The Shortest Path Through Attachment
El camino más corto a través del apego
A student asks how to be more self-compassionate about habitual distraction and avoidance, and the teacher redirects toward a deeper inquiry into desire, attachment, and what it means to truly engage with life.
The Shortest Path Through Attachment
A student asks how to be more self-compassionate about habitual distraction and avoidance, and the teacher redirects toward a deeper inquiry into desire, attachment, and what it means to truly engage with life.
Lately I've been falling into lots of different distractions, things that take me out of the moment. I think it's probably some kind of defense mechanism to help me not deal with things I want to confront. How can I deal with the distractions in a way that is also mindful? Sometimes a switch flips, and when I'm distracting myself I don't want to be mindful at all. I just want to be completely sunk into whatever is going on.
Can you give me a very simple, small example?
For example, watching a movie, something that's built for taking you out of the moment. How can I be with that while also not using it as an escape? How can I have self-compassion while I'm doing it? Because I get the sense that I'm not using it as a reward. I'm using it to avoid things.
The belief that you can leave the moment
Two questions. One: what are you avoiding? What are you not dealing with?
I think it's time management. Something in me resists taking responsibility for my time. I want to use my time in ways that are productive and going to make me feel better afterwards, but it's hard.
I'm asking questions that may seem obvious, but you have an understanding, a map, a conceptual framework that says it is possible to not be in the moment. That's an interpretation. It's a belief system that can look at what's happening and judge it as you not being in the moment.
Yes. I'm cursed with severe self-awareness.
And probably not feeling good about it, and self-judgment, and the feeling that you should be doing something else. There's a whole drama around that, probably. You said watching a movie takes you out of the moment. I don't know where a movie happens if it's not in the moment. I've never seen a movie tomorrow, nor yesterday. When you say it takes you out of the moment, are you referring to the fact that it's helping you not do something else you would prefer to be doing? Is that more what you mean?
Yeah, but my question is: how can I relate to the moment in a more compassionate way? How can I not be so hard on myself about not wanting to be present with it?
Values, not self-compassion
That's more complex. You're creating a whole context there. What matters has to do with what you really want and with your values. What often happens is that if we misunderstand what is valuable, we end up doing something that isn't the best thing. But doing the right thing doesn't come from forcing. It doesn't come from, for example, not watching a movie when you want to be doing something else. All of that comes naturally when you understand and are connected with what you want, and when you understand what's valuable and meaningful. Because sometimes watching a movie is valuable and meaningful. But if there's something you'd rather be doing that you're not doing, then we can address that and how that happens. If you're trying to be able to watch a movie, not do what you want to do, and feel good about it, I'm not here for that, because you're asking for something impossible.
Around the self-compassion: I don't think that's what you need. The lack of compassion, that criticism, is a symptom of something else. To try to address it with compassion is not getting at the root of what's happening. You could be doing that and feeling bad about yourself all day. If that's what you're wanting to do, go for it, because it is what you're choosing. What's at the root has more to do with getting a deeper understanding of what you want for yourself, and then finding where the meaning and the value are. Then you can see why we get confused here: often there are sensations that are uncomfortable. To do what we really want to do brings uncomfortable sensations, and we avoid them by telling ourselves a story, and then we do something else.
Right.
The conflict that comes from self-deception
There's a whole conflict that comes around this, but the conflict actually appears because we are telling ourselves something that's not true so that we don't feel sensations we don't want.
So in a way, I'm coming at it from a very defensive position, trying to defend the parts of me that don't want to confront the world.
Yes, and there's almost a resignation in it, as if you're not assuming, for example, that you could just undo the whole thing, do what you want to do, and not have to struggle with the consequence of not doing that. That's why I was asking you: what would the alternative be? What would you rather be doing? Because if there's something more valuable and meaningful that you want to be doing instead of watching a movie, why aren't you doing that? You could look at that, and you will probably notice some discomfort, some typical sensations. Then you can work with that. But if there isn't anything else that's more compelling, then that's a whole other thing that needs to be approached, which has to do with finding the creativity and the love for something you want to do, something connected with the joy of being alive. And sometimes that is watching a movie.
In my case, I have a very strong critic or victim role that comes out when I do these things. It puts down the possibility of beauty and takes that out of the main focus.
The inner critic is not unique to you
The experience of the inner critic that you're describing is not unique to you. It's not a special aspect of you. The inner critic and victim: that's not you. If I turn on a fire and put my hand on it and it burns, and I keep doing that and say, "I have this thing where my hand burns," well, anybody who does that will have the same thing. So it's more about looking at why you're doing that. It's not something special to you. It's just what you're choosing. We can look at what other choices are available, what other life experiences are available that you are avoiding. If you are bringing the inner critic and the victim identity for us to resolve, I would just say: stop. If you don't want that, don't do it. Because that really is the truth. We have that power. It literally is like turning on a fire, putting your hand on it, and then saying, "My hand burns, can you help?" I would just say: take it out of the fire.
I guess I was referring to moments where I feel very out of control, taken into this wave of distractions.
Distraction from what?
I understand that. The wave of distractions you're describing speaks to: distractions from what? What is the thing you want to be doing instead, if anything? Because if distraction is a distraction from something, from what are you distracting yourself?
In my case, it would be things like going to get a job, or studying, or getting out more.
Do you want to go get a job? Because you're not going to get a job if you don't really want to.
I know that at this point in my life it's the most practical thing to do, but it's not so much coming from a place where I want to do it.
You can't talk yourself into desire
That's the problem. You can't talk yourself into it. If you don't really want to get a job, you're not going to get a job. The body does not walk without the desire to walk. It does not eat without hunger.
I don't have any desire to do it, and that's why I'm avoiding it.
Yes, and you might be telling yourself that you should, that it's the most reasonable, rational, practical thing, while you don't really want to do it. So you're going to watch television all day. What's important is for you to actually connect with and take very seriously what you really want. And that might be to get a job, in the end, after all, if you look.
I think my work is to inquire more about what I really want.
Yes, because unless you connect with what you really want, you're going to be lost. And the most likely thing is that what you want the most is what scares you the most, and that's why you're not seeing it.
Yeah.
That's why you can find yourself confused around what you want. Your mind feels crazy and complicated around the whole question. That's often a sign that it's right in front of you and you're terrified, and you don't want to see it.
So my mind becomes unreasonable with it, in a way.
You use your mind so that it looks unreasonable, so that you don't see what's right in front of you. The mind takes no credit for it. The mind is just going to do what you're asking it to do. It's a tool.
Using emptiness to avoid life
That makes a lot of sense. I guess I've been holding back on the work of inquiring more deeply, and I haven't been taking it seriously. I've been trying to have more of an empty mind about it. But I see now that there's more effort needed, in the sense that I need to inquire deeper.
Trying to empty the mind when you should be using it to imagine what you want is an avoidance. The mind is a beautiful tool. It can be used to imagine infinite possibilities, which could then be created. To try to empty it can be an avoidance of life.
It's really that balance of having no attachment to things, but also taking very seriously what direction you want to take, really outlining the specifics.
Non-attachment comes after attachment
The no-attachment teaching doesn't work the way you might think. It's not that I go to life and approach it beginning with no attachment. Non-attachment is a consequence of living through attachment. I first need to let life happen, all of what I'm trying to avoid. For example, if I buy a house, I am now at risk of losing it. Once I have bought the house, I can really work on the attachment to it. But you can't begin with non-attachment. The house is a metaphor for anything in life. Non-attachment comes through deep living, through going fully into life, through living everything you've wanted and desired. You don't go into life with non-attachment.
In Buddhism they say: let go of the attachment to the outcome of your actions. It doesn't say: don't act so that you're not attached. It's basically saying: go after what you want, create what you want to create, and then let go of the attachment to it. So first you need to be so attached that you're on your knees, afraid to lose it. Then you can become non-attached. Because otherwise it's not non-attachment. The minute they put the gold in front of you, you're salivating. That's not non-attachment.
I guess that's what scares me most: that I have to take it so seriously, that I have to be so invested in the thing.
You don't have to. You just have to discover how invested you already are. You could buy a house and not care about it. It burns down. Oops. But then you plant a tree and a goat comes and tries to chew it and you're horrified: "My tree!" I don't know what your attachment is, but go after it. If you're afraid of being attached, you're avoiding life. You're avoiding the experience. You're avoiding even the possibility of knowing non-attachment, which comes after you're attached. It's a transcendence of attachment, not an avoidance of attachment.
Tolerance comes from action, not preparation
This is the area I'm a bit stuck in, or insecure about. I just don't know.
I'll tell you what I think is going on. You probably love a lot of things. You have a lot of desires. You are overwhelmed by it. It's terrifying. You don't want to have the pain of what it is to live all of that. And everything I've just said, I relate to, and I completely understand.
I do relate to it. It's just the tolerance for the pain that comes with it. That's more of the struggle.
I understand. It is very understandable. The tolerance: you don't have to create it or do anything about it. It's like going to the gym every day. Your muscles will get stronger. That's the tolerance. If you face life, if you go after what you want, you will naturally encounter pains (I guarantee it), and you will gain tolerance as a consequence. The experience of not having tolerance is the avoidance of it. If I don't go to the gym, I will have no tolerance for lifting weights. And I can't sit at home trying to figure out how to go to the gym and face the lifting of weights because I have no tolerance, trying to develop it by sitting at home.
Also, even going to the gym, I don't have to develop the tolerance. I just have to do the actions, do the movements. The tolerance happens. The body and mind do their thing. If I do things that bring me to experiences of risk, uncertainty, pain, discomfort, and fear, but it's what I love, following my heart, doing what I want, all of that is going to bring a development of tolerance, of courage, of openness. But the caveat is that it matters that I'm doing what I really want, which is always an exploration. There is no final truth to that. But I can notice: while I've been doing this, I don't really want that, I'm avoiding that. Okay, I go this way. This is what I really want. And we're constantly in movement. That is the shortest path to awakening.