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Mindfulness of Breathing (65) Fading of Attachment

As I've been talking over these last days about the 13th step of mindfulness of breathing being the observation: settling back and observing the inconstancy^[1] of phenomena—how things are constantly renewing but also constantly passing, and that appearing and disappearing of our experience, moment by moment.

Certainly, sometimes it's unfortunate that things pass away. Sometimes we're very fortunate that, finally, it's no longer here. And sometimes we're fortunate that things are arising, and sometimes it's unfortunate what's arising; it's painful or something, and sometimes it's neutral. So there's no particular prioritizing or valuing, or putting a value on the particular arising or passings that occur. It's not a discounting of things. It's not a celebrating of things necessarily. It's just seeing that actually, this is kind of the nature of things. When we're really settled, really peaceful, not overlaying concepts and ideas on top of experience, we're in the flow of our experience, the flow of sensations and experience.

But the great value of it is not in and of itself, like we're supposed to celebrate it or supposed to be depressed by it or something. It becomes a reference point for how valuable it is not to cling to any of it, not to contract around any of it, not to resist any of it.

Especially in meditation. In real life, there are certain things that should be held onto or resisted, perhaps. But in meditation, we really learn to free ourselves from any movement of being for or against, holding on or pushing away. This kind of doesn't work, but also because this ability to observe and not get engaged and attached to things begins feeling so good. I feel that's where freedom is. And the core catalyst for freedom in the teachings of the Buddha is this experience, this deep insight into inconstancy.

And so, the more free we become, the more inconstancy is a support for greater freedom. The more free we are, the more we recognize how we're trying to hold on to what is constantly changing, or how we've left the flow. It's like putting our hand out the window of a car, and we have wind drag; we're going to have wind drag. We put our hands into the river and try to stop it. We pick up a handful of water and we leave the river, thinking we still have the river. There are all these ways in which we recognize that we've left the flow of inconstancy, the flow of life, because we've gotten excessively attached, or involved, or clinging.

To see that in meditation, and to see that we're actually better off backing off, better off not clinging, that it's not so interesting to cling or to want. And so there begins to be an inner psychological change that happens. Some of that is starting to become a relaxing of the search, relaxing the trying to do something or get something, or relaxing the need to know and searching to know. Because all that is too much; it's like leaning forward when we can just settle back.

Then all these attachments we have, we start feeling them as being wind drag. We start feeling them as interfering with the radiance of the heart, the beauty of the mind, the freedom of our lives. We can see that they diminish us—the clinging, the attachments that we have, the things we hold on to. And so there starts to be a fading away, a disinterest, and a fading away of jealousy, envy, conceit, craving, hatred, and resentments. You can go on, the list is long of things that we begin recognizing, "Oh, this doesn't really serve me. I'm not so interested in this anymore."

It's not like, "I have to be a good Buddhist, and this is bad that I'm doing this, that I have to stop doing it." It's more like, "I'm no longer interested in this. This is less and less interesting to do. I've been resentful for 30 years, and I think I'm getting tired of it. I think I see that it's not so interesting." Or, "I've been chasing after having the perfect physical physique for decades, and at some point, I'm not really interested in presenting myself always with the perfect human physique, whatever that might be." And we start losing interest in it. Always wanting to make more money, or have status, or all these things we're kind of chasing. There's a healthy kind of, "Oh, wait a minute, this doesn't serve me. This is not the best place to be. This is not the most wonderful way to be, to be preoccupied with these things. I'm beginning to know something better. I'm knowing something about freedom and ease and peace."

And I want to stress over again that the primary reference point for what I'm talking about here now is, in fact, meditation. Because outside of meditation, you might argue, "Well, wait a minute, isn't it okay to do it here, or here we need to do it here?" I don't want to get into those discussions. What I want is for you to really discover that in meditation, you don't have to be pursuing the perfect physique, more money, more status, or whatever it is that you're trying to do. In meditation, you can feel that meditation itself is better, easier just to let go or not be involved.

And then to really have a qualitatively high experience of freedom, of ease, of peace, where we're no longer grasping, holding, resisting, tightening, or contracting. That becomes your teacher, rather than debating with me about, "Wait a minute, aren't you supposed to hold on here, or resist that?" It's not so interesting to debate with me. For real spiritual life, you should be debating with yourself. When you have this deep reference point for peace, this deep reference point for freedom, that's where it gets really interesting. That's where it really comes alive, this practice of freedom, to really explore and find out what is really true for yourself.

Fading Away (Viraga)

So with this observing inconstancy, then there's a fading away of the interest in some of our attachments. And then there's a fading away of the attachments themselves.

The word for the 13th step of anapanasati^[2], the Pali word, is viraga^[3]. V-I-R-A-G-A. There are two different translations of this word, and the one that I'll stress today means the fading away. One observes the fading away of these attachments, the fading away of our addiction to certain things that are not really serving us anymore. This speaks to something very important about this path of liberation in Buddhism. Sometimes there's a tendency to want to look for a sudden experience that is the key to it all, that just unlocks it all, and then we're free forever. But a more mature way of seeing it is that a lot of it has to do with just fading away. A wearing away, dropping away. Drop by drop, everything dries up or falls away—the evaporating of phenomena, of our attachment.

The root of the word viraga, raga, can mean a dye that we color our cloth with. And the vi- prefix means a fading away or separating of that dye. One of the meanings is to fade away the dye. You dye some clothes, leave them in the sun for too long, and it gets bleached. The color fades away. Or just time fades it away.

And when we really feel the unsatisfactoriness, the offness, the discomfort of attachment, of clinging, of addiction, of all these movements of the mind that we have, we start to feel, "Ah, this is lightening up, it's loosening up." There's a lightening, a lifting of a cloud, and letting go, relaxing. Then the mindfulness practice is to be available to that fading, to be open to that fading, to allow for that fading. Because if we go right back into clinging, we reinforce more clinging. We strengthen that capacity to cling and attach and resist and be addicted to things. But once we start feeling this process of fading away, then the mindfulness practice is to be available to that fading, so we don't reinforce the opposite.

So one trains: breathing in, observing fading away. One trains: breathing out, observing fading away.

That's one of the meanings of viraga. Tomorrow, I'll talk a little bit about the second meaning, which is dispassion. At least, that's often how it's translated into English, and probably not a very good translation, but that's for tomorrow.

Thank you, and this comes to an end.