Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
Nondual Highlights Issue #2536, Wednesday, July 26, 2006, Editor: Mark
Adhering to the
Buddhist concept of non-attachment does not mean you have to
abandon people you love. But you do need to approach your love
differently, says AJAHN SUMEDHO, a highly revered monk based at
Amaravati Forest Monastery.
First, you must recognise what attachment is, and then you let
go. That's when you realise non-attachment. However, if you're
coming from the view that you shouldn't be attached, then that's
still not it. The point is not to take a position against
attachment, as if there were a commandment against it; the point
is to observe.
We ask the questions, What is attachment? and, does being
attached to things bring happiness or suffering? Then we begin to
have insight. We begin to see what attachment is, and then we can
let go.
If you're coming from a high-minded position in which you think
you shouldn't be attached to anything, then you come up with
ideas like: Well, I can't be a Buddhist because I love my wife,
because I'm attached to my wife. I love her, and I just can't let
her go. I can't send her away.
Those kinds of thoughts come from the view that you shouldn't be
attached.
The recognition of attachment doesn't mean that you must get rid
of your wife. It means that you free yourself from wrong views
about yourself and your wife. Then you find that there is love
there, but that it's not attached; it's not distorting, clinging
or grasping.
The empty mind is quite capable of caring about others and
loving, in the pure sense of love. But any attachment will always
distort that.
- Ajahn Sumedho, posted to DailyDharma
To look at everything, trying to see what is behind
it, to see it in its right light, requires divine illumination,
a spiritual outlook on life. And this outlook is attained
by the increase of compassion. The more compassion
one has in one's heart, the more the world will begin to
look different.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan, Mastery Through
Accomplishment, posted to AlongTheWay
Man, what thou are is hidden from thyself ...
Know'st not that morning, midday, and the eve
Are all within Thee?
The ninth heaven art Thou ...
And from the spheres into the roar of time
Didst 'come' ere-while.
Thou art the brush that painted
The hues of all the world - the light of life
That ranged its glory in the nothingness.
Joy! Joy! I triumph now; no more I know
Myself as simply me. I burn with love.
The centre is within me, and its wonder
Lies as a circle everywhere about me.
Joy! Joy! No mortal thought can fathom me.
I am the merchant and the pearl at once.
Lo! Time and space lie crouching at my feet.
Joy! Joy! When I would revel in a rapture.
I plunge into myself,
... and all things know...
- Sufi-Faridu 'd-din Shakrgunj (A.H. 662), posted to
Mystic_Spirit
The way of love is not a subtle argument.
The door there is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall,
and falling ...
They're given ... wings ...
- Rumi, posted to Mystic_Spirit
Ram Tzu has not come
To mock you.
Ram Tzu has not come
To blame you.
Ram Tzu is here merely
To destroy you.
He couldn't care less
What you think.
He doesn't want
Your sex
Your money
Your reverence.
He has no interest
In your precious soul.
He'll leave the battle for that
To others.
Ram Tzu has but a single task for you:
Try to imagine
An act
Without motivation.
Did you try it?
Leaves you wondering
Just who's in charge here,
Doesn't it?
- Ram Tzu, posted to AlongTheWay