Help with attachment

[Valeriedances]

I am new to the Buddhist way. Can you give some guidance on how to let go of attachment, from a ts perspective?

In the past year, dating has proved difficult with rejection. At times, I am able to practice letting go of those emotions with breathing exercises and viewing the troubling situation from the third perspective of my higher self. Other times I am caught up in the loop of replaying the rejection with the view of judgment. When that happens, the loop can play for several days before it passes.

Letting go of attachment would be extremely useful for me as the clinging to what I perceived as my need is painful and holding me back from enjoying life more fully.

kindly,

Valerie

[Padma]

The main thing I'd say (and I'm just being a representative of me, here) is: it's a practice. So it's something we start out less skilled at, and become more skilled at over time. And what we're working/playing with is a habit - habits have momentum, so it's not surprising that they take time and energy to change, and it's okay if they don't change overnight.

The important thing is to be aware, and to be kind - in fact, neither of those really works without the other, since we have to be kind enough to bear the "imperfections" we're becoming aware of. Because the most important thing about this is that we don't get caught up in thinking we "have to transform ourselves" because we're not good enough as we are - that's just attachment wearing a different outfit . Seems paradoxical? It is!

But to get back to where your story starts, the most valuable response to suffering (your own or others') is compassion, which is an active quality that seeks to alleviate suffering. So don't waste time punishing yourself for not feeling different from how you are feeling (and trying to fend it off or sneak round it), let yourself have the experience with some compassion, and flow through it into whatever comes next. Awareness and love give you more perspective, and that tends to make change easier and more natural - and attachment gets looser when we're more content, too. Giving your loving attention to what you would like to grow is often more helpful than giving it to the thing you're trying to "get rid of", and sort of makes that happen as a side-effect anyway .

I hope some of this is useful, it's just off the top of my head, and (as I've said elsewhere here) is really just another pep-talk to myself . xx

[Tamaki]

I'll add one thing to what yoxi said. When you get caught up in this cycle of replaying rejection make sure you are directing this loving awareness toward yourself. Show yourself some compassion for the fact that you can't let it go. I find that many people, including myself, get caught up with letting go perfectly or the correct way or even with that fact that they can't let it go. Don't beat yourself up over the fact that you can't let it go. Direct some of that loving awareness toward your struggle with letting go.

[Padma]

Oh, I thought I'd made it clear (but clearly didn't!) that the kindness and compassion and awareness I was encouraging is for yourself. I sort of assumed it would be clear, but reading back what I wrote, I see I didn't make it explicit enough. Thanks for clarifying that.

[Padma]

If they rejected me upon disclosure of my past, there must be a reason obviously...

I'm not inclined to the Tibetan Buddhist view that "everything that happens to you is the result of karma" - I think that's actually a sneaky way to feel like we're "very important and the centre of the universe" . I think everything that happens, happens as the result of a complex web of interweaving causes, which we can never know all of - and given that the universe is huge and we're eentsy, it's more likely that we're not always the primary cause .

But away from the general and into the specific: if someone rejects you upon disclosure of your past, it's about their relationship with what you've told them, it's not about you, as far as I can see. I guess you can't know in advance how someone is going to respond/react to this information - and although I know you've said elsewhere that you prefer not to tell people early on, it seems to me that the emotional stakes are higher the later you leave it in the process of getting closer to each other in a relationship. It may feel much scarier to tell folk about yourself earlier in that process, but it would probably lead to better consequences - if it's going to be rejection, it'll be quicker and less loaded for both of you - and if it's acceptance, it's out of the way and you can both get on with getting to know each other better.

[Padma]

Hey, you're welcome - I know it's hard wanting to be loved as you are - and having spent decades trying to be loved as I aren't , I can't only guess how frustrating it must be to finally become yourself and then not have that accepted.

[tekla]

I've always found that the path through that, at least the zen one, is to simply accept what is in front of you without wanting to to be any different.  Not always easy though.

[Padma]

Yup, that's the fun paradox I think - that accepting who we are right now involves accepting our strong tendency not to do that .

[Julie Marie]

For me it was a process involving de-programming and programming.  It happened over time.  At first many of the concepts of accepting were foreign because I had been programmed to believe we, as humans, can change the world if we work hard enough at it.  As everyone with an open mind eventually discovers, that idea is pure foolishness.  The world doesn't belong to us, we belong to it.

My process happened largely through reading.  "Buddhism Plain and Simple" by Steve Hagen is a great book.  Other authors such as Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer address accepting and letting go very well.  Over time things began to click but I still have to pick up their books once in a while to prevent the old programming from resurfacing.

When you first see something just as it is, without judging it, without trying to categorize it, without becoming attached to it, you find a very different thing before you.  Go outside and pick up a fallen leaf.  Examine it closely.  Imagine its life from taking form inside the branch of a tree, budding outwardly, absorbing sunshine and moisture and giving back to the tree and eventually falling to the ground where it once again becomes part of the never ending cycle.  It never judges, it never complains, it just is and just as it is it is a beautiful part of nature.  So are we.

[jyoti]

Attachment to object is desire which is bliss. If you realized bliss in your attachment, then there is no need to avoid or transform that attachment. Just entertain the sensation of the attachment, allowing it to arise and fall naturally, i.e. without thinking about it but simply observe the feelings that rises and fall.