Non Attachment

Attachment is one of causes which brings about un-satisfactoriness to human life. When we talk about attachment; it is not only attachment to material things, but also immaterial things. Having known this, we should be careful of living; we should not allow ourselves to attach to things easily so much that it gives us suffering. We can have things, but should not attach to them. To have things must be based on wisdom; things are for facilitating life, they are not for trouble.

Wisdom or knowledge is the best solution to attachment. Why is that? Because if we are wise or know, we will not attach to things which cause us suffering. It is such an easy solution, wisdom or knowledge. But before we are wise or know, we must pass educational process; learn to be wise or realise the attachment and practise meditation. There is the Zen story, ‘Detachment’, which can illustrate this well. Here is the story:

There was once a young monk, named Kitano, who learned to detach from the world of desire. One day he took a journey another town. Along the way he met a fellow traveler who loved smoking very much. Every time he smoked, he said, “Oh! Smoking is very nice”. One night he took a rest under a big tree; it was cold night. The man smoked again and said to Kitano, “Smoking is nice and can relieve the cold. Would you like to smoke? I offer you a good tobacco”. The young monk said thanks to him and thought, “It is cold, yes, maybe I try some to relieve the cold”. And then he smoked. When he smoked, he liked the taste of tobacco and thought, “Ah! It is really nice. It is a good tobacco”. For a while, the thought arose in his mind, “No, no! I learn to detach from the world of desire. But now I attach to the taste of smoking. I must stop it now”. And then he returned it to that man. Later on that man went on his way. They went separate way.

When Kitano arrived at the town, there were two well-known schools; one was a fortune telling school which all students learned I-ching scripture and another one was a poem-writing school. He thought that it might be good to study. And he studied at that school. When he studied I-ching scripture, every question he had in mind could be solved easily by consulting with the scripture. Then he started to rely on the scripture. The thought arose in his mind again, “No, no I cannot attach to this book. I must stop it now”.

He stopped studying at that school and went to study at the poem-writing school. There, he did so well that the teachers admired him, saying, “You can become a good poet now”. The thought arose in his mind again, “If I don’t stop writing a poem now, I will become a poet. I become no more a Zen monk”. And then he stopped writing poem and turned to practise Zazen, sitting meditation. Later on he was invited to be an abbot at the I-Hi temple. Since then, he taught people meditation until he died at the age of 92.

According to the story of the meditation teacher, Kitano, attachment is the main obstacle to wisdom and knowledge. So what he did is to detach from it and meditate to achieve wisdom. It is one example, which is good to show us the way out of suffering; learn to detach from the unnecessary things and live a mindful or meditative life. Then we can see that life is a bit easy to live and happy living.