Answers By Mr. S. N. Goenka: Attachment

Attachment

In Dhamma much emphasis has been given to leading a life of simplicity and detachment. In the world today, how can a householder achieve these objectives?

Mr. S. N. Goenka: You see, more importance should be given to detachment. Simplicity will follow, but it should not be the aim. Otherwise Dhamma will deteriorate. There will be a class of people who will just make a show, “Look how simply I live,” but deep inside there will be attachment for wealth and riches, etc. This does not lead to liberation. So the aim of Dhamma should be to develop detachment. Once detachment is developed, none of these things will hold any attraction. Naturally, simplicity will develop. But if this becomes the aim, it will become a show. More important is purification of the mind through detachment.

You spoke about non-attachment to things. What about non-attachment to persons?

Mr. S. N. Goenka: Yes, there should be non-attachment to persons also. You may have true love, compassionate love for someone. But when you have attachment, then you don’t have love because you expect something, material or emotional, from this person. When you have attachment, you are expecting something in return. When you truly start loving this person, then you only give; it is one-way traffic. You don’t expect anything in return. Then the attachment goes, the tension goes. You are so happy.

How can the world function without attachment? If parents were detached then they would not care even for their children. How is it possible to love or be involved in life without attachment?

Mr. S. N. Goenka: Detachment does not mean indifference; it is correctly called ‘holy indifference’. As a parent, you must meet your responsibility to care for your child with all your love but without clinging. Out of pure, selfless love, you do your duty.

Suppose you tend a sick person, and despite your care, he does not recover. You don’t start crying; that would be useless. With a balanced mind, you try to find another way to help him. This is holy indifference: neither inaction nor reaction, but real, positive action with a balanced mind.

How can you be passionate about life but remain detached at the same time?

Mr. S. N. Goenka: Come to Vipassana and you will know how! It looks so difficult now because you don’t know how to balance the mind at the deepest level. You try to impose this balance at the surface level. That itself is difficult. And even if you have made your mind balanced at the surface level, the lack of balance remains at the depths. You can’t come out of it. Vipassana is for this purpose, so that you can work at the root level and become really happy.

Performing right action, isn’t that kind of an attachment?

Mr. S. N. Goenka: No, no, no. Understand attachment. The only yardstick to measure whether you are attached or not attached is that whatever you are doing with proper understanding and if you are attached to it, then if you miss and you become sad because you have missed it, then you are attached. But suppose you miss and you are not sad: “Well, it couldn’t happen this way—couldn’t happen, so what? I did my best and the result didn’t come, so it didn’t come.” Then you are not attached.

You will never become sad with a balanced mind, with any result that comes, because the results are not in your hands. Nature does that. You have done your job and left the result to nature, to Dhamma: “Thy will.”

So it’s being willing just to make a mistake and…

Mr. S. N. Goenka:If you make a mistake, you understand, “Well I made a mistake.” Next time you try not to make a mistake, to do it in a proper way and yet you are not successful; again smile. Again work in a different way, again smile. With every failure, if you are happy, if you are smiling, then you are not attached. But if failure makes you sad and a success makes you highly elated, then certainly you are attached.

All right. So the right action is just the action you take, it’s not …

Mr. S. N. Goenka: Just the action, not the result. The result will automatically be good, Dhamma does that. We don’t have the power to choose the result, the result is not in our control. Our control is to do our duty. That’s all: you have done your duty.

It’s getting clearer. Thank you.

Source: https://www.vridhamma.org