Saying of Tilopa: “The problem is not enjoyment; the problem is attachment.”.
Buddhist teachings about loving kindness and compassion are not telling us to be less loving and compassionate to near ones. Rather the opposite - to open out so that you have the same love and compassion eventually for everyone, even to your enemies and people who do horrible things.
So definitely shouldn't stop or try to turn down or play down your love for people who are close to you. That's good. That's not attachment.
For that matter also - attachment isn't something you can forcefully get rid of. E.g. if you throw away all your possessions or give them to the poor or whatever - that doesn't get rid of the attachment you had to them. It just gets rid of the things themselves. You may find you are full of regret for what you did and you are left in a situation with even more attachment than you had before you gave them away.
So - it's not easy to do anything about attachment, and the wild gestures some Westerners do when they hear about the teachings often just make things worse for them if anything.
It's a slow gradual path, the "middle way". And you can't get rid of attachments overnight. And if you have less attachment you will be able to love your friends more, in a more selfless way, more open to their needs and a better idea of what it is like to be them.
As well as that - there's an idea in the West that as soon as you start to call yourself a "Buddhist", as soon as you decide to follow the path of the Buddha, that immediately in that moment, you become, magically, a perfect person, or at least should be.
But nobody thinks that about Christians that as soon as you become e.g. a Catholic or a Protestant or a Quaker, you have to be a perfect person. Though Jesus taught a path that is as hard to follow as the Buddhist path. I think just because Buddhism is kind of new and exotic to many, so they think this, that magically you will be a new person - a bit like "born again" Christians.
But it's not like that. There are whole countries of millions of people, e.g. Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc, who are Buddhists. Which doesn't mean that these are countries of millions of Buddhist saints who are perfect and never do anything wrong and don't have any attachments, just pure loving kindness and compassion for each other and everyone else as well. It just doesn't work like that.
So - you have to be realistic also and realize it is a path, and a slow path for most. For most beings it is a path that is going to continue for many lifetimes before you become enlightened, and you can't expect to become enlightened, suddenly, just because you have become a Buddhist. So need to be kind to yourself, and while doing what you can, to realize you will often fall down and just pick yourself up again, and move on.
Buddhist teachings about loving kindness and compassion are not telling us to be less loving and compassionate to near ones. Rather the opposite - to open out so that you have the same love and compassion eventually for everyone, even to your enemies and people who do horrible things.
So definitely shouldn't stop or try to turn down or play down your love for people who are close to you. That's good. That's not attachment.
For that matter also - attachment isn't something you can forcefully get rid of. E.g. if you throw away all your possessions or give them to the poor or whatever - that doesn't get rid of the attachment you had to them. It just gets rid of the things themselves. You may find you are full of regret for what you did and you are left in a situation with even more attachment than you had before you gave them away.
So - it's not easy to do anything about attachment, and the wild gestures some Westerners do when they hear about the teachings often just make things worse for them if anything.
It's a slow gradual path, the "middle way". And you can't get rid of attachments overnight. And if you have less attachment you will be able to love your friends more, in a more selfless way, more open to their needs and a better idea of what it is like to be them.
As well as that - there's an idea in the West that as soon as you start to call yourself a "Buddhist", as soon as you decide to follow the path of the Buddha, that immediately in that moment, you become, magically, a perfect person, or at least should be.
But nobody thinks that about Christians that as soon as you become e.g. a Catholic or a Protestant or a Quaker, you have to be a perfect person. Though Jesus taught a path that is as hard to follow as the Buddhist path. I think just because Buddhism is kind of new and exotic to many, so they think this, that magically you will be a new person - a bit like "born again" Christians.
But it's not like that. There are whole countries of millions of people, e.g. Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc, who are Buddhists. Which doesn't mean that these are countries of millions of Buddhist saints who are perfect and never do anything wrong and don't have any attachments, just pure loving kindness and compassion for each other and everyone else as well. It just doesn't work like that.
So - you have to be realistic also and realize it is a path, and a slow path for most. For most beings it is a path that is going to continue for many lifetimes before you become enlightened, and you can't expect to become enlightened, suddenly, just because you have become a Buddhist. So need to be kind to yourself, and while doing what you can, to realize you will often fall down and just pick yourself up again, and move on.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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