avatarGeorge Ochsenfeld

Summary

The website content discusses the concept of attachment as a source of suffering, a key insight from East Indian spirituality, and suggests mindfulness meditation as a means to weaken attachments and experience true nature.

Abstract

The article "Attachment Is Killing Me" delves into the spiritual wisdom from the East, emphasizing that attachment is the root cause of suffering. Drawing from the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and Buddhism, it highlights the importance of understanding how our mind's demands for the world to conform to our desires lead to distress. Through the practice of mindfulness meditation, one can observe the mind's patterns and reduce the power of attachments, leading to a state of Being, Consciousness, and Bliss (Satchitananda). Each act of letting go is likened to a mini-death, preparing one for the ultimate letting go, and facilitating a more natural and easy love for oneself and others.

Opinions

  • Attachment is identified as the primary cause of suffering, as taught in various Eastern spiritual traditions.
  • The ego's resistance to reality not aligning with its desires is seen as the source of mental anguish.
  • Mindfulness meditation is recommended as a tool to observe and weaken the mind's attachments.
  • The process of letting go of attachments is described as a series of mini-deaths, culminating in a final, ultimate release.
  • The weakening of attachments leads to a clearer mind and the realization of one's true nature, characterized by Being, Consciousness, and Bliss.
  • The article suggests that as attachments fade, love for oneself and others becomes more genuine and spontaneous.

Attachment Is Killing Me

Spiritual wisdom from the East

Photo by Daniel Jensen on Unsplash

why am I howling at the harvest moon and the fading of the light?

A major insight of East Indian spirituality is that attachment causes suffering. This is stressed in the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and Buddhism.

Through mindfulness meditation, we watch our minds create suffering for ourselves and others by constantly demanding that the world be a certain way. If reality does not comply with our agenda, our egoic minds pitch a fit!

Watching this absurd movie again and again and again wears out the film. Our attachments weaken. Craving and aversion lose their power to stir up clouds of suffering. As the sky of mind clears, we begin to experience our true nature: Being, Consciousness, and Bliss (Satchitananda). Loving ourselves and others gradually becomes easy and natural

Every time we let go of an attachment, we experience a mini-death. This prepares for the Ultimate Letting Go.

If you liked this poem, you might also like this one about dangers on the spiritual path:

Attachment
Spiritual Awakening
Letting Go
Bhagavad Gita
Mindfulness
Recommended from ReadMedium