TLDR: To love and care without attachment, one must let go and realise that nothing is truly ours.
“I discovered a great spiritual example at the supermarket!” declared Āyasmā Rāhula on a cold rainy night in December.
I was at the Singapore Buddhist Mission on a Wednesday night for a special dhamma talk by the Mexican-born, Burmese-ordained monastic.
He was giving a talk titled, “How do we care and love without attachment?”.
We often learn that to attach is to set ourselves up for eventual dissatisfaction. So is it possible to care and love without attachment?
I’d previously been exposed to Bhante Rāhula from a YouTube video shared with me by a dear friend from RainbodhiSG and was delighted to discover that he was similarly animated in real life as he was online.
At the start of the talk, he told us to put on spiritual safety belts, for he was going to take us on a journey that might get a little rocky.
His talk was divided into 3 main parts.
Mettā and letting go of my crushes
He began by exploring what mettā (translated into English as “loving-kindness”) was.
The characteristic of mettā is to promote the welfare of all living beings, he explained.
Mettā’s function is to prefer for the welfare of others and oneself. Its manifestation is the removal of ill will.
Finally, the proximate cause of mettā is to see beings as lovable, and not have selfish affection.
Love, he continues, makes you feel content. Attachment, however, makes you suffer.
That struck a chord.
All my crushes were causing great suffering.
I had to let them go. If nothing else, I think I had already benefited from the first third of the talk.
An analogy might be in order.
Imagine a girl holding a heavy sack of rice weighing about 5kg. For a long time, she carries it around wherever she goes. This sack of rice is precious to her. Even though it weighs her down, she holds it close. Eventually her arms get tired. She reluctantly puts it on the ground. She lets it go.
I was that girl. My crush was that sack of rice.
In my mind, I laid the sack of rice down, my crush, on the ground.
I was fine with or without her.
It was alright.
This mental letting go felt freeing. A weight lifted. My mind was lighter. Clearer.
Of course, this letting go is a continual process. For the default action is to hold the sack of rice close to the chest. The girl has done it for so long, that is her natural state of being. Every time she is aware, she puts the sack of rice down, she lets it go.
So it is with my mind. Again and again and again, I make a mental shift, and there is a felt sense in my mind to let the crush go.
He told us that with attachment to a person often comes worry and jealousy leading one to exert control over the other, and ultimately violence, whether verbal or physical toward the other party.
I recalled breaking up with my very first girlfriend mainly because I felt very suffocated due to the extent of control she was exerting over me.
Letting go, Bhante explains, helps both you and your partner to be free.
Freedom. That’s what so many of us seek.
The difference between desire and attachment
The excellent spiritual example Bhante Rāhula discovered at the supermarket went a bit like this.
Imagine we wanted to eat some potato chips. We go to the supermarket and pick out a bag, sour cream and onion potato chips. We put it into our shopping basket and proceed to the checkout.
At this point, is the potato chip ours?
No, it belongs to the supermarket.
If we were to rip open the bag to eat the potato chips, the security guard would reprimand us and tell us to pay before consuming the product.
At the checkout, the cashier smiles at us and begins scanning the items we have picked out at the supermarket.
At this point, as she scans the items, do the potato chips belong to us? Nope.
They still belong to the supermarket.
Finally, after the scanning is done, we pay with our card.
Beep.
Now, the potato chips belong to us.
If the cashier decides to open the bag of chips and eat it, you’d probably yell at her and say, “Hey! That’s mine!”
That is the difference between desire and attachment.
Before payment, the potato chips was just something we wanted. After payment, the potato chips became “MINE”. Attached to me.
Desire is when something is just a feeling, a want of a project, a thing, or a person. When it transforms into attachment, we then think, in our mine that this project, this thing, this person – “IT IS MINE”, when it really isn’t.
In a split second, after we pay for the potato chips, it is “MINE”.
Wow.
I then began to realise that often, it is an unconscious process in day-to-day life when projects, things, or people, unwittingly switch from being a desire to an attachment, especially when it is brought into our sphere of influence.
It is important to realise, that nothing is truly ours. We are all, as my favourite Buddhist author, Thich Nhat Hanh says, Interbeing, or interconnected. If we learn to dissolve our sense of self, we will then realise that nothing truly belongs to us. We might be given stewardship for some time, but people don’t belong to us, things don’t belong to us, for after we die, they cannot be taken with us.
Awareness is the first step to letting go.
Once we are aware, we begin to see how silly it is to cling so tightly to the objects of our attachment. And then, our vice-like grip on them begins to loosen.
(Dear Reader, I think I will never forget this because I actually LOVE potato chips and have often entered supermarkets with the sole intention of buying a bag or two. This is the beauty of spiritual metaphors. Indelibly etched into my brain.)
Antidotes
He gave a list of various antidotes from cultivating self-love, being aware of anicca (impermanence), and developing healthy boundaries.
I’ll elaborate on the one that made the most impact to me.
Firstly, he said we need to cultivate independence.
We did a little role-playing. He told us to ask him, “Bhante, are you worried about your business projects?”
Seated in the first row, I gamely asked him, “Bhante are you worried about your business projects?”
He smiled and said enthusiastically, “No, because I have no business projects!”
A chorus of laughter.
Then, he told me to ask him, “Bhante are you worried about your dog?”
Grinning, I asked, “Bhante are you worried about your dog?”
Chuckling, he said, “No, because I have no dog!”
And we went on, until he quipped at the end of this exchange, “The person who has nothing, worries about absolutely nothing.”
The room roared with laughter at his pun that hit so unexpectedly close to the bone.
But responding compassionately to a question, he wisely pointed out that instead of losing our houses, relationships and children, when we let go, we actually don’t lose anything at all. We upgrade our house and our relationships. For they are now free.
It is not my home, it is a home I am grateful to be living in.
It is not my children, they are children I have the privilege of caring for, and when they grow up, they are not mine, they lead their own lives and I can be their kalyanamitta (spiritual friend).
Next, he reminded us of the importance of developing self-love so as not to seek validation from others.
Q&A
After the main talk was over, he took questions in a short question-and-answer session.
My hand shot up and I asked him how we should balance the tension between working on projects, and being lazy by “letting them go”.
His answer was wise and blew my mind.
We need to let go of expectations of how our projects will turn out, but if the projects are good projects, we should definitely put our heart into it.
How does one know if one’s working on something good?
Glad you asked.
Projects that brought about monetary benefit were alright for they provided for oneself and one’s family, and can be donated for the propagation of the dhamma.
Perhaps your regular day job as an administrative staff, or a carpenter is like that. It brings monetary benefit for you, allows you to support your family, and allows you to periodically offer dana to sangha members.
He continued by explaining that projects that bring about monetary benefit, and benefits others, that was even better. For it helped others. An example of this would be your job as a nurse, an educator, or a civil servant. It not only provides a monthly income for daily living, but also allows you to benefit your patient, your student, or the general public. That is even better.
Finally, he said that projects that bring about monetary benefits, benefits others, and brings about spiritual growth. Ah, those were the best projects to participate in.
Perhaps you are inclined to write an innovative book about the dhamma after hours of poring over scripture or code a mobile phone app dedicated to the propagation of the Dhamma for a small profit, and giving a percentage of the proceeds to your favourite temple. In this way, not only do you manage to earn a living, if you are a writer or a software engineer, it benefits others, and also brings about spiritual growth for yourself and others.
I thanked him for his answer and was most grateful.
Conclusion
I am most grateful to the Singapore Buddhist Mission for organising this talk by Bhante Āyasmā Rāhula and look forward to attending future dhamma-sharing sessions there.
Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
You have placed your best effort. But the problems keep cascading in from all directions. Is this really the dead end? What can you do? Wasn’t this always the problem I have always tried to climb and solve? Giving up is tough, so knowing when to give up is key. Here are two stories to help you decide what’s best for you!
1. When obstacles come into your life, ask this question 2. It can be a great thing to give up.
When obstacles come into your life, ask this question
Cr: Unsplash
What’s going on here & Why we like it
Mingyur Rinpoche, a famous Tibetan Buddhist monk, shares on how we may meet obstacles and dead ends in our lives. By asking the question of whether we have a solution, it shapes our next steps to deal with the challenges that lie ahead of us. Solving the obstacle sometimes requires us to go around, above, or under it. It might even be our teacher.
“Letting go is not giving up. If you are going somewhere and you meet a dead end… what can you do?”
Wise Steps
Letting go is not giving up, if you know whether you have the solutions. What obstacles should you let go of right now?
What past obstacles have you overcome in the past? What have you learnt from them?
Tori Press, an Instagram Artist, shares her experience of giving up through illustrations of climbing a mountain. We love her personal sharing of her dad telling her not to give up and acknowledging how past goals don’t always correlate with our current goals.
Her simple analogy of climbing a mountain that you no longer have joy in climbing hits home hard as young working adults. We may wish for a promotion/ dream job/ dream partner only to realise it is not what we wanted. It is okay to acknowledge that things change and give up.
“This may not be the right path for me after all.”
Wise Steps
Ask yourself, “What mountain are you still climbing that is no longer the right path for you?”
Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
When someone says that our work sucks, how do we feel? How can we better receive feedback when our work ain’t up to someone’s standard? We explore filtering feedback and improving our interactions with others. We also draw wisdom from Will Smith to show the other side of him beyond the slapping incident.
1. Filtering good and bad feedback like Harry Potter
2. Meeting someone for the last time
Filtering good and bad feedback like Harry Potter
Credits: The Tiny Wisdom
What’s going on here
Brian, from The Tiny Wisdom, uses Harry Potter’s interaction with Voldemort to teach us creative lessons on receiving feedback. This fun and creative comic strip covers ways we can better deal with feedback that we may not like. Sometimes, our best might not be enough for the world. Harry Potter teaches us how.
Why we like it
As we navigate through work-life, we often find our work being criticised or scrutinised. This can make us question our self-worth and quality of work. This is a nifty way to figure out whether the feedback should be taken or cast aside.
“When someone told you something about your work — good or bad — you ask them: why?”
Wise Steps
Taking feedback non-personally. We often attach strong ownership to our work and get emotional swings through praise or criticism. Building the feedback muscle makes us take a pause before engaging with the feedback.
Read more on the science and art of receiving feedback here
Meeting someone for the last time
Unsplash
What’s going on here
Will Smith, a famous actor (also infamous now for the oscar slapping), shares one of the most important lessons he learnt and how he applies that to everyone he interacts with.
Why we like it
This video is short but impactful. It makes you think deeper about the relationships we hold and the way we interact with others.
“Tomorrow is not promised to any of us.”
Wise Steps
Try to greet every being as if it is the last time you meet them. Because tomorrow is not promised never go to bed hating someone or saying nasty things. Had an argument? Internalise, forgive, and re-engage with one another.
Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
We often laugh at friends who do not know the latest trends/ Netflix movies/ social terms. However, we rarely think that we are ‘out-of-trend’. Today we explore how we can check on which part of us is still living in the past. To seek within and not outwards. Stay wise!
1. Are you operating on Windows 95?
2. Two monks carry a woman differently. What can we learn?
Are you operating on Windows 95?
Unsplash
What’s going on here
Adam Grant, a famous writer who writes about work-life, shares a post about rethinking our opinions and views. We often laugh at others who are ‘outdated’ in the products, films, and services they use. However, we often miss looking in the mirror for the outdated opinions we hold.
Why we like it
Adam challenges us to look deeper by first forcing us to confront the values that we hold. His post provides a nice trigger for us to recollect on changing our views and even friendships to become a better version of ourselves!
“The best way to stay true to your values is to stay open to rethinking your views. What have you rethought lately?”
Wise Steps
Have a deep thought about what values you hold close to your heart. Is there a need to rethink them? What grudges do you hold that no longer serve you?
Two monks carry a woman differently. What can we learn?
Unsplash
What’s going on here
Two monks meet a woman stranded at a raging river. The senior and junior monk makes their own decision on how to approach the lady. The video highlights clinging to form vs substance.
Why we like it
This short video makes us reflect on the principles behind why we walk the Buddhist path. To let go of our preconceptions of what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and focus on the present moment of what needs to be done.
“The junior monk was carrying the burden of what the senior monk had done as an emotional baggage”
Wise Steps
Does something ‘trigger’ you no matter what the person’s intention? Reflect on what you are clinging so much to that it is worth giving up your happiness for.
TLDR: As “spiritual people” we might go through difficult events thinking we have transcended them – but actually, it may have just been spiritual bypass. To truly let something go, we must first find a way to meet ourselves and our suffering.
A phenomenon I’ve often observed within me is spiritual bypass. According to clinical psychologist John Welwood, this is the tendency to use spiritual explanations and practices to avoid facing unresolved emotional issues and psychological wounds.
Why It’s Problematic
With spiritual bypass, we may go through something traumatic and then pick out a line of Dhamma and think, “Yeah, the Buddha said this and he’s right, so I should get over it now.”
For example, say someone close to you has passed away. Spiritual bypass in this situation may look like telling yourself that “everything is impermanent” and that “death is natural, it happens to everyone” so “I shouldn’t feel grief”.
You use the Dhamma to rationalise the grief away – but without healthily processing the emotions that naturally arise.
This is problematic because externally, it may appear like you’ve been able to transcend the suffering, completely unaffected – but you haven’t actually done the real work of processing the painful experience and unpleasant emotions that come with it.
Without properly taking the time to receive these things and truly let them go, they might stay repressed, festering away until they come back to bite you in the a** later on.
I’m Buddhist, so I Should Just Get Over It
Something that can make this tendency worse is a strong attachment to “being Buddhist”. You may hold yourself to very high standards, putting pressure on yourself to “be strong” and “get over it”, thinking you need to be unfazed by suffering.
“I am Buddhist, so I shouldn’t be angry. Instead, I should be contented.”
“I am Buddhist, so I should be beyond such petty emotions.”
“I am Buddhist, so I should be able to let go of suffering.”
From my experience, this can be a kind of conceit. It’s a deluded expectation stemming from a heavy attachment to a “Buddhist identity” – an idealism about how your practice “should” look like, instead of working with what actually arises.
You may feel guilt or aversion around the unwholesome thoughts, intentions and desires that inevitably arise. And because of the shame, you want to hide them away, from others and even from yourself.
But what happens when you don’t allow yourself to process all that?
It doesn’t just disappear. Instead, it gets buried in the heart and resurfaces later on.
In my late teens, I experienced several traumatic events and at the time, spiritually bypassed them and then left to study abroad (which was a niceee, biiig distraction).
Years later, when I returned home during the pandemic to familiar conditions with lots of quiet, idle time, many of those unresolved negative emotions and thought patterns began to resurface.
It was surprising because for the last three years I thought I was “fine” for the most part. But evidently, I had just swept things into “the basement of unawareness”. Now that they’d reappeared, it was time to clear out the basement – to finally meet myself and deal with the repressed suffering.
This was important because, as Pema Chödrön says, “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know”.
So, How Should We Approach Suffering?
We know that everything is impermanent. We know that everything decays and dies one day.
We often know the Dhamma very well on an intellectual level.
But if intellectual understanding was all it took to let go, then everyone would be enlightened, wouldn’t they?
How do we apply the Dhamma beyond just a conceptual level?
In Thai, one of the terms for the mind is jit jai – “mind and heart”. There’s an ambiguity in the language that likens the mind to the heart. To me, this seems to say that processing things up in the head is not enough – we must also deal with them on an emotional level.
One of my favourite authors, Yung Pueblo, says “Manage your reactions, but do not suppress your emotions.”
Certainly, if there is, say, anger in the heart, we should take care to ensure that it doesn’t leak into our actions and speech in a way that harms ourselves and others. We might have to suppress it for that little while, but then we should make sure to process it healthily later on – this is necessary so that it can really be let go of.
Of course, this sounds straightforward in theory, but it takes a lot of skill to acknowledge these emotions without indulging in or avoiding them.
One way I practice receiving negative emotion is by being mindful of how it feels in the body. Focusing on how anger physically feels and changes helps me to receive it without indulging in it or denying it. However, I find this difficult to do for certain emotions (e.g. depression, which tends to lure you in and make you want to wallow in it), if I have a strong attachment to the issue at hand, or if my mindfulness is weak at that time.
Apart from mindfulness, the Buddha recommends five ways to remove distracting thoughts, which you can read about here. What works for you may depend on your temperament.
Letting Go of Repressed Dukkha
A process I find effective for dealing with old negative emotions is this:
1. Returning to familiar conditions in which the trauma took place can cause these old emotions to resurface. So if a situation is too triggering, remove yourself from it to prevent unwholesome speech and action.
2. Find a way to calm down. Interestingly, Ajahn Munindo suggests that meditation might not be that helpful at this time. If you’re completely agitated but try to meditate, you might just be mentally proliferating the whole time. Or you might just be tranquillizing yourself and not feeling your emotions – making it a form of spiritual bypass! What has worked for me is doing something physical with that energy, such as taking a long walk.
3. When you’re calm enough, receive the emotion. Let yourself feel all of it. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to vent, do it with a trustworthy friend. I remember a story by Ajahn Sumedho, who had so much aversion towards a particular visitor to the monastery that he sat down one day and just began writing out all his anger –completely unfiltered, not trying to be nice or reasonable or “a good monk” – until there was none left. This is acceptance and release.
4. I find that receiving the emotion comes hand-in-hand with developing insight around it. When your mind is calm enough to look at the situation, you may develop new perspectives and understandings. These “paradigm shifts” are the real good stuff that helps to create lasting “liberation” from the issue. Bit by bit, they help you make sense of the experience and let go of it.
For me, this process usually takes place over a few days. You may also find that you have to go through it multiple times. That’s because, after some time, these habitual mindsets that we carry can become cemented in the psyche, becoming our “default mode”. Reframing these thoughts can thus be very challenging – so don’t be afraid to even seek guidance from a therapist.
To quote Yung Pueblo again, “If the pain was deep, you will have to let it go many times… Letting go is not a one-time event, it is a habit that requires constant repetition to become strong. Sometimes the reaction to the pain is so deep that you will have to observe and release the tension repeatedly to fully cleanse the wound.”
With each cycle, you might find that you let go a little bit more.
Wise Steps:
If you realise that something within your heart is unresolved, the first step is to let it come to the surface. Practice loving-acceptance.
Recognise your triggers and set boundaries for yourself. If certain situations are too much to handle, remove yourself from them. When you feel stronger, you may test the waters further in the future – but for now, protect your mind.
Having to deal with old trauma may feel like you’re regressing, but it is actually progress. Be patient and kind with yourself throughout this (often painful but rewarding) process.
