There is an old joke among dharma teachers that says, “The Buddha was fired from his job as a vacuum cleaner salesman because he lost all his attachments! “
It’s unlikely that the Buddha sold vacuum cleaners, but it’s most likely true that he lost his attachments. The Buddha taught that by giving up attachments enlightenment is possible for anyone.
But bad news! You cannot give up your attachments. But good news! Under the right conditions they will give you up. By practicing the dharma, we are creating the right conditions. One of my teachers says that “Enlightenment is an accident; meditation makes you accident prone.”
Let’s talk about right conditions.
The first step is to recognize an attachment. Recognize any attachment to an object, person/persons, belief, identity, or experience. This requires continuous awareness, because an attachment tends to keep you unconscious. The more you practice awareness, the clearer and more often you will recognize an attachment.
Recognize craving, aversion, identification, a sense of ownership, or fear of loss. These are all signs that craving is present. Even aversion is a form of craving: craving that something ceases to exist. Any time you feel a sense of “this is mine”, or if you have a fear of losing something or someone, this would indicate some degree of attachment.
I want to emphasize that there should be no moral judgment about attachment. Attachment is not bad or wrong. To say that attachment causes suffering doesn’t mean that it is a “sin. The Buddha simply stated that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between attachment and suffering.
We can own stuff in a legal sense; but have no attachment to it. Certainly we will feel attachment to our children or spouse; this is normal and healthy—up to a point. But watch for possessiveness or identification in these relationships--this is not healthy. Many of us learned to equate love and attachment; they are not the same. Real love includes freedom for both the loved and the lover. Attachment is an impediment to real love.
The second step is to practice equanimity. Do not try to get rid of craving; be willing to let it be as it is. This may seem strange to the everyday mind that says, “If I don’t like something, I get rid of it.” That will not work to release an attachment.
Releasing attachment is an internal process. You don’t necessarily need to leave your job or your family to become nonattached. However, if some thing or person has become part of your identity, to you it may feel as if you are leaving…or that they are.
Letting go of something to which you are deeply attached may create the feeling that there is a deep hole within yourself. Be willing to feel this hole rather than run away from it or attempt to fill it with something external. It may be quite painful—but it will heal in time.
In the long term it is more than worth the pain to become free; the bigger the letting go the bigger the freedom. As the master teacher Ajahn Cha would often say, “Let go a little and you have a little freedom. Let go a lot and you have a lot of freedom.”