The Buddha talks a lot about attachment and how it's a bad thing, but to lots of Western ears that sounds really cold or nihilistic. What we're missing here is that
he means attachment with a selfish end. He didn't think that being close to others was a bad thing; in Chapter 23 of the Dhammapada, for example,
he tells us that having friends and being parents – in other words, forming
attachments and loving other people - are good things in our lives. The problem
comes when we let that attachment be a selfish, grasping thing, something that
we use to support our view of ourselves rather an outward flow of affection.
Noble Intentions?
But our selfish attachments don't stop at people; they can be to something noble as well. There it can be even
harder to keep our vision clear, because we have the flashing lights of “Good
Intentions” before our eyes. But as modern Hindu saint Gandhi reminds us, selfish attachment is just waiting in the wings to snag us. In writing about Gandhi’s
understanding of detachment, author Michael Nagler asks, “Is it wrong to be
attached to a positive goal – say, to the one he was fighting for with every
ounce of his life’s strength?” “Yes,” Gandhi would answer, “[for] if we are
attached to our goal of winning liberty, we shall not hesitate to adopt bad
means.”
Pleasure and Peace
This
same principle applies to any sort of pleasurable experience. It's not that it's a bad thing to enjoy a good meal or a rockin' night out or a quiet walk in the woods, it is in
grasping for more of these things after they are done. Not the experience, but
the selfish grasping. The Buddha tells us to let go of pleasure as soon as it
is over, and to let go of pain as well, because as much as we may want to stay in them - or may feel like we are stuck in them - they are just little eddies and currents on the side of the river. Our goal is what lies beyond
both: peace of mind.
Quotations from The Dhammapada, trans. Eknath Easwaran
Quotations from The Dhammapada, trans. Eknath Easwaran
This is helpful in framing something I've observed but have never been able to name; the perception that if you have a just cause then all that attachment stuff doesn't apply because making the world right by trying to change the behaviors or opinions of others is somehow the highest calling. Being attached to good intentions is still being attached. I like that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, John. I think this is exactly where we see good intentions begin to go awry, and good people begin to lose hold of their goodness. The Buddha is definitely right to keep telling us that our good intentions can get hijacked by ego just as easily as bad intentions can.
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