Letting go of fixation is effectively a process of learning to be free, because every time we let go of something, we become free of it. Whatever we fixate upon limits us because fixation makes us dependent upon something other than ourselves. Each time we let go of something, we experience another level of freedom.
- Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, "Letting Go of Spiritual Experience"
Normally we think our happiness is contingent upon external circumstances and situations, like new clothes, money, and high positions rather than upon our own inner attitude toward things.
Attachments, like bad habits, give us security. But what we don’t understand is that we are not attached to things, we are attached to our ideas about things.
This can lead to seeing and believing that things are the way we want them to be, but it also can cause us to see what we are afraid of (as in paranoia), or just what we have gotten in the habit of seeing. Example, like when people say they get afraid of snakes even though they have never seen one or dont know why they are afraid of them.
The end result is that attachment to our own preconceptions blinds us to the real people out there who need us. Instead of dealing with them, we deal with concepts and judgments, usually designed to prop up some cherished idea of who and what we are.
For the seasoned practitioner, even the Dharma must not become an attachment. As an analogy, to clean one's shirt, it is necessary to use soap. However, if the soap is not then rinsed out, the garment will not be truly clean. Similarly, the practitioner's mind will not be fully liberated until he severs attachment to everything, including the Dharma itself.
in Buddhism, less is more...
Dennis
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