Tantra and attachment

I am just overlooking my neighbor’s magazine, as once again I cross the Atlantic. (You can’t blame me; these US Airways flights don’t have video screens. OR power sources for our gadgets. Seriously! How are we supposed to stay stimulated non-stop for 8 hours?! Surely they are not expecting us to rely on our own inner resources or read an old-fashioned book?) An article entitled “Kim and Dan turn up the heat” is followed by a possibly redundant explanation (given the scantily clad beach shots of them stuck together), “It is clear that they are both totally into each other.”  Turning the page (my neighbor, not me), I see this is followed by more articles on the same, “Jamie enjoys a night out with his new girl” and, ahhhh, Chris and Gwyn are reunited! This is OK magazine after all, and meanwhile my neighbor’s daughter is reading Hello magazine, Hello!, and I know they have a couple of other magazines stashed away to tide them over this long flight to Charlotte South Carolina, so this might even solve the lack of entertainment problem providing they don’t notice me. (Might be difficult, I spilt coffee on the mom earlier – she took it well and now we are co-travellers. She can look over my shoulder and read this once she’s exhausted her reading supply.)

It’s everywhere! Attachment is everywhere! And along with it are the inevitable stories of heartbreak: “Dismayed Will after photo of ex’s kiss in nightclub”, “Is Dan cheating on Camilla?” (Don’t bother googling all this, I made up some names to protect the famous.) On a related subject, “Your anti-wrinkling solution” – we’re all gonna need some of that.  And the lesson never learned, “I’m open to dating again, I am not daunted.” That is, until next time.

Attachment is constant craving for objects we feel we need in order to experience pleasurable feelings. We have to learn to control our attachment or for sure it’ll control us. If we are not careful, we could end up with our whole life gone — spent scheming/fantasizing, indulging, and recovering with nothing to show for it.

Buddha identified 3 root or principal delusions that afflict living beings: attachment, anger, and ignorance. He likened getting rid of anger and ignorance from our mind to washing dirt from cloth, and getting rid of attachment to washing oil from cloth because it is so deeply soaked into our minds (although it is still not part of our essential nature). No wonder Buddha also called us humans “desire realm beings” — we never forget our objects of desire.

Attachment therefore is a sticky delusion, and a deeply conditioned bad habit, so how are we going to get unstuck? Luckily Buddha Shakyamuni taught us a very special way to do this … Tantric practice.

In Guide to Dakini Land p 37, Geshe Kelsang says that in the practice of Secret Mantra, or Tantra:

We transform our enjoyment of desirable objects into the spiritual path. This transformation is one of the special attributes of Secret Mantra.

Ordinarily, with respect to objects of attachment we are like moths to flames. An object of attraction appears, then, Boom! We want it. Yet most times we can’t have it, or we don’t have it in the way we want it, or it doesn’t deliver the goods, so there’s an instant feeling of agitation in the mind. Ideally, in the world of moths, there’d be a flame education program… “Listen guys, when you next see that bright shiny thing, fly around it and not into it. Discover how to enjoy its warmth and beauty from a safe distance and you’ll be happier – trust me!” Similarly, with Tantric practice, we can learn how to enjoy the mere appearance of attractive things, and use the desire energy they arouse to create blissful satisfied feelings, rather than falling into the flames of attachment, craving, or addiction and experiencing a world of hurt. 

By indulging our objects of desire, instead of finding satisfaction we ironically stimulate dissatisfaction. Instead of quenching our thirst, we find ourselves ever thirstier. As it says in Joyful Path of Good Fortune:

We may think that if we keep travelling about, we shall eventually find what we want; but even if we were to travel to every place on the globe, and have a new lover in every place, we would still be seeking another place and another lover.

In Buddhist Tantra we discover a way to use our attachment energy to create satisfaction and even bliss. Tantric meditation is like surfing – mastering our desire energy to our best advantage, transforming our enjoyments into the spiritual path. If we do not learn to surf, we will be crushed by the huge ocean waves; but, if we become a skilled surfer, the energy of waves can become a source of bliss and liberation.

In the next article, I’ll explain a straightforward method for transforming enjoyments that is derived from Buddha’s Tantric teachings but does not require an empowerment. This is not a difficult practice. All we’ll need to do is to remember (or imagine) a particularly happy or blissful moment. This can be anywhere or anything – enjoying an idyllic scene, listening to music, being together with a favorite person, or, alternatively, a feeling from a meditation, contemplation or prayer. Anything beautiful and inspiring that makes us happy will work. If we have faith in Buddha, we can dissolve Buddha into our heart and imagine our minds have mixed like water mixing with water, and meditate on the bliss that arises from this. People of other faiths can do something equivalent. Then we will do something interesting – but I won’t spoil the plot …

Till next time!

(This article is the fourth in a series on Tantra. The previous one can be found here.)