..续本文上一页ecause as a condition, it”s just what it is, you don”t have to call it rubbish. It”s nothing bad in itself or wrong to be a Lord or a Lady, or a Count or Prince, but it”s the attachment to any view about it that leads to suffering.

　　With something you really love, then attachments form quite easily. And you always know when you”re attached, because you”re suffering. One time, I”d become very devoted to Ajahn Chah. I”d become very attached to him, actually. This gave me a lot of happiness, because I hadn”t had anyone who I really felt that love for in my life. So it all went to Ajahn Chah, and it was a very inspiring and wonderful feeling for me. But then I noticed that I was suffering a lot, because if anybody criticised Ajahn Chah or implied that there was a better teacher somewhere else, I”d get incredibly angry about it.

　　And so I”d watch this. At first I believed it. I”d say: ”If you think the other teacher”s better than Ajahn Chah, go to that other teacher” - that kind of thing. But then I”d reflect and see that it was not a very nice mental state, and I”d watch the suffering that was coming from that. And then I”d realise the attachment.

　　Then the tendency was to think, ”I shouldn”t be attached.” So I”d say: ”I”m not really attached. Other teachers are just as good as Ajahn Chah. They”re all the same ....” But I was still attached; out of idealism I was just pretending not to be attached.

　　So you still suffer, though you”re pretending to be completely tolerant and non-attached. Then you realise the attachment is an emotional one. So you begin to go to the feeling of attachment and really study attachment, rather than just trying to suppress it and say: ”I”m not attached.” You go to that place in yourself and you investigate it. You learn from it; and through that you let go of it. Because once you see it, then attachment”s gone. The attachment is out of ignorance. You”re never attached out of wisdom. So once there”s wisdom then there”s no attachment.

　　You can be attached to the idea of not being attached. Krishnamurti, for example, would always emphasise not to be attached to anything. He would say, ”Monks, this is all wrong. Religion, monks, all this is wrong. It”s not the way.” Then people listening to that would attach to his view, and they weren”t aware of the attachment they had to Krishnamurti”s view. So the problem is not the view, but the attachment. A view is a view. You can see if you”re attached to a view, for or against it. Then the actual practice is to not being attached to any view, and you are very much investigating what”s going on.

　　With wisdom you”re free to be a monk or not to be a monk, but you”re not attached to it. You have no opinion. I can see if there”s an attachment to being a monk, then I suffer from it, from being a monk. But when there”s no attachment, then one feels that it”s an offering. One presents this monastic form to others as an offering. It”s a gift, it”s a beautiful form in itself. It”s not me.

　　It would still be an attachment if I felt, in order to prove I”m not attached to being a monk, I should disrobe. That”s still an attachment from the self, isn”t it

　　 To prove that I”m not attached, I”ll have to disrobe to see what happens to my mind when I”m not a monk. That”s attachment. But if you”re just with the moment as it is, then being a monk, the form itself, is just a beautiful form, a beautiful convention that one feels is of great use and can be a great offering to the society we”re in. Beginning with ignorance, there”s this imposition, this going out, out of fear and desire and ignorance. So that is the compounding of the whole process, and then attachment comes from that, and one builds a whole realm of attachment in one”s mind.

　　Now when there is the ending of ignorance, then the world that is created out of ignorance falls way. Then there”s what we call Dhamma - the way things are. So then monks and nuns and lay people, and Buddhist conventions and all these things, are what they are. They”re dhammas for us, rather than attachment.

　　The Western mind tends to assume that non-attachment means ”getting rid of something”. For example, a woman said to me once: ”I could never be a Buddhist because I”m attached to my children.” I”d say: ”Well, what do you mean, not be attached to your children

　　 Throw them off a cliff or something to prove you”re not attached to them

　　 Or just desert them so that you won”t be attached to them

　　” That”s not Buddhism. But the ability to not be attached to your children means that you can love your children. When you”re attached to your children, you can”t love them any more - because attachment destroys that. Any love you have is destroyed by attachment, because attachment blinds and is painful and is suffering. Whereas love born from wisdom is joyful.

　　Forest Sangha Newsletter:

　　October 1988, Number 6;

　　January 1999, Number 7;

　　July 1989, Number 9;

　　October 1989, Number 10;

　　January 1990, Number 11;

　　October 1990, Number 14.

《Question Time with Ajahn Sumedho》全文阅读结束。