The text titled, ‘Parting From the Four Attachments’, comes directly from Manjushri, who taught it to the first of the five founders of the Sakya lineage, Sachen Kunga Nyingpo. Later, this head of the Khön family offered the teaching to Drakpa Gyaltsen. From that time forward, this teaching has been passed on through the Khön family lineage and received by many Tibetan masters. This teaching contains only four phrases: •If you attach to this life you are not a Buddhist practitioner. •If you attach to this existence you don’t have renunciation. •If you attach to your own purposes you are not a Bodhisattva with the ‘Mind of Enlightenment’ (Bodhicitta). •If you grasp to concepts you don’t have ‘the view’. As can be seen, each of these phrases contains the word ‘attachment’. The very core of this teaching recommends that the practitioner fully analyze and contemplate on the meaning of ‘attachment’. So in this regard, it is as if you have a severe sickness (like cancer) from which you would surely die. Since you nonetheless would wish to remain in this world for as long as you are able, you would spend a lot of money to try to find a cure for your illness. However, no matter how much effort you might put into this task, or how well you can perform the actions meant to cure you, if they are performed out of attachment, it is just a total waste of the money you have spent to try to cure this illness, which can not possibly be cured. Once your doctor has identified the root cause of your sickness, you may feel surprise or remorse. But the ‘courageous one’ undergoes the doctor’s treatment anyway, to try to cure the disease. This is similar to the case of knowing the actual root of attachment. It may not be completely curable due to your having seen a doctor too late, but the pain you suffer due to the disease might be relieved. If you are obedient to the doctor and follow his advice, there can be a good chance for you to extend your lifespan. Similarly, if you are able to identify the root of attachment and you can establish some very firm logical reasoning about the causes of the mental sickness of attachment, then you can engage in strategies that will effect a cure. Therefore, this teaching of Parting From The Four Attachments advises us first to let go of attachments, if we want to become ‘courageous ones’.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Jul 2013 03:49:05 +0000
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