What are Attachments?

Attachments are our desires for people, things, pleas­ures, wrong views, life, the idea of the self as an individual, etc. Attach­ments arise from delusion and lead inevitably to suffer­ing. In our delusion, we do not understand cause and effect. Our past thoughts and behavior determine what we will receive in this lifetime. What we are des­tined to obtain will naturally come to us. What we are not destined to obtain, will either elude us or quickly slip through our fingers if we do manage to grasp it.

In our delusion, we do not understand the true nature of everything in our world, that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent and without an individual self. So, we cannot truly possess anything be­cause all is imperma­nent: every­thing is in a state of change.

Our attachments lead us to have expecta­tions, to see the world through rose-colored glasses. We then attrib­ute qualities to people or things that they do not have. It is inevitable that these exaggerated expecta­tions will not be met and when this happens, we become disillusioned and blame the person, object, and so on for our frustration, unhap­piness, and suffering.

We can eliminate attachments by living simply and only asking for what we need. This will also enable us to conserve our good fortune. We can eliminate attach­ments through giving. When we can let go or give something away and do not think of it again, we have severed an attachment. We will begin to feel lighter and more contented. As our expectations are reduced, we will feel calmer and less subject to the whims of our emo­tions. Gradually, our purity of mind will increase.