Attachment causes us pain, sorrow, jealousy, and other feelings that are unhealthy. I understand detachment to be an attachment to be detached. Thus, this also ends up as an attachment.
What is required is to effortlessly reduce or minimize attachment towards humans, animals, pets, objects, and thoughts, ideas, groups, religions. This detachment could only come about as the result of an insight and/or sudden transformation?
Can we practice for this ?
Why is detachment actually attachment?
Is it because we are defining the self as always being necessarily present? As some sort of fundamental process?
When was the last time you intentionally did something âeffortlesslyâ?
This detachment could only come about as the result of an insight and/or sudden transformation?
I would think so, since any technique or methodical approach to the problem of attachment is just another attachment.
Yes. I would think so. The self is attached to this process of detachment.
Attachement and detachment arrive or act together, as a pair. The mind is a world of antagonistic tendencies/forces.
In any pleasure there is pain.
I think we can both agree that identification and attachement is a function of self.
Are you also saying that : Yes, the self is always present?
Shall we define our terms? What we mean by self? I propose that self is the process of discrimination, which includes the feeling of being this center distinct from its environment.
I wonder if thereâs a more comprehensive way of defining self; a definition that covers the whole truth about self completely and succinctly.
Wouldnât self-deception be impossible without a self?
Can perception be direct when there is a director?
Do we imagine and sustain our imagined self so we can customize, personalize, what is actual?
What purpose does a self serve if not the assumed right to alter the facts to conform to the fiction, the fantasy, that one is constantly recreating?
We could I suppose include the theory of why (ie. the purpose) the self discriminates (eg. survival and progress), and the causes (eg. evolution) that led to this happening. But that doesnât seem important in the context of this discussion so far.
Maybe we can follow this inquiry with @Subramaniam and see where it takes us - ?
Would you like to try that ? Something different for a change?
This seems to be what we are saying : attachment/identification is a function of self.
If the brain could see the whole process of self-deception and thereby be free of it, would it matter when it began deceiving itself, what led to it? I donât know - itâs just a question.
I was saying that it doesnât even really matter now, in this thread as it has unfolded so far.
My comment to you was really a proposition that we not tie ourselves up in big knot of increasingly twisted ideas, which seems to be our usual vibe - but rather look at the ideas already on the table and see what its like to unravel each one.
Name a few of these âincreasingly twisted ideasâ, please, because I donât know what youâre referring to.
but rather look at the ideas already on the table and see what its like to unravel each one.
The âideasâ Iâve brought to the table are:
(1) We are confused and conflicted because our thinking is incoherent, the fusion of practical and psychological thought; that this train of incoherent thought is constant, and all we can do is be acutely aware of its movement and content.
(2) The conditioned brain is limited to belief, disbelief, honest acknowledgment of what it does not really know, and doing what it can to explore and discover what is demonstrably true or false.
(3) The conditioned brain cannot free itself of the effect of its psychological content until/unless it can see that content for what it is, but because the conditioned brain cannot actually âseeâ, directly perceive anything, it must first be free to see what has enslaved and limited it.
Which of these âtwisted ideasâ would you like to âunravelâ first?
Our own ideas might seem like the most important points - and we can look into them if you like - but for the moment, can we both take a step back on this particular thread and leave the limelight on what @Subramaniam is inquiring into?
Maybe he is still pondering the question?
Maybe, but he may not be here as often as we are, so why donât we address whatâs on the table now?
We are - the images of me and the images of you are on the table.
We (everyone) are always addressing the issues at hand, it cannot be helped - but how are they being addressed? by whom? by what habitual processes?
Do you feel youâre addressing the issue of âincreasingly twisted ideasâ without making it clear what any of these ideas are? It seems to me youâre expressing an opinion you donât care to address.
Do you not feel obliged to clarify statements you make, especially when asked to do so?
Please, I must know what these twisted ideas are.
Why? What is the dominant authority from which this need is arising? What is there to be gained?
Because itâs irresponsible and reckless to make an alarming statement about what you see going on in this forum - a statement about which you wonât say anything more, as if sounding the alarm matters more than whether the alarm is false or not.
Youâre saying thereâs a snake and all I can see is a coiled rope. So I ask you to tell me why you see a snake and you ask me why I ask, implying that your snake is no worse than my coil of rope, which is not true. A snake demands attention because its dangerous, but after sounding the snake alarm, you want to shift attention to the one who sees no snake.
Iâm saying : whatâs going on ? Right now - can it be seen and allowed to dissipate without any trace but relief?
Or is what you think I want, what you think Iâm saying, the whole domineering truth and ultimate reality of need?
Anyway, forget it - which idea of yours do you think we should address first?
(please choose the most important one, I might change my name and run away to Tierra del fuego to avoid addressing all of them)
Iâve described what seems to be going on, but it seems you need to be reminded.
You said, âMy comment to you was really a proposition that we not tie ourselves up in big knot of increasingly twisted ideas, which seems to be our usual vibeâ.
To which my reply was, âName a few of these âincreasingly twisted ideasâ, please, because I donât know what youâre referring to.â
Can you do that?
Yes, and after asking whether we could be aware of the reality we were experiencing (whether relief was possible) - I have agreed to accommodate the authoritarian principal being expressed.
By which I mean that the best outcome for our interaction is probably to validate your experience of reality. The experience that demands confirmation.
Iâm not happy with what must amount to a reinforcement of the self as a truth detecting entity (whose experience confirms its projections) - but anyways : I will point out what seems to me to be the most obviously twisted ideas expressed in this thread.