“Grasping at things can only yield one of two results:
Either the thing you are grasping at disappears, or you yourself disappear.
It is only a matter of which occurs first.”
Goenka

SOME DEFINITIONS

It may be important to know the following definitions and descriptions in order to understand the problems we have with attachment, and make sense about the ways in which we can deal with them.

ATTACHMENT
Definition: Exaggerated not wanting to be separated from someone or something. (Exact opposite of Aversion) Because the label of “pleasant” is very relative and based upon limited information, Attachment includes an aspect of exaggeration or “projection”.

Near “enemy” (or not to be confused with): Real appreciation, love and compassion.
Opposite: Wanting to be separated from someone or something: aversion.
Main quality: exaggeration of positive qualities, which can only lead to disappointment. Falling in love will usually fit very well in this category.

LOVE
Definition: Wishing others to be happy.
Near enemy: Conditional love (attachment).
Opposite: Wishing others to be unhappy: hatred –or– not wishing others to be happy: which is indifference or egotism.
Main qualities: Unconditional, no self-interest, but based on self-acceptance.

COMPASSION
Definition: Wishing others to be free from suffering.
Near enemy: Sorry for someone, pity.
Opposite: Wishing others to suffer: cruelty.
Main qualities: Sorry with someone, com-passion means with-feeling, urge to help.

RENUNCIATION / DETACHMENT
Definition: wanting to be free from all problems of cyclic existence, not wanting objects that cause more misery. It is not, that someone suddenly gets excited, abandons all his belongings and escapes to a cave in the mountains, simply hoping to escape his present problems; these people usually return in a week or two, weak and discouraged.
Near enemies: Not caring about anything or extreme asceticism, suicidal attitude.
Opposite: Attachment to “worldly” happiness; ultimately leading to misery.
Main qualities: Discovery of what ultimately leads to misery and avoiding that.
Lama Yeshe: “Renunciation comes from within, it is inner wisdom, inner knowledge.”

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH ATTACHMENT?

Although attachment may at first appear to be much less destructive than anger and hatred, in terms of being caught up in the uncontrolled process of rebirth, it is actually the bigger evil. Attachment to pleasure and ultimately to life itself as our inborn survival instinct, is the main type of misunderstanding that holds us prisoner in samsara.
An example to illustrate attachment that I love:

In the South of India, people used to catch monkeys in a very special way. Actually they let monkeys catch themselves. What they did is cutting a small hole in a coconut, just large enough for a monkey to put its hand in. Next, you fix the coconut to a tree, and fill it with a sweet. The monkey smells the sweet, squeezes its hand into the coconut, grabs the sweet and …. finds that the fist does not fit through the hole. Now the trick is, that the last thing the monkey will think of is to let go of the sweet; and it holds itself prisoner. Nothing could be easier for a human being who comes and catches it.

The Buddha compared desires to being in debt. If you owe money to the bank for your house, every month you have to pay. In the end, you will own the house. With sensual desires however, you cannot pay off the debt; they arise again and again. Hunger, thirst, lust for sex, warmth, coolness, they all come back again and again. Trying to fulfil our desires is like carrying water to the sea; a never ending task and ultimately completely useless.

In some very direct words of the Buddha:

“I have killed all of you before.
I was chopped up by all of you in previous lives.
We have all killed each other as enemies.
So why should we be attached to each other?”

Ajahn Sumedho, in ‘Teachings of a Buddhist Monk’:

“Desire can be compared to fire. If we grasp fire, what happens? Does it lead to happiness?
If we say: “Oh, look at that beautiful fire! Look at the beautiful colors! I love red and orange; they’re my favorite colors,” and then grasp it, we would find a certain amount of suffering entering the body. And then if we were to contemplate the cause of that suffering we would discover it was the result of having grasped that fire. On that information, we would hopefully, then let the fire go. Once we let fire go then we know that it is something not to be attached to.
This does not mean we have to hate it, or put it out. We can enjoy fire, can’t we? It’s nice having a fire, it keeps the room warm, but we do not have to burn ourselves in it.”

John Snelling, from ‘Elements of Buddhism’:

“If the basic project of mainstream Buddhist practice is to unmask the ego illusion for what it is, one of the main prongs of attack is directed against desire. Desire gets a very bad press in the Buddhist scriptures. It is a poison, a disease, a madness. There is no living in a body that is subject to desire, for it is like a blazing house.
Now, desire lives and grows by being indulged. When not indulged by the application of ethical restraint and awareness, on the other hand, it stabilizes and begins to diminish, though this is not an easy or comfortable process, for the old urges clamor for satisfaction for a long time.
This kind of practice cuts directly against the main currents of modern consumer society, where desire is energetically encouraged and refined to new pitches and variations by the powerful agencies of marketing and publicity. But it also cuts against the more moderate desires-for family, wealth, sense-pleasures and so on sanctioned in simpler, more traditional societies, including the one into which the Buddha was born. We can never be at peace while desire is nagging at us.”

THE SUFFERING OF PLEASURE?

It can be a sobering experience when one deeply reflects in meditation on what we normally describe as pleasure. The Buddha said that relative to the blissful experience of release of cyclic existence, everything within cyclic existence is suffering. (See also the first of the “4 Noble Truths”.)
Can this make sense?
Please take a few moments to reflect the following thoughts, while taking a pleasurable experience in mind:

- In how far is this “pleasure” simply an escape or a temporary forgetting of daily problems?
- How nice would it be if I kept doing this without interruption for a few days?
- How fulfilled do I feel by this experience after 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days?
- To achieve the same great feeling as the first time, do I need more of the same the next time?

The Buddha concluded that putting our energy in grasping for temporary pleasures is not only useless, it creates many problems, also karmic actions which we had better avoided.

From a Buddha’s point of view this is exactly what sentient beings do all the time; holding themselves prisoner with their attachment to temporary pleasures and life itself.

“Let me tell you about the middle path. Dressing in rough and dirty garments, letting your hair grow matted, abstaining from eating any meat or fish, does not cleanse the one who is deluded. Mortifying the flesh through excessive hardship does not lead to a triumph over the senses. All self-inflicted suffering is useless as long as the feeling of self is dominent.

You should lose your involvement with yourself and then eat and drink naturally, according to the needs of your body. Attachment to your appetites – whether you deprive or indulge them – can lead to slavery, but satisfying the needs of daily life is not wrong. Indeed, to keep a body in good health is a duty, for otherwise the mind will not stay strong and clear.”
From Discourses II

SOME NOTES ON “ORDINARY” LOVE

- “Love with attachment consists of waves of emotion, usually creating invisible iron chains.” Ordinary love tends to create bonds that may turn very unpleasant.
- Ordinary love is based on selfishness: attraction to others because they help us.
- Ordinary love is often based on opinions like beauty and status, which may be quite irrelevant or even obstacles for being able to live happily together with the person.
- Exaggeration and projection are the main reasons that ordinary love leads to disappointments. To illustrate this some words from M. Scott Peck on “ordinary love”:

“The myth of romantic love is a dreadful lie. Perhaps it is a necessary lie in that it assures the ‘falling in love’- experience that traps us into marriage. But as a psychiatrist I weep in my heart almost daily for the ghastly confusion and suffering that this myth fosters. Millions of people waste vast amounts of energy desperately in an attempt to make the reality of their lives conform to the unreality of the myth.”

- “Being in love” may be a very exciting emotional condition, but is it really happiness, or is it often mixed with a fair amount of suffering?
- Attachment gives us the feeling of: How can this relationship fulfil MY needs? Real love would ask: What can I do for the OTHER?
- Attachment based on selfishness: if you are good to me, I am good to you. Altruistic love is based on equanimity: one realises that others are like me and want happiness. It is wishing others to be happy just because they exist.
- Attachment leads to possessiveness: MY husband, MY wife, MY friend, MY family. Did you ever realise that we cannot own people, unless you believe in slavery? Possessiveness leads to FEAR of losing, fake affection out of fear, overprotection, craving, jealousy or even the feeling: I can’t live without her/him/my car/my cat/chocolate/pizzas/my job/my jewellery/my music….
- Is the perfection we think to see in the loved one really there, or do we simply close our eyes for the negative qualities?
- Is the perfection we are looking for achievable? An old Sufi tale as illustration:

“One afternoon, Nasruddin and his friend were sitting in a cafe, drinking tea and talking about life and love. His friend asked: ‘How come you never married?’
‘Well,’ said Nasruddin, ‘to tell you the truth, I spend my youth looking for the perfect woman. In Cairo I met a beautiful and intelligent woman, but she was unkind. Then in Baghdad, I met a woman who was a wonderful and generous soul, but we had no common interests. One woman after another would seem just right, but there would always be something missing. Then one day, I met her; beautiful, intelligent, generous and kind. We had very much in common. In fact, she was perfect!’
‘So, what happened?’ asked Nasruddin’s friend, ‘Why didn’t you marry her?’
Nasruddin sipped his tea reflectively. ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘it’s really the sad story of my life…. It seemed that she was looking for the perfect man…’ ”

To summarise: our own projections, selfish expectations and exaggerations are the foundations of attachment and the unavoidable disappointment.

We want to get love, rather than give love.
We seek understanding, rather than trying to understand.
We seek self-confidence, rather than respecting others.
We seek praise and encouragement, rather than giving praise and encouragement .
We don’t like criticism, but like to criticise others.

ADDICTION: ATTACHMENT GONE MAD

Sogyal Rinpoche writes (I think from the Tibetan book of living and dying):

“All we need to do to receive direct help is to ask. Didn’t Christ also say: ”Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. Everyone that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth”? And yet asking is what we find hardest. Many of us, I feel, hardly know how to ask. Sometimes it is because we are arrogant, sometimes because we are unwilling to seek help, sometimes because we are lazy, sometimes our minds are so busy with questions, distractions, and confusion that the simplicity of asking does not occur to us. The turning point in any healing of alcoholics or drug addicts is when they admit their illness and ask for aid. In one way or another, we are all addicts of samsara; the moment when help can come for us is when we admit our addiction and simply ask.”

Basically, the same methods that work against attachment are effective against addiction, but one needs to realise that mental transformation via meditation and reflection can be effective, but it is not an instant-solution. We need to realise that addiction is usually a result of underlying problems/frustrations; it is no secret that addiction and depression often go hand in hand, so apart from the physycal addiction there is usually a lot of healing needed. Whether smoking, driniking, over-eating, using drugs, being addicted to sex, excessiely watching TV or computer-addiction, there is usually an underlying frustration or problem we try to forget by absorbing ourselves in something else. So, although meditation is certainly not an instant solution, it does work on a deep level to gradually transform the mind and gain some control over it, as is usually needed in serious cases of addiction.

Several people have tried to adapt the 12-step program for Buddhists (as the traditional 12-step program was strongly formulated in terms of a belief in God), this one from Lion’s Roar Dharma Center.

The 12 Steps of Liberation
1. The truth of suffering. We experienced the truth of our addictions – our lives were unmanageable suffering.
2. The truth of the origin of suffering. We admit that we craved for and grasped onto addictions as our refuge.
3. The truth of the end of suffering. We came to see that complete cessation of craving and clinging at addictions is necessary.
4. The truth of the path. We made a decision to follow the path of liberation and to take refuge in our wisdom, our truth, and our fellowship.
5. Right view. We completely see our life as it is. Our goodness is indestructible. We are willing to acknowledge and proclaim our truth to ourselves, another human being and the community.
6. Right thought. We are mindful that we create the causes for suffering and liberation.
7. Right speech. We purify, confess and ask for forgiveness straightforwardly and without judgment. We are willing to forgive others.
8. Right action. We make a list of all persons we harm and are willing and able to actively make amends to them all, unless to do so would be harmful.
9. Right livelihood. We simplify our lives, realizing we are all interconnected. We engage in active compassion. We select a vocation that supports our recovery.
10. Right effort. We acknowledge mistakes and relapse as part of the path. We continue to practice these steps with joyful effort.
11. Right mindfulness. Through prayer, meditation and action we follow the path of truth, being mindful moment by moment.
12. Right concentration. Open to the spirit of awakening as a result of these steps, we will carry this message to all people suffering with addictions.

MISERLINESS

A story By Ven Master Hsing Yun: from Merit Times

The Normal Hand Opens & Closes

A devotee told Chan Master Moxian, “My wife is extremely stingy. She will not spend even a penny on charity. Could you please come to my house and talk to her about engaging in benevolent deeds?” Very compassionately, Chan Master Moxian agreed.

The next day, when he went to the devotee’s house, the wife came out to receive him. True to her miserly nature, she did not even offer Chan Master Moxian a cup of tea. Chan Master sat down and held out his fist, asking, “Madame, look at my hand. What would you think if my hand remained constantly in a fist?” The wife responded, “If it remained in a fist, then your hand is deformed! Something must be wrong with it.”

Chan Master repeated her words back to her, saying, “It is deformed!” In the meantime, he opened up his fist and held out a flat palm to her, asking, “Were it like this all the time, what do you think?” The wife responded, “That would be deformed too!”

Seizing this opportunity, Chan Master immediately came to the point, saying, “Madame, you are right! A constant closed fist and a constant opened palm are both deformed. It is the same with the way we use money. If we are always close-fisted, only concerned about getting more money, but never consider giving, we are deformed. If we are always open-handed, only thinking about spending but not saving, we are deformed as well. Money should flow like a smooth current. When it comes in, it should flow out too. There should be a balance in your receiving and giving.”

HANDLING ATTACHMENT

“One man can conquer a thousand times thousand men in battle,
but one who conquers himself is the greatest of conquerors.”
The Dhammapada

The following antidotes can be applied throughout daily life, but are profound meditation exercises as well.

ANTIDOTE 1 – Observe Yourself: Do I exaggerate positive qualities of things I am attached to, are they really worth all my troubles? Is it really worth to work hard for days, weeks or months to have an hour of fun?

ANTIDOTE 2 – Use Your Inner Wisdom: Discover how exaggerated attachment is and how desire works against oneself. Try to be wiser than the monkey and let go of the candy to be free.

ANTIDOTE 3 – Reflect on the Unsatisfactory Nature of Existence. This is also called the First Noble Truth. How much fun is fun really, and how much is it forgetting the pain? Do desires ever stop or is it an endless job to fulfil them?

ANTIDOTE 4 – Reflect on Impermanence. How important is the person or object: everything will end someday, people die, things break.

ANTIDOTE 5 – Reflect on the Problems of Attachment. Lying in the sun is great, but it quickly leads to sunburn. Eating nice food is great, but it leads to indigestion and obesity. Driving around in big cars is great, but how long do I have to work to enjoy this?

ANTIDOTE 6 – Reflect on bodily attraction (lust for sex). Loving someone is great, but what happens when the “honeymoon-days” are over? But what is the body really? What more is it than a skin bag filled with bones, flesh, disgusting organs and fluids?

ANTIDOTE 7 – Reflect on the Results of Attachment. Greed and craving lead to stealing and all kinds of crime, including war. Addiction to alcohol and drugs are simply forms of strong craving; they destroy the addict and the surroundings. Uncontrolled lust leads to sexual abuse. The feeling of greed, craving and lust in themselves can be easily seen as forms of suffering.

ANTIDOTE 8 – Reflect on Death. What are all objects of attachment worth at “the moment of truth” or death?

ANTIDOTE 9 – Emptiness. The ultimate antidote to attachment and all other negative emotions is the realisation of emptiness, see more in the page on Wisdom.

Just for fun:
I can resist everything except temptation.
Oscar Wilde

If you find a good solution and become attached to it, the solution may become your next problem.
Robert Anthony

Tell me what you need and I’ll tell you how to get along without it.
Anonymous

It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.
Weinberg

Girl: “Say you love me! Say you love me!”
Boy: “You love me..”

Taken from: http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/attachment.html

Suffering is optional; however, that option is only available to those who have no need for suffering. If we look up the word in the dictionary, we find that suffering is a verb. It is used to describe actions, states or occurrences. Verbs don’t identify what is being described. For that we use nouns.

Why the grammar lesson? Think about it. Pain, fear, guilt, joy, passion: all emotional states of our human experience. They’re nouns, static conditions. Suffering, however, is a verb that describes the experience of a condition. See where I’m headed? Life offers us a full range of emotions – we don’t control that. However, we do get to manage our description of the experience. In other words: suffering changes with our thinking around the emotion.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Most have heard the New Age slogans: “Change your attitude, change your life” or “As in mind, so in experience”. Self-help gurus pitch these gems voraciously as the keys to freedom. There is, however, a slight catch that is rarely addressed. That is, our minds have to let us change our thinking. Perhaps you’re thinking, “Of course I have the power to change my thinking.” But in practice, do we, really?

Most of what we think is compulsive and repetitive self-talk under the radar of our conscious awareness. This self-talk is staunchly defended as it is necessary to generate the continuous affirmation that keeps intact our false attachment to becoming ’someone’ – a projected better sense of “who we think we are” over time. Without this ongoing agreement, the attachment would dissolve back into the nothingness from where we thought it up. This is the root cause of all suffering.

Let’s look at the ‘problem’ of addiction. To be addicted is to recognize and admit that patterns are running you, rather than the opposite. Within Twelve Step programs, the first three steps form the foundation for recovery and treatment:

1. We admit we were powerless over addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand God.

In these three steps the necessity for shifting platforms is evident. The addict is in a psychological state of doing (not being). It is the aforementioned we – our sense of our selves in becoming – that we falsely identify with. Through this attachment, we face a problem (seemingly without solution) and the first step confirms this with “we were powerless” and unable to manage “our lives”.

However, solution becomes possible in the second step whereby we recognize that there is something beyond our sense of who we are (a Power) that can “restore us to sanity”. Sanity, in this case, is the letting go of the insane attachment to compulsivity.

The real possibility of freedom is then activated in the third step through our decision to surrender attachment to compulsivity and expectations over to that Power (God, as we understand God). In practice, this is all of the Twelve Step Program that is really necessary. The remaining nine steps flow naturally from this one decision to trust in a Higher Power.

Many addicts remain frozen in recovery, unable to shed their compulsive urge even while working the steps. Why? Because working the steps has become their new ritual of trying to manage the unmanageable, the mind-formed addict’s deviously deceptive attempt to reclaim power from within powerlessness. This was not how the program was understood by those who first envisioned it, as evidenced by the Twelve Promises, which include:

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

These promises, along with the other ten, speak to a life free from striving (especially against addiction). They point to a freedom in living that comes from Being Present – trusting not only day by day, but moment by moment.

One can’t remain identified as the addict needing recovery and be free from the ravages of addiction. Impossible. The way out is not only to turn the addiction over to God or Higher Power – it is to turn ourselves (or more clearly, “the addict and all understanding as to who we think we are”) over to that Divine Source. And, yes, it is a tremendous leap of faith. However, the alternative is clear: suffering unto death.

Within Being, the whole psychological matrix for suffering as addicts – including those still compelled to attempt management of their recovery – is transcended. It dissolves away. The fight is over.

Now, it is important to note that I am not saying that step-work is not valid. What I am saying is that attachment to step-work as one’s Higher Power will not work. Attachment to step-work on addiction is denial of the first step: asserting powerfulness and the ability to manage addiction through step-work. The last nine steps were discovered by observation as the natural outflow of actions from turning over the matter to Higher Power. The steps are an arrow, a pointing direction – not a ‘To-Do’ list.

To those suffering from addiction, I would encourage a broader view of what is happening in you. Proclaiming “I am an addict” (which can be helpful in confronting denial) also affirms identification as a victim of a disease. One can suffer from addiction, but no one can truly Be an addict anymore than one can Be any role. This may sound like knit picking, but when dealing with the mind it is critical. Thought compulsion thrives on misidentification. That’s why the first three steps offer hope. Release from addiction is only possible because we are something more than the roles we habituate.

But even by falsely identifying as the addict, the sufferer is still under Grace. Evolution/Higher Power forces release by bringing greater pressure (suffering) to bear on everyone who continues to identify with the mind and its conceptions. The addict is not real – it is a psychological state of mind. Spirit is unerring in opening us to the truth that makes us free. Sufferers from addiction especially experience this, for the blinders that allow most people to live in relative, dysfunctional normalcy have been ripped away.

The core human addiction is mind identification resulting in compulsive mind chatter about the past and future. All seeming physical, biological, emotional addictions are symptom addictions – imprints formed to medicate the core compulsivity. Remember: nearly all people suffer from this. Like all addictions, however, it isn’t a problem until it becomes one.

So, if addiction is a problem for you, this is also the good news. Why? You would not be forced to face the problem and reality of addiction unless you were ready to experience the freedom that follows from letting it go. Suffering is truly optional for those who have no further need of it. Addicts need it. Beings don’t.

~ ~ ~
The Reverend Warren Dale Blackford is an author, speaker, teacher and Spiritual guide.

Taken from: http://www.daleblackford.com/article3.htm

Buddhism
Buddhism encourages renouncing sensual pleasures. Sensuous lust is considered one of Buddhism’s five hindrances. The Buddha taught that lust is a result of desire, which must be abandoned to reach enlightenment. The Buddha formulated 5 precepts of Right Conduct One of these is: “I undertake to observe the precept to abstain from sexual misconduct.” Buddhists interpret this precept in different ways, but most believe that consensual sexual relations between a couple are okay, and that sexual misconduct would include adultery, rape, incest, and other sexual abuse.

Many Buddhist texts explain these teachings on lust. The “Discourses of the Buddha” states, “The pleasure and joy that arise in dependence on the eye: this is the gratification in the eye. That the eye is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change: this is the danger in the eye. The removal and abandonment of desire and lust from the eye: this is the escape from the eye.”

The Dhammapada teaches, “Those who are infatuated with lust fall back into the stream, as does a spider into the web spun by itself. This too the wise cut off, and wander, with no longing, released from all sorrow (Dhammapada 13).”

Other Buddhist texts go further, to say that lust is evil. The Itivuttaka states, “Monks, there are these three roots of evil. What three?

“Lust is a root of evil, hate is a root of evil, delusion is a root of evil. These are the three roots of evil.”

And as Buddhaghosa wrote in the Visuddhimagga, “Of the divine state of love the near enemy is lust, because, like love, it sees good qualities. It is like a foe lurking near a man. Quickly it finds access. Hence love should be well protected from lust.”

Christianity
Christianity generally teaches that lust is sinful. In the New Testament, Jesus says that to lust after a person who is not one’s wife is the same as committing adultery. In his Sermon on the Mount, he explains, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28).”

Other New Testament writers affirm the idea that sex should only occur within marriage, and that natural impulses outside of marriage only lead to trouble. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote. It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband (1 Corinthians 7).”

Further evidence that lust is a sin in Christianity comes from 1 John, where lust is described as being ungodly: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world (1 John 2:16).”

Some contemporary Christians understand lust as being sinful only if one acts upon the temptation, not merely if one is lured. But Christian denominations generally teach that lust is wrong. Catholicism considers lust a capital sin. The Catholic Catechism states, “Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes (Verse 2351).”

Similarly, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints warns that a heterosexual marriage is the only proper way to satisfy lust. The Mormon Doctrine & Covenant states, “And he that looketh upon a woman to lust after her shall deny the faith, and shall not have the Spirit; and if he repents not he shall be cast out (42:23).”

Hinduism
In Hinduism, renunciation of selfish desire leads to wisdom, and lust is one of the primary selfish desires. Avoiding lust is one of Hinduism’s yamas, the restraints that Hindus observe in following Hindu dharma.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches that lust is a “mighty enemy (3:43),” a selfish desire that must be overcome in order to reach realization.

The Gita continues, “Pleasures conceived in the world of the senses have a beginning and an end and give birth to misery, Arjuna. The wise do not look for happiness in them. But those who overcome the impulses of lust and anger which arise in the body are made whole and live in joy. They find their joy, their rest, and their light completely within themselves. United with the Lord, they attain nirvana in Brahman (Bhagavad Gita 5:22-24).”

Hinduism also teaches that followers should live a life of brahmacharya, or divine conduct. This is usually interpreted as proper sexual conduct, or sexual purity. Being celibate when single, or maintaining a faithful marriage, are ways of practicing brahmacharya.

Islam
The Qur’an and the hadith, sayings of the Prophet, prohibit lust. Lust can impinge on a person’s path to Allah, as the Qur’an states, “Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest ye swerve (Surah 4:135).” People who act on lust are not among the believers, as the Qur’an says, “Allah doth wish to Turn to you, but the wish of those who follow their lusts is that ye should turn away (from Him), far, far away (4:27).”

Muslims view the fast of Ramadan is a way of inhibiting lust. The month-long fast during daylight hours, helps Muslims subdue feelings of greed and lust, as they are not permitted to eat or have sexual intercourse during the fast. Fasting is considered a way of “cooling sexual passion,” as Bukhari reports in the hadith: “Young men, those of you who can support a wife should marry, for it keeps you from looking at women (lit., lowers your gaze) and preserves your chastity; but those who cannot should fast, for it is a means of cooling sexual passion.”

Fornication is sinful in Islam, and the hadith explain that fornication is not just the act of intercourse. Similar to Christianity, lustful glances or thoughts are also wrong. As Abu Hurairah reports in Sahih Muslim, the Prophet said, “The fornication of the eyes is to look with lust; the fornication of the tongue is to speak lustful things; the fornication of the hands is to touch with lust; the fornication of the feet is to walk towards lust; the fornication of the heart is to desire evil.”

Similarly, Abu Musa reported in Tirmidhi that the Prophet said, “Every eye is adulterous (when it cast glances with lust on strange women) and when a woman perfumes herself and passes a company, she is such and such” [meaning adulterous].

Judaism
Jewish tradition teaches that lust is natural and that both men and women have a sexual drive. Lust is considered a result of the yetzer harah, the evil inclination, which is part of every human being. The yetzer harah is necessary, as one Midrash explains, “were it not for the yetzer hara (the evil urge), a man would not build a house, take a wife, beget children, or engage in commerce.” Lust, while stemming from the evil inclination, is necessary for sex, and sex is necessary for reproduction.

But reproduction is not the only reason to have sex, and Judaism teaches that sex for pleasure is a mitzvah, or good deed, though this is traditionally as long as sex is part of a marriage. Sex should not take place to satisfy lust alone, however, as the rabbis teach that sex that is purely lustful, and not out of love, cannot build a successful relationship.

As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin explains in “Jewish Wisdom,” “…the Talmud never associated saintliness with a dormant libido.” He explains that the great rabbis often struggled with their sexual passions. The Talmud even states, “The greater a man, the greater his evil inclination (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 52a).”

The rabbis understood that women have a sexual drive as well as men. Telushkin quotes from the Mishna, “If a man forbids himself by vow from having intercourse with his wife, the School of Shammai says [she must go along with the vow] for up to two weeks [if it lasts longer, the court can compel him to divorce her], but the school of Hillel says for [only] one week.”

Judaism also teaches that lust that results in male masturbation is wrong, as men are not supposed to spill their seed in vain.

Parts are taken from: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Judaism/2002/08/Is-Lust-Only-Natural.aspx?p=1

I was holding my baby nephew who is only 8 months old, he is the cutest little thing. Lately his new thing is that he likes to point at things.

While I was holding him, he started the point at these 5 things the stairs, the light, the window, the TV and the living room table. In my mind, I didn’t think anything of it, because he loves to point at things now. But when he pointed at these things, it resonated in me as if it was something I should pay attention to. I started thinking about these things and these are the thoughts that came to my mind about these objects.

1) The Stairs: The stairs reminded me of the story in the old testament Genesis 28:11-19; where Jacob saw a ladder that was connected to heaven. Jacob saw angels ascending and descending on it. Then he heard God say that the land where he stands on will be given to him and that God will be with him.

The stairs is symbolic to the gateway to heaven, to the Way, to the Path, to enlightenment, to nirvana.

The connection to the Source, to the Way is already here, its within. When we seek and walk in the Way we will experience peace, love, joy. The Way will secure us and give us what we need. We have this connection, we connect with the stairs when we pray and meditate.

2) The Light: When we walk on the Path, the Light will turn on within us and we will become a light to the world. It awakens the Buddha Nature, the Likeness of God in us. Our mind becomes illuminated with the Truth, the Light reveals us all the things we need to know. The Light opens our mind to the infinite Wisdom that existed before the ages.

3) The Window: is symbolic to the window of our eyes, which brings light or darkness into the house which is our soul or mind. The things we watch becomes food to our mind. We can either feed our soul, our True Self, or we can feed our ego, our False Self. Its like food, if we eat food that is not healthy our physical will suffer, if we eat healthy our physical will feel great! We can fill our mind with good things or we can fill our mind with not good things that can delude our mind with negativity or delusion which will try to divert us from the Truth. We need to be careful with what we watch or listen to on TV or on the radio. Feeding your mind with good things will create less delusion within your mind.

4) The TV: This one is similar to the third one. The TV is symbolic with our mind. What are the things playing in our mind? Are the channels of our mind playing good programs, or are they filled with anger, lust, pride, judgment, hate, inadequate feeling, depressing emotional movies? We need to be the Master of your TV set, be the Master of our mind, be like the FCC, control the content in your head. Let the Dharma help you.

5) The Table: On the table I saw my wallet laid out. In my wallet I was able to see my ID’s, credit cards, money, and business cards. The wallet was symbolic to mankind’s false identity and the cares for money or any worldly valuable (things that are not permanent).

Jesus said, Matthew 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.” Jesus also said in Matthew 19:21 “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven (within you); and come, follow Me.”

Basically give up your false identity and worldly desires and passions, and put on your new identity which is your True Self, the Buddha Nature, The Christ Nature, the Likeness of God, The Enlightened Nature, and follow the Pure Way.

What is our main goal in life? To be rich? To be a successful person? It is good to have ambitions, but if it prevents you from walking the Pure Path then it is not good. Do not identify yourself with what you have. Use your life to be a change in the world, because everything you accumulate will stay here and be passed on to the next person. It is better to save a million souls then to make a million dollars. Or if you make a million dollars, use some of it to help the poor, the hungry, the unfortunate people.

Well, this was something that talked to my life and I just had to share it. I hope it blessed you as it blessed me.

Take care and be well, namaste!

Your Internet Friend!

The tree of your life

We are like trees that produce fruit.

And like trees, we need nutrients to make us grow strong, other wise without the nutrients, our tree will fall, our fruits will dry up and rot away.

A good healthy tree yields tasty and beautiful fruits to every person that comes around the tree.

A bad unhealthy tree yields nothing but rotten and ugly fruits to every person that comes around the tree.

Spiritually speaking, the tree is you. What kind of fruit are you yielding?

If you are living an ungodly and self-centered life, then you will produce rotten fruit. Yielding rotten fruit is a result of unrighteous-speech, action, thinking, and living. This kind of tree is easily provoked in arguments, is impatient, lustful or promiscuous, judges others: verbally or within the mind, self-righteous; this type of person, people do not like to be around, because it causes tension in the atmosphere. A tree that yields pleasant fruit of compassion, peace, love, patience, joy, laughter, courtesy is always pleasure to be around.

In Christianity, in the New Testament, Matthew 12:33,
it says:
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.”

According to the law of attraction, you will attract good or bad things in your life, depending on the type of fruit you yield. Don’t get me wrong, even if you produce good deeds or good fruit in your life, you are not exempt from receiving difficult circumstances, in fact the difficult circumstances are really blessings in disguised for people that seek goodness, its ying and yang, that results to something positive.

You do not necessarily have to physically kill someone or commit adultery, but just with your words you can kill someone by saying hateful things or with your eyes you can commit adultery, when you stare at someone with lustful thoughts, that results bad fruit and bad karma.

If we yield our lives to God, yield our life to the good path, to the truth, to love, to peace, to righteousness, we start to produce good fruit, and then we are compared to a tree planted by the rivers of water.

In Judaism, in the Old Testament, the book of Psalms chapter 1 says:
“Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly
or stand in the way of the impure
or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
Not so the ungodly
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
Therefore the impure will not stand in the judgment,
nor the ungodly in the assembly of the pure minded.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the ungodly will perish.”

Dhammapada – Choices Chapter 1:
“How easily the wind overturns a frail tree.
Seek happiness in the senses,
Indulge in food and sleep,
And you too will be uprooted.

The wind cannot overturn a mountain.
Temptation cannot touch the man
Who is AWAKE, STRONG and HUMBLE,
Who MASTERS HIMSELF and MINDS the LAW.”

In other words, If you seek to satisfy the desires and passion of your “self” the “false self” the “ego” you will perish, you will fall, you will be uprooted. This is referring to the person that is walking the good path but is also walking the bad path, living two lives. Like a boat that gets tossed to the left and tossed to the right, the boat is not steady, its direction is determined by the wind. We cannot live two lives. We already know that the path of selfish desires lead to perdition and suffering. This path is very spacious, the majority of the world walks this path, because its easy, no God, no rules, no big deal right? Yes, its a big deal, because you will have to pay for every action you do on earth, in this life time or next life time, you will still pay for it. Don’t you want to end the cycle of life, death, and rebirth? Don’t you want to merge into nirvana, into heaven, into God? This is a serious decision one needs to honestly make within.

Do not be discouraged in this path, you can do it. Living a good life, is the best the thing or choice you have made. Protect this path, nurture this way, like a mother protects and nurture her baby inside of her womb. The mother will experience birth pains, but when the baby comes out, new life comes out, joy comes out.

In Christianity, in the New Testament, Matthew 11:30, it says:
“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Our ego says its not easy, because the ego is scared of death. The death of Christ was symbolic of what we have to do with our ego, we must crucify it on the cross. The resurrection of Christ was symbolic of what happens when you crucify the ego, you will resurrect into a new self, the True Self, a new mind, a new life, its an awakening. If the ego dies, you will be spiritually awaken. Its just like a seed, in order for it to produce a plant or tree, the seed must die.

Dhammapada – Wakefulness Chapter 2:
“The fool is careless.
But the master guards his watching.
It is his most precious treasure.”

Guard it with your life. Don’t be careless.

Don’t say, “oh well, I’m not perfect and its not like God is going to kill me for messing up.” Of course God is not going to kill you, but you are killing yourself, you are killing the tree, your fruits, your mind. Yes, we are not perfect, but seek the way of perfection, it is attainable. When you seek perfection, God dwells in the midst of that perfection, your Buddha Nature is awaken. Do not constantly dirty the mirror of your life, keep it clean, so you can see clearly into the mirror, and in the mirror you will not see yourself, but you will see God, your Buddha Nature.

Life becomes clearer, your thoughts become clearer.

Dhammapada – Wakefulness Chapter 2:
“Wakefulness is the way to life.
The fool sleeps
As if he were already dead,
But the master is awake
And he lives forever.

He watches.
He is clear.”

If you feel like you need someone to talk to in regards to walking this path, in getting some help, getting some personal advice, you can contact me with complete confidence. I seek nothing, nor do I want anything. We are all here to help each other, even if you live on the other side of the world, it doesn’t matter, we all come from the same Source. Tell me your concern, I will pray with you and try my best to encourage you. All conversations are private and will not be disclosed to anyone or posted on this blog.

This path is well worth it, don’t give up!

Contact me at: encouragement@wrdz.com