfect wisdom, it would exist now. Because once it’s there, it can’t be obscured. So this means that the ignorance has always been there. And then you were saying this, making this point, but why, you know, but this is kind of implying that something must have put it there, but no. There’s nothing.
It’s just it is there because it couldn’t have not been there because if it wasn’t there, there would be this wisdom. No. There were many things in there. This mind isn’t attached to me. Even this pure mind isn’t attached to me because even what you’re saying there is showing there is not the right view of I.
Right? Yeah. I don’t want to get rid of this I. Yeah. And achieve—if you like, your mind will develop the spirit itself.
It becomes quite a pure mind, so to speak. I don’t want to have mind. I want to have it in a general flow of all of you. No. But when mind is liberated, when you have wisdom, there’s not a sense of mind in the way we think now.
There isn’t that at all. But it’s still—if I don’t get that right, in the next life, I’ll still be suffering from what I did last time around. No. Not once there is wisdom. No.
No. But on the path, yes. Yes. Right. Sure.
Attached to me, not to the person next door at this point. Right. So it is a singular thing. It’s just mine, which is limiting it. It’s a discrete entity going on moment by moment within its own continuum.
Sure. Thus it’s limited in number, so it must be predetermined what number there is because you can’t make more. Right. You can’t make more minds. No, you can’t make more minds.
That’s true. But I’d like to think that this mind, this pure mind, is a much greater dimension than just being attached to that lineage of my own identity, whether it be I or whose I or mine, whatever. But it’s just too narrow for my liking. It must flow into this great big wonderful cosmos, if you like. It’s the right people—well, it does.
It does. Sure. Space. Yeah. You can say space.
Yeah. You can say it does in a sense. Sure. There are some debates about this, you see. In Tibetan Buddhism, there is—like, in Zen Buddhism, they have this very interesting expression, which I quite like, where they say not one and not two.
The enlightened mind is not one, but it’s not two. So that’s very interesting to think of. Because the point is, one thing is that the mind is—I mean, it is existing, but the way it exists is in a way that we’re not familiar with because all our knowledge now is based on what we call common sense, which is a very interesting word because it is common and it’s from sense, from sense impressions. The five sense consciousnesses there. So it’s knowledge based on physical stuff and the way physical things work is our knowledge.
But mind works in another way. So one of our attachments again, perhaps, is that we are too stuck to our logic, to pigeonholing everything instead of leaving it so that we keep it open. Mhmm. Yeah. So, also in the Tibetan tradition there is one argument, one school that says that when you become enlightened, there are many separate enlightened minds.
Right? Still these separate continuums just as there are now for unenlightened beings. But there is another view which says that when one achieves enlightenment although before that there are these separate mind streams, after that, there is basically just the one mind, the one enlightened mind, which is called the dharmakaya. Technically, in Buddhism, in Mahāyāna Buddhism, it’s called the dharmakaya. But also when you think about mind and whatever, it’s important to remember also from the wisdom point of view is that mind and matter are not really separate things.
So when there is enlightenment, mind is knowing everything and is one kind of oneness with everything. I mean, this is what unenlightenment is. This ignorance is creating this sense of separation, a very distinct separation, and the illusion that there is a difference between mind, you know, me and my mind and all external things, a very rigid separation. Well, a little bit, but not enough yet. I think you have to be careful with these things.
I mean, if we’re going to use this word in a Buddhist context, then it has specific meaning. You can’t mix it all up because then one will never understand what desire is. So desire always goes with attachment, and it is an affliction, and it is the main affliction. Sure. You can wish for things, but often yeah.
Yeah. That’s it. Well, the trouble is with us, as ordinary people, we have wishes for things, but usually our wishes are mixed with desire and attachment. It’s very difficult at our level for those things not to become inseparable. Yeah.
But one shouldn’t think that desire is just for gross things, gross physical things. Desire is a very, very subtle mind. It’s not like millionaires have desire and poor people don’t have desire. Poor people have lots of desire too. Yeah.
Well, I mean, you’re—that sitting by the river is—can be. Thing? Is it an attachment, or is it getting both mindful? It depends on it. Yeah.
It depends on your motivation. But, yes, sure, it can be. But also, like, one has to understand in a Buddhist context—I’m just speaking very honestly. I could say it’s all okay. But—and I’m not saying you should stop sitting by rivers enjoying things.
It’s very nice. But right? I’m trying to put the Buddhist teachings—well, I haven’t really done it so well yet, but in a complete context. And in the Mahāyāna teachings, like, as I tried to say, any religion is—the basic quality of a religion is that it is trying to show us that there is more than this life and the things in this life.
There’s something much, much greater. Right? And sure, there are good things in this life, pleasant things, nice things, enjoyable things. There’s no doubt—like sitting by rivers, seeing beautiful trees, sunsets, all these kind of things. They’re very nice and enjoyable and pleasant.
Definitely. But none of these things by themselves, altogether, no matter how long you will experience them, will bring inner satisfaction. Right? This is the point. This is the point.
Maybe it seems a very strong point, but how to say this? Just go back again. All I can say to repeat myself is that we want this pure, lasting happiness, and anything else is only dissatisfying. Right? And the point is, from the Buddhist understanding, we can achieve it.
We can become Buddhas. We can have perfect, lasting happiness. Actually, I’m getting really sick of this word happiness because it’s a really unsatisfying word, but I hope you know what I mean—I don’t mean sort of going to parties and giggling and that kind of happiness, but deep peace, contentment, a sense of meaningfulness, complete. We have that ability. It is there, and nothing else can compare to that.
Everything is far, far less. Right? And so because we don’t have that, we are dissatisfied. And we’re seeking that all the time, but it gets distorted into attachment to limited things. And while we have even attachment to very subtle things, it keeps us within the cycle of what is called saṃsāra, rebirth again and again and again.
It keeps us trapped in a limited experience again and again and again. And to some extent, you could say, that’s not so bad. That’s not so bad. But the point is, it doesn’t work in the process that you just have nice lives one after the other. It doesn’t work like that.
While there is delusion in the mind—because the point is, if we have one delusion, one affliction, we have all of them. They all go together. The potential is there. Right? Because any affliction depends on the root affliction of ignorance.
Right? Well—wait. Wait. See. So if there is desire, attachment, then there is anger, there is jealousy, there is pride, there is fear, hate, irritation, annoyance, depression, boredom, everything, or at least the potential for it.
There’s also the restriction of our very language, which is so Western-orientated that very often you can’t find the right words for what the soul wants to say, even from your point of view. It’s so difficult. Yeah. But as you try it—in the language, in Sanskrit, there’s so many more subtle tones, which we just haven’t heard, and therefore, it becomes very difficult to get that truth across. Yeah.
But to some extent, one can. Maybe I can’t. But to some—I think to a large extent, I want to get the idea. But I think what I was saying about the language problem is that we have to be aware that in Buddhism, words have a specific meaning. Words in our language that can have other connotations.
If you listen to them in the Buddha Dharma, one has to try to understand them from that perspective and not bring all this other stuff along. Otherwise, we don’t understand it. We’ll never get the point. Yeah? Because you say, oh, attachment is affection, and affection’s good.
Sure. Affection is good, but affection isn’t what is called attachment. It’s not part of attachment. Affection is a quality of loving kindness, and loving kindness has got nothing, nothing, nothing to do with attachment. In fact, while you have attachment, you can’t have love.
It is impossible. Real love, because that’s the way the mind works. You can’t have two opposite minds existing at the same time. And attachment is an affliction. While there is an affliction in the mind, while it’s actually operating, you can’t have love.
If you have love, you can’t have attachment in the one moment. So, anyway, while there are afflictions and the potential—it doesn’t mean that we have desire all the time and all these other negative minds all the time. But while there is ignorance, there is the potential for them all the time. And they’re all there. You don’t have just—if there is ignorance, you have the potential for all afflicted thoughts, not just one or two of them.
You have the potential for all of them. So the more you follow one of those, the more you’re creating the causes for the other ones to develop as well more and more. And eventually, they will because of time and because of karma. We have all these karmic imprints. So while we remain in saṃsāra, in this limited situation, it means that sooner or later, all our karma has to ripen.
And we have—sorry, the bad news. From the Buddhist point of view, every living being has created, of course, lots of good karma, but we have created all sorts of unbelievable negative karma in previous lives because of ignorance. Not because we’re evil, but because of ignorance, of not knowing. So while remaining attached to the nice things of this life, which are nice and pleasant, we create the cause, the situation where we’re going to experience our negative karma. At the very least.
Right? Not only in this life, but less than probably. Yeah. Because while one is enjoying the nice things of this life, that is our good karma ripening, running out. And we may do nice things in this life during that time, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that our next life will be the same.
Right. Of course. Yeah. No. Yes.
Yes. Sure. Yeah. And so—we’re bringing the ignorance with us. Yeah.
Yeah. So also one thing I would like to try and make clear also is that—because I think also Western Buddhists kind of mix the Buddhist view with all sorts of other our previous cultural and religious views. And when we talk about delusions as afflictions, one shouldn’t think of them as being evil. Right? They are not—because if you think of them in those terms, then the mind doesn’t really want to listen to what it really means.
Yeah. Or even if you do want to listen, then you feel so much loathing. I’m full of desire, therefore I’m full of evil. I’m an evil person. I have desire, anger.
It doesn’t mean that at all, which is not to say that desire and anger and these things are good things, but they are not evil. They are coming from ignorance. They are unskillful. They are not meaningful states of mind. They are not ultimately meaningful, they are unskillful, they don’t lead to the good of the world, as the Buddha would say.
They don’t lead to what one really wants. And one is not evil for following them, but one is not so wise. I think it’s really important to understand that. And also when we talk about karma, about negative karma, negative karma isn’t evil. You don’t create negative karma because you’re evil, and negative karma itself isn’t the creation of evil.
It’s the creation of unskillful acts that lead to suffering, unsatisfying experiences. And it’s not evil people who create negative karma. It’s good people because everyone is good. Everyone has basic goodness. But we—basically good people—out of our confusion, out of our ignorance, create negative karma.
And good people suffer too. It’s not just evil people who suffer. It’s good people suffer because also good people have created negative karma in the past, and the suffering results have to be experienced at some time. So I will say this point, but maybe it will upset you, but this is my understanding, my view, and I feel as a Buddhist monk I should try and say these things. I also like sitting next to rivers watching them, and sunsets, and all these nice things, and being in forests and trees, seeing trees and oceans, all these beautiful things.
But this also can be attachment. These beautiful things—attachment. Yeah. And beautiful music. I love paintings.
I spent my life, you know, studying paintings. I like all these things. I definitely like them. I am probably attached to them all. Not so much now.
I hope. I mean, I hope much less. But the point is, even these nice things—and if you’re attached to them, none of these things, all the great literature of the world, the great music of the world, none of it will make us happy. None of it will bring us inner satisfaction, in my opinion, I think in the Buddhist opinion. It’s not to say these things are bad and evil.
They have some great truths in them, these great paintings and works of literature and music and so on, and just experiencing nature, these things. They can bring some peace and understanding, but not the complete thing. And you can definitely be attached to these things, incredible attachment to them. And they don’t allow—just generally speaking, because I can’t know how specific people can relate to these things. And I think certain people in certain ways can use these things on the path.
But I think generally it’s very difficult, very difficult. And so these things, one’s attachment to those—just enjoying the pleasure of those things, which can be a very subtle pleasure. Right? But the attachment to that, it doesn’t allow you to work with your mind. I mean, there are people in the world who can enjoy these things.
Their life is devoted to beautiful things of this life, you know, beautiful food, beautiful music, all the various kinds of arts. But those things will not lead to insight and wisdom. No. But there are better platforms from which you can meditate or whatever. I find it a lot easier in that environment to free the spirit from the covering up.
Sure. It can be. Yeah. Sure. But if you go to Buddhist monasteries and temples and things, they try to make them beautiful for the same reason.
In quiet—and in quieter places and in natural environments. Sure. Because it is conducive. But if you get attached to the things, you can spend your time looking at the nice stuff and, you know, and you miss the point. Right?
But I would debate a little bit on that. I would disagree to some extent, because attachment has certain qualities, the nature of it and the object. And sure, some people can be—I would say people can become attached to Buddhism. Sure, you can become attached to Buddhism, but you can’t become attached to the Dharma. There is a big difference between practicing the Dharma, being a Dharma practitioner, which is what we’re trying to be, and being a Buddhist.
It’s very easy to be a Buddhist and to be attached to, you know, all these things and having thangkas and nice things and ringing bells and all that kind of stuff. You can be attached to being Buddhist and being a religious person, but you can’t be attached to the Dharma. Buddhism is the creation of ordinary people. It is a contaminated phenomenon, and the object of attachment, desire, is always a contaminated phenomenon. The Dharma is not a contaminated phenomenon, and you cannot be attached to it.
You can wish to follow it, and that wish is an incredibly important wish to generate, because that wish will lead you out of suffering. And that wish is absolutely essential to generate. And one of those wishes is called bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. That is an unafflicted desire, which is what we are supposed to generate, the desire to become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. But that desire is not desire.
It is not afflicted desire. It is a pure, perfect, virtuous thought that does not have anything to do with ignorance. It is a mind arising from wisdom, and it leads to all good qualities. Whereas attachment and desire is suffering and it produces suffering. Because you see—that’s the trouble—we can play with these words and say, oh, you’re just attached to this and that.
But you can’t be attached to the Dharma. I would definitely argue—you can be attached to your version of it. And being a Buddhist and Buddhism, but you can’t be attached—if you have a correct perception of these things, you can’t be attached to those. The trouble is we don’t have enough desire for these things because of our attachment to lesser things. Why we don’t have the wish for enlightenment of bodhicitta is because we’re attached.
We have attachment to the things of this life. And attachment has the function of just generating the illusion of this isolated self. I mean, even when you—generally speaking, even when you’re listening to beautiful music of Beethoven, looking at the greatest paintings in the world, there is this sense of I appreciating these things. It is not the I that goes out and murders people, but it is still a sense of I which is the source of suffering. Because we shouldn’t think that the source of suffering is something evil, some terrible evil thing growing in us that has to be killed because it’s so disgusting and filthy.
It’s not. Ignorance is just a confused mind that is misconceiving things. It is a very, very subtle thing, but it leads to all terrible things. Right. I hope I’m making some sense.
Yeah. Because while we have these imprints of ignorance in our mind—even as good people—because there’s so many things to say about attachment. I haven’t got there yet. Right? There’s many things.
But also one should—one negative quality of attachment is that it leads to anger and hate and aversion, irritation, annoyance, contempt, loathing, fear, and everything else. Anger only exists because of attachment. Alright. This is an important thing to contemplate, because we have this attachment to our pleasures. Alright?
And anything that makes oneself feel secure and strong, that is naturally good from its own side. So anything that makes me feel weak, insecure, unclear, and so on, that from its own side appears bad, and we exaggerate that. Because of that, anger and aversion arise. Particularly, aversion always arises because we have wished for happiness and we are attached to the little small pleasures we have, then anything that interferes with that is evil and bad and has to be, you know, eliminated, removed, destroyed. First, just kind of stop it, move it away, harm it, kill it.
And it’s all because of attachment. Attachment to what I’ve got or what I want. There’s no way anger can arise without attachment being there first. And then anger itself is an extremely harmful mind. We all have the potential for it because we all have attachment, because we have ignorance.
And because we have the potential for anger, if we are put in a particular situation, we could do all sorts of terrible things. If all the conditions come together. Because the single strongest attachment we have is to me. Yeah. To me, the sense of me.
So when that is threatened, and if it’s threatened strongly, then anger, hate, loathing, bigotry erupt. And the interesting thing to understand—maybe I’m saying too many things at once bombarding your mind. Sorry. But one of the—we have the potential for afflictions in our mind. The potential is there all the time because ignorance is there.
It’s been there during beginningless time. Alright? So these potentials for all the afflicted thoughts are there all the time. One can go throughout one’s whole life thinking I’m a nice, warm, loving, peaceful person. But the affliction, the potential for hate, loathing is there because ignorance is there, because the sense of self, the wrong sense of self is there, is here, folks.
It is in us right now. And why we go on thinking I’m a nice, sweet, loving, kind, generous person is because we have the good fortune, the good karma in this life, or for much of our life, not to meet the object of our anger. But when we meet the object of the delusion—when the delusion’s power—the delusion arises without any awareness or control. This is the main cause of our disturbing thoughts to arise. The main cause is the potential in our mind, the seed, the karmic seed of the delusion in our mind that’s been generated moment by moment since beginningless time.
But then you meet the object. And when you meet the object, it arises. So if it’s desire, you know, you may see some beautiful person, attractive person, thing, or whatever. The desire wasn’t there before, but the potential was, and then you meet across a crowded room. Right?
Boom. And then—or suddenly, you look at someone, and you can’t stand them. You hate them. You’ve never seen them before. You’ve never spoken to them before.
They haven’t said anything or done anything to you, but you can’t stand them because you’ve met the object, because the imprint is there. Yeah. Yes. Right. Right.
Yeah. Well, I was secretly trying to explain one of the main strategies, but I do it so subtly most people miss the point. Sorry. I’m just joking. But no.
No. Yeah. This is such a long way. A long way—keep going. Yeah.
No. But the point I’ve been trying to make is the simple fact that if one starts to see these things for oneself, to understand that, that is one of the main solutions, in my opinion. I think in the opinion of the Dharma too. There are specific things to do, but I think one of the main things is just allowing ourselves to know, experience our own delusions, our own attachment and desire objectively, to feel our own desire and attachment. And if you feel it, we can feel its pain, that it is disturbing the mind.
And as soon as we allow ourselves to know that, not up here, but in here—yeah. And that’s the problem because it’s easy intellectually to know it up there, but one has to allow oneself to feel it. And when you feel it, you start letting go. Yeah. So there are millions of strategies how to—you just have to do that yourself more and more to allow oneself when there is desire there to really feel that desire.
No. You just operate on it instantly without even being aware that I desire. Just like when there is anger, people say, don’t get so angry. I’m not angry. Who said I’m angry?
I’m not angry. You can’t even admit it yourself. You’re not even aware of it at the time, or you cover it up with other words. I’m just a little annoyed. I’m just upset.
I’m just a little excited at the moment. Yeah. But I’m not angry. Yeah? Anything but to admit to ourselves what our actual state of mind is.
Yes. So this is why one of the basic methods we need is just to have a calmer mind. When if you do something like the breathing meditation regularly, become a little bit adept at it, if we become a little bit skillful in that, our mind in the meditation becomes calmer and clearer. And in that state, if desire attachment arises, one can see, one can feel its nature. Yeah.
In that state, one can see it. But also, also, as one develops that kind of meditation in one’s daily life, there’s a little bit more calmness and clarity in the mind in one’s daily life. And so when desire arises in the mind in that state, when you’re leading basically a calmer, more simple, less confused, busy life, and this is one of the main strategies to overcome—to work with attachment. Then in that situation, when desire arises, which it will still, because it’s not going to go away overnight, one can see it more clearly. One can feel it for what it is.
So that’s one of the main strategies, developing the mind just in a very general way, allowing the mind to be more calm and clear. And, of course, one does that formally in meditation. But for these meditations to work successfully, more and more successfully, one’s outer life has to be calmer and clearer anyway, a less busy life, a less complicated life. I mean, these two things have to harmonize—our inner practice and our outer life, right, as much as we can. I mean, we live in a very bizarre, agitated world that we can’t control, but we can try to modify our involvement in this excessively speedy, distracted world.
Yeah. If we want to develop our mind not just temporarily, but for the long term, and not just for our own sake, but for the benefit of the people around us, and not just for the people around us, but for everyone, if we try and generate that wish, that virtuous desire, that unafflicted desire to benefit others, then we need to simplify our life. Yeah. But again, of course, why don’t we—why do we have such a busy, agitated, frantic life? Because of desire.
Because of attachment. Because we think these things will make us happy. And because we don’t trust our inner qualities, there’s nothing inside, there’s nothing really in there worth looking for. But out there, there’s all these wonderful things. Look at them.
And they’re getting bigger every year and shinier and more expensive. So I have to do more to get these wonderful expensive things. Right? So this is the insidious nature of attachment. It leads us out there and doesn’t enable us to look in there and find that there’s something really good in there.
And because we don’t find that or experience that in—