Thank you. That was such a profound and beautiful talk. I’ve been suffering a lot from attachments I have and I would also go as far to say that this talk was life changing. I made some notes: Attachments 0.27 a people have a vague understanding of what this actually means. ‘ I shouldn’t be attached’ it doesn’t work like that it’s the nature of human beings. 1:06 when you think to yourself I shouldn’t be attached all you’re really doing is creating a sense of shame and guilt. So you can see how useless that actually is and how it can lead to negative mindsets. 1.33 you have to have attachments that’s part of being human being. 2:10 you’re not going to be able to get over your attachments overnight it takes a really really long time. 2:20 attachments tend to delude us The less attachments you have the better it is 3:16 at a certain level attachments lead to suffering If we hold onto things they are subject to change. 4:48 how do attachments arise? It starts off because we have feelings Feelings can be divided into two categories pleasant feelings and unpleasant feelings All experiences can be placed into those categories And that means we’re going to have cravings. We want to have the pleasant things and avoid the unpleasant things. When you have a craving it’s usually an unpleasant states so you usually want to satisfy this craving 6:07 these are the things that we attach to From craving must arise attachment Why do we crave in response to feelings? That is that we have the sense of self inside us. And that’s the feeling that we can control the world and that we can have good feelings and avoid unpleasant feelings. This sense of self thinking makes it think it control the outside world. 8:12 - from the sense of self comes the idea that I’m in charge and can control feelings. And because you think you can control things cravings will arise. If you can’t control things cravings don’t make sense So this is the basic concept of how attachments arise 9:00 - examples from ordinary life of how attachments happen. One very obvious area where we normally have attachments is work. We usually work hard and pursue careers and we have a salary that increases over time. We often identify with our jobs. ‘I am a person who is having success professionally - this is me and who I am’ this gives you a sense of who you are and social standing. Being praised by friends and colleagues. 9:54 - I have seen so many people in my life who identify with who they are by work. When they get older and retired they keep talking about how wonderful it was when they were working and can’t let go So there’s an attachment there for a sense of who they are. So what happens if you get fired? You’d feel terrible about yourself. You often here of people jumping off buildings. This is a classic example of how we attach to things. Another example Bhante gives is your house. 13:15 Some of the other attachments we get are attachments to people. Now we’re getting to the really important attachments. Often why other people are important to us is psychological. People are nice to us, we feel a sense of release. Particularly if you have a spouse you’ve been with for decades and it becomes very hard to imagine not being with this person. So it becomes painful if they die or want a divorce. 17:30 then there are of course attachments we have to ourselves. And lastly we attach to our mind and this is most profound attachment we have. As it touches the core of who we think we are. 19:20 talks about depression. 19:45 all the attachments talked about give a sense of pleasure What can we do about these attachments and how can we overcome them? We have to create a refuge for ourselves which is apart from our attachments So we have to look in words rather then out words. We need to find a contentment inside our selves. A sense of peace and happiness. Purifying the mind. It is still terrible when someone passes away or we lose our jobs but it’s not as terrible now that we have something more beautiful. It’s really a path of making the mind more bright and having an internal source of happiness. View attachments as a ladder and reduce your grip. Gradually you can move away from the attachments and desire 25.00 - attachments get a less of a grip on you As you increase internal happiness you identify less with identity and attachments 27:15 start to do meditation practise. For example love and kindness meditation. As you start practising meditation you find your mind becomes more purified. You get less angry and identified. Love and kindness meditation changed the life of a lady in the Buddhist monestray. When you find your mind is pure you can loosen the grip on morality. You become less vulnerable to the material world 31:28 the root cause of our attachments is the sense of self we have inside of us and we think we can control things (when in reality we can’t) It’s not an easy matter to get over attachments. It takes a long time. It’s good to know attachments lead to suffering. If the object of our attachment doesn’t behave in the way we expect it’s easy to get angry. And it clouds the mind and makes you do things you’ll later regret. Attachments are negative as you’re looking at yourself to a certain extent If you can have more clarity in the mind you can look at people in other ways, true compassion. Ie what’s there benefit instead of my benefit. Always think attachment is a path. Don’t attach to things that give suffering. What I personally got out of the video: attachments lead to suffering. We must purify the mind and find internal happiness for example love and kindness meditation
Very illuminating talk! From this I can understand that detachment doesn't mean a lack of compassion , finding a refuge in your own mind improves your empathy for others and your perception of life. Thank u Ajahn Bramali! 😊😊😊
I think one of the most painful things about attachment is thinking those we are overly attached to love or care about us...but that is not necessarily true. Perhaps once we realize that they do not love or care about us it helps us let go
Knowing this, hearing his/your words as truth, known for years. So much is some how easier to let go of attachments to except your attachments to your children. Yes there are pleasurable emotions at times to this, but for me, it is my sense of duty and obligation to them, as they grow that is very very hard for me. I am currently having to let go of my youngest for very complicated reasons and the fear of her pain, when I do have to go.
Thank you very much for this video! I've been watching al lot of video's of this channel, and i'm thankfull for all of thme, but to me for this moment this one has done the most. So thanks again!
I guess one could apply this teaching to anything. I have a crush on a co-worker and I consider it an "attachment". Every time I deviate only slightly from an austere, aesthetic, detached way of being I end-up w/ more than my mind can handle. Want and desire fade over time but until then it feels like suffering, looks like anger and taste like jealousy.
you can have a mansion, jewels, and sportscar, art collection etc. AS LONG AS YOU DON'T DESIRE IT. you can buy it if you make lots of money. and you can make lots of money as a Buddhist as long as you don't desire to do so. it's done with love and through karma and without attachment. many buddhist celebs (reeves santana lange hancock turner) have done this. and it's the best way to be rich, get wealth and live in wealth with pretty material things. WITHOUT DESIRE FOR THOSE THINGS.
Buddha leaving his family always bothers me about his story. Was thinking that when Buddha left his wife, kid and family that he was not yet "enlightened". I don't think you need to leave your family to practice Buddhism concepts. You also don't need to be a monk, but can do it in your daily life. I like the notion from this lecture of attaching to good aspects of life, such as compassion and understanding.
I would say, attachment is a great teacher. But in order to learn from this teacher, we should be able to recognize attachment at the moment of happening, which is not obvious and requires already some ability of the power of detachment.
Don't know how strong the feeling of attachment is until I lost the object. Since I learned that the object didn't disappear from Earth, just change hand, I feel a little bit better! Just being realistic here.
We humans have so many attachments. For example me: i'm attached to sex, food, technology, other human beings and so on, but i want to learn how to get rid of attachment. Because sometimes it just seems that attachment is ok and ordinary, But it shouldn't be ordinary because it creates suffering. So easy to say and at the same time so hard to act, I just want to be happy.
@birkuscircus lmao very funny, makes sense seeing as they both have almost identical names. this teaching and video is very good by the way excellent explanation of the dhamma.
@saruman84 It doesn't reflect in his talking. He always sounds like he really wants to go to bed. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that, but it makes listening to him for an hour an exercise in concentration.
@HotZetiGer I'm not sure if this is a Buddhist story but there was this zen master and for generations these masters had been collecting their wisdom and putting it in a book. it was time to pass on the book to a new master and the monk took the book and he threw it into an oven.
to the buddhist path i follow.... having a swiss mansion is the same as having a bottle of dandruff shampoo in your bathroom. IT'S ALL GOOD. Without attachent.
Glashelder betoog waarom hechtingen (of 'gehechtheden') het geluk van de mens in de weg staan. Meteen ook een duidelijke uitleg van de kern van de boeddhistische leer.
Uh, oh. Now the whole ball game has changed. I'm up to 9 minutes into this presentation. Now I'm riding with you. I have no choice. I must see this video through to the end. I know it's going to tell me many things. I can feel it.
@HotZetiGer Attachment to beliefs is bending the truth to fit your faith, but bending your faith to fit with the truth is non-attachment to faith, which is one of Brahms teachings. You are confusing belief with attachment.
HotZetiGer If we are attached to Buddha's teaching, we will suffer. It does not matter if it is buddhas teaching or anything else. If u have the inside u can use things without being attached. U can take buddhas path and proof it for urself without attachment, u just do it because it's the better way to live.
Beautiful explanations of what attachment can be. Beautiful job. And the twain shall be one. Hey, I didn't write that Scripture. Give me a break! Hopefully, you never read that Scripture.
OK, it would be nice if you didn't end all of your sentences with "ah." I'll try to watch your whole presentation. It won't be easy. I know I'm going to have to endure the constant "ah" at the end of all your sentences. Not bad. In the first 3 minutes of your presentation you have stated that, yes, we're going to have attachments and that we must have attachments and then later you say that we should not have attachments. This is not funny.
Thank you. That was such a profound and beautiful talk. I’ve been suffering a lot from attachments I have and I would also go as far to say that this talk was life changing.
I made some notes:
Attachments
0.27 a people have a vague understanding of what this actually means. ‘ I shouldn’t be attached’ it doesn’t work like that it’s the nature of human beings.
1:06 when you think to yourself I shouldn’t be attached all you’re really doing is creating a sense of shame and guilt. So you can see how useless that actually is and how it can lead to negative mindsets.
1.33 you have to have attachments that’s part of being human being.
2:10 you’re not going to be able to get over your attachments overnight it takes a really really long time.
2:20 attachments tend to delude us
The less attachments you have the better it is
3:16 at a certain level attachments lead to suffering
If we hold onto things they are subject to change.
4:48 how do attachments arise?
It starts off because we have feelings
Feelings can be divided into two categories pleasant feelings and unpleasant feelings
All experiences can be placed into those categories
And that means we’re going to have cravings. We want to have the pleasant things and avoid the unpleasant things.
When you have a craving it’s usually an unpleasant states so you usually want to satisfy this craving
6:07 these are the things that we attach to
From craving must arise attachment
Why do we crave in response to feelings? That is that we have the sense of self inside us. And that’s the feeling that we can control the world and that we can have good feelings and avoid unpleasant feelings.
This sense of self thinking makes it think it control the outside world.
8:12 - from the sense of self comes the idea that I’m in charge and can control feelings. And because you think you can control things cravings will arise. If you can’t control things cravings don’t make sense
So this is the basic concept of how attachments arise
9:00 - examples from ordinary life of how attachments happen.
One very obvious area where we normally have attachments is work. We usually work hard and pursue careers and we have a salary that increases over time. We often identify with our jobs. ‘I am a person who is having success professionally - this is me and who I am’ this gives you a sense of who you are and social standing. Being praised by friends and colleagues.
9:54 - I have seen so many people in my life who identify with who they are by work. When they get older and retired they keep talking about how wonderful it was when they were working and can’t let go
So there’s an attachment there for a sense of who they are.
So what happens if you get fired? You’d feel terrible about yourself. You often here of people jumping off buildings.
This is a classic example of how we attach to things.
Another example Bhante gives is your house.
13:15 Some of the other attachments we get are attachments to people. Now we’re getting to the really important attachments.
Often why other people are important to us is psychological. People are nice to us, we feel a sense of release. Particularly if you have a spouse you’ve been with for decades and it becomes very hard to imagine not being with this person. So it becomes painful if they die or want a divorce.
17:30 then there are of course attachments we have to ourselves.
And lastly we attach to our mind and this is most profound attachment we have. As it touches the core of who we think we are.
19:20 talks about depression.
19:45 all the attachments talked about give a sense of pleasure
What can we do about these attachments and how can we overcome them?
We have to create a refuge for ourselves which is apart from our attachments
So we have to look in words rather then out words. We need to find a contentment inside our selves. A sense of peace and happiness. Purifying the mind.
It is still terrible when someone passes away or we lose our jobs but it’s not as terrible now that we have something more beautiful.
It’s really a path of making the mind more bright and having an internal source of happiness.
View attachments as a ladder and reduce your grip.
Gradually you can move away from the attachments and desire
25.00 - attachments get a less of a grip on you
As you increase internal happiness you identify less with identity and attachments
27:15 start to do meditation practise. For example love and kindness meditation.
As you start practising meditation you find your mind becomes more purified. You get less angry and identified.
Love and kindness meditation changed the life of a lady in the Buddhist monestray.
When you find your mind is pure you can loosen the grip on morality.
You become less vulnerable to the material world
31:28 the root cause of our attachments is the sense of self we have inside of us and we think we can control things (when in reality we can’t)
It’s not an easy matter to get over attachments. It takes a long time.
It’s good to know attachments lead to suffering.
If the object of our attachment doesn’t behave in the way we expect it’s easy to get angry. And it clouds the mind and makes you do things you’ll later regret.
Attachments are negative as you’re looking at yourself to a certain extent
If you can have more clarity in the mind you can look at people in other ways, true compassion. Ie what’s there benefit instead of my benefit.
Always think attachment is a path. Don’t attach to things that give suffering.
What I personally got out of the video: attachments lead to suffering. We must purify the mind and find internal happiness for example love and kindness meditation
This is probably the best talk on attachment I have ever heard. Thank you so much.
Completely agree. First heard this years ago and keep coming back.
be attached to those things that lead you away from suffering. Thank you Ajahn with metta.
Very illuminating talk! From this I can understand that detachment doesn't mean a lack of compassion , finding a refuge in your own mind improves your empathy for others and your perception of life. Thank u Ajahn Bramali! 😊😊😊
good point. i think this is why a lot of people feel depressed or die when they retire after 40 years. too attached to the job, cant let go.
I was attached softly to Ajahn Brahm before now i am attached to Ajahn Brahmali :-)..
So wonderful to hear you give a great Dhamma Talk 14 yrs ago, Ajahn Brahmali. Attachments still confuse me a bit. Especially in close family dynamics.
Allow yourself to attach to those things that brings spiritual progress! 🙏🙏🙏
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
I think one of the most painful things about attachment is thinking those we are overly attached to love or care about us...but that is not necessarily true. Perhaps once we realize that they do not love or care about us it helps us let go
True!
Amazing video, I have been thinking about attachment so much lately.
This was a very helpful talk, a lot of clarity on a very misunderstood subject.
Knowing this, hearing his/your words as truth, known for years. So much is some how easier to let go of attachments to except your attachments to your children. Yes there are pleasurable emotions at times to this, but for me, it is my sense of duty and obligation to them, as they grow that is very very hard for me. I am currently having to let go of my youngest for very complicated reasons and the fear of her pain, when I do have to go.
Thank you very much for this video! I've been watching al lot of video's of this channel, and i'm thankfull for all of thme, but to me for this moment this one has done the most. So thanks again!
Thank you. I'm taking the opportunity of Spring Break to perform my own meditation retreat. I'll do that now after hearing your words. Namaste
Best talk on attachment. Thanks very much Ajahn Brahmali.
Truly excellent and so beneficial 🙏🙏 sadhu thank you 🙏 ❤
True and clear words. Thank you Ajahn Brahmali.
20:00 For what to do for the attachments.
Amazing talk, thank you
This is very resourceful to what I've needed to know
So wise! But to effectively reduce suffering of attachment, one needs to ordain instead of leading a lay life, most likely... what a long path...
Excellent talk - I very much enjoyed this and learned a lot as well - thank you!!!
Thank you. Merci
I guess one could apply this teaching to anything.
I have a crush on a co-worker and I consider it an "attachment". Every time I deviate only slightly from an austere, aesthetic, detached way of being I end-up w/ more than my mind can handle.
Want and desire fade over time but until then it feels like suffering, looks like anger and taste like jealousy.
you can have a mansion, jewels, and sportscar, art collection etc. AS LONG AS YOU DON'T DESIRE IT. you can buy it if you make lots of money. and you can make lots of money as a Buddhist as long as you don't desire to do so. it's done with love and through karma and without attachment. many buddhist celebs (reeves santana lange hancock turner) have done this. and it's the best way to be rich, get wealth and live in wealth with pretty material things. WITHOUT DESIRE FOR THOSE THINGS.
@tigerborn62 I agree. He's like Ajahn Brahm with a bit more liveliness.
Buddha leaving his family always bothers me about his story. Was thinking that when Buddha left his wife, kid and family that he was not yet "enlightened". I don't think you need to leave your family to practice Buddhism concepts. You also don't need to be a monk, but can do it in your daily life.
I like the notion from this lecture of attaching to good aspects of life, such as compassion and understanding.
Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu Bhante!
@saruman84 By the way, rains retreat ends in November, so I guess that there will be new videos soon.
Very well explained, great lecture!
This is a great video
@WhatSayestThou ...and the knowledge of how to actually do the change.
I would say, attachment is a great teacher. But in order to learn from this teacher, we should be able to recognize attachment at the moment of happening, which is not obvious and requires already some ability of the power of detachment.
Will we see our pets in the afterlife? I'm very attached to my animals.
Don't know how strong the feeling of attachment is until I lost the object. Since I learned that the object didn't disappear from Earth, just change hand, I feel a little bit better! Just being realistic here.
Anyone else having problems with the sound/ it keeps cutting out. Its a great talk but I cannot watch it
We humans have so many attachments. For example me: i'm attached to sex, food, technology, other human beings and so on, but i want to learn how to get rid of attachment. Because sometimes it just seems that attachment is ok and ordinary, But it shouldn't be ordinary because it creates suffering. So easy to say and at the same time so hard to act, I just want to be happy.
@birkuscircus lmao very funny, makes sense seeing as they both have almost identical names. this teaching and video is very good by the way excellent explanation of the dhamma.
@saruman84 It doesn't reflect in his talking. He always sounds like he really wants to go to bed. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that, but it makes listening to him for an hour an exercise in concentration.
Thank you this was great
@HotZetiGer
I'm not sure if this is a Buddhist story but there was this zen master and for generations these masters had been collecting their wisdom and putting it in a book. it was time to pass on the book to a new master and the monk took the book and he threw it into an oven.
love the video man
Lovely Lovely Talk
Really helpful!
to the buddhist path i follow.... having a swiss mansion is the same as having a bottle of dandruff shampoo in your bathroom. IT'S ALL GOOD. Without attachent.
Glashelder betoog waarom hechtingen (of 'gehechtheden') het geluk van de mens in de weg staan. Meteen ook een duidelijke uitleg van de kern van de boeddhistische leer.
Uh, oh. Now the whole ball game has changed. I'm up to 9 minutes into this presentation. Now I'm riding with you. I have no choice. I must see this video through to the end. I know it's going to tell me many things. I can feel it.
Excellence
How old is this talk?
You could say 2500 years but that is only in your universe. It has always existed and always will.
Very painful
@genericusername337
love it! LOL. thank you.
@HotZetiGer
Attachment to beliefs is bending the truth to fit your faith, but bending your faith to fit with the truth is non-attachment to faith, which is one of Brahms teachings. You are confusing belief with attachment.
Why Buddhists attached to teachings of Buddha?
HotZetiGer
If we are attached to Buddha's teaching, we will suffer.
It does not matter if it is buddhas teaching or anything else.
If u have the inside u can use things without being attached.
U can take buddhas path and proof it for urself without attachment, u just do it because it's the better way to live.
Beautiful explanations of what attachment can be. Beautiful job. And the twain shall be one. Hey, I didn't write that Scripture. Give me a break! Hopefully, you never read that Scripture.
Attachment is a mind that perceives an external object to be a source of happiness. Of course a distorted deluded mind, and as said here, unreliable.
OK, it would be nice if you didn't end all of your sentences with "ah." I'll try to watch your whole presentation. It won't be easy. I know I'm going to have to endure the constant "ah" at the end of all your sentences. Not bad. In the first 3 minutes of your presentation you have stated that, yes, we're going to have attachments and that we must have attachments and then later you say that we should not have attachments. This is not funny.