SELF-SUFFERING
Clinging & Emotional Attachment
There’s some tension in it, and inherently there’s an urge to do something.
I don’t know how many of you have relatives who, almost invariably, they say something and it triggers something: that charge is there. The process of getting hooked is: something comes up in our experience which we either are drawn to or drawn away from, and we get a charge there towards or away from it, and it’s a feeling of, for most of us we feel like there’s this wanting to do something; and sometimes, for instance in mediation, we get hooked on our thoughts. We cling to an idea. Let’s say you’re sitting there watching the breath and a thought comes up about some project at work. You’ve devoted your time to watching the breath, but that thought about work says: ‘oh, that’s a really interesting thought’ or ‘an important thought,’ and very quickly you’re hooked on it; and thinking is doing something.
1. The first step to working with clinging is to recognize when you’re doing it. When you’ve been mediating here, when you’ve gotten lost in your thoughts, are you aware that what you’ve done is clinging? Sometimes we think that the purpose of meditation might be to get calm, to have a calm mind, to be at ease; but, on a much deeper level, the purpose of meditation is to let go of clinging, because it’s clinging that causes the agitation. So actually seeing the clinging process itself, as we do it, is part of releasing ourselves from that clinging. If we’re not aware that we’re clinging we usually follow the urge. We have these hair trigger reactions where we act on something very quickly. So clinging is the primary habit of mind that meditation addresses. The Buddha said that there are four kinds of clinging. The first kind of clinging is, clinging to sensual pleasures.
2. The other kind of clinging that causes us a lot of suffering is clinging to views, to our ideas of how things should be; maybe what’s happening with the government, what’s happening with the environment, what’s happening at work. Take your pick. There’s always something that we think should be different than it is. A lot of us create a lot suffering in our own lives by clinging to being right, especially with the people who we’re intimately involved with. So many of the arguments that we get into are because we want to be right.
It might be status in a negative way but it’s still clinging to status. So that’s all part of clinging to view, to the way we perceive the world. Self-righteousness: ‘this shouldn’t be this way.’
3. The third form of clinging that the Buddha talked about is clinging to rules and ritual: ‘this is the right way to do this.’ A lot people get into a lot conflict over that. They can’t meditate, and all of a sudden they feel lost because they mistake the actual mediation for the freedom of mind that meditation nurtures.
4. The fourth type of clinging that the Buddha talked about is clinging to the belief in personality, the belief in self, that we are somehow this solid entity that’s me. There are books about this thick written about what it is to be free of self, whether there’s a self, no-self; so, it’s not something I want to address in any very deep way, but the Buddha never said there is a self or there isn’t a self. He just said that when you look, you can’t pinpoint it, you can’t find a self that you can say, “this is me.” And one of the things that causes a lot of suffering in our lives, is the moment that we take any experience, and we think, ‘this is happening to me;’ we take it personally. That’s a kind of clinging that causes us a lot of suffering.
The Buddha said, “whatever is not yours: let go of it. Your letting go of it will be for your long-term happiness and benefit. And what is not yours? Form is not yours . . .” (that’s the body and stuff) “Feeling is not yours . . .” (feelings come and go; they’re not who you are) “Perception is not yours . . . Fabrications” (or “mental formations”) are not yours . . .” (your thoughts) “Consciousness is not yours: let go of [all of] it. Your letting go of it will be for your long-term happiness and benefit” (Majhima Nikaya 22).
One other thing I want to say about clinging is that there’s a dormant or latent clinging. That’s the clinging that’s under the surface that’s ready to pop up. And one of the things that happens with meditation practice is that we become more aware of being able to see that dormant clinging. As we meditate this latent clinging starts becoming seen, and so it can be moved through us instead of always ready under the surface to blow up.
The easiest way of working with clinging is to actually see it as it’s happening when we meditate. Every time we come back to the breath we practice letting go of clinging. Sometimes when we have very strong emotional reactions, for instance, I remember feeling very resentful over somebody who had caused me a lot of harm, and thinking, ‘okay I feel it, I’ve felt it really well, I want to let go of it; but it’s still there.’ So, what do you do with that, with that clinging that is so established, so strong? The instruction is to incline the mind to let go of it, just be patient with it; it doesn’t have to be released today. The habit of clinging is a lifetime habit, it happens over a period of time. And it’s the same thing with such an insidious habit as the habit of clinging. It’s enough to incline the mind in that direction.
I’d like to invite you to consider spending a day looking at your mind throughout your day, and just ask yourself the question, ‘am I clinging?’ If you’re driving the car and you’re trying to get somewhere, is your mind going, ‘are we there yet?’ Or, if you’re surfing on the internet, is there this feeling of tightness, of clinging: ‘what’s next, what’s next?’ Is that showing up?’ So, just ask yourself the question, ‘is there clinging right at this moment? Can I let go of it? Is there clinging? Can I let go of it?’
I want to finish with one of my favorite reminders from Joseph Goldstein. He said, “nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as me or mine.”
Thank you.