This is "my" life!

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Friends,

Are there any suttas in which Buddha discusses removing the notion that this life “belongs” to oneself? I cannot be alone in the struggle to remove this nasty possessive attachment to the life-force. Doing so is surely one of the highest possible achievements of the arahants, but where is the information on this to be found? Thanks in advance.

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Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta (MN 9), Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (SN 22.59). There is a good book “The Art of Disappearing: Buddha’s Path to Lasting Joy” by Ajahn Brahm

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There’s this from SN 22.69:

Linked Discourses 22.69
7. The Perfected Ones
Not Belonging to Self
At Sāvatthī.

Then a mendicant went up to the Buddha … and asked him, “Sir, may the Buddha please teach me Dhamma in brief. When I’ve heard it, I’ll live alone, withdrawn, diligent, keen, and resolute.”

“Mendicant, give up desire for anything that doesn’t belong to self.”

“Understood, Blessed One! Understood, Holy One!”

“But how do you see the detailed meaning of my brief statement?”

“Sir, form doesn’t belong to self; I should give up desire for it.

Feeling …

Perception …

Choices …

Consciousness doesn’t belong to self; I should give up desire for it.

That’s how I understand the detailed meaning of the Buddha’s brief statement.”

“Good, good, mendicant! It’s good that you understand the detailed meaning of what I’ve said in brief like this.

Form doesn’t belong to self; you should give up desire for it.

Feeling …

Perception …

Choices …

Consciousness doesn’t belong to self; you should give up desire for it.

This is how to understand the detailed meaning of what I said in brief.” …

And that mendicant became one of the perfected.

:pray:

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Yes this is anattā The three characteristics are usually presented as a sequence. You have to see that consciousness is impermanent, that because it’s impermanent it’s stressful and thus not worth clinging to. When you let go of consciousness, you realize that it is not self (for you cannot let go of a true self, could you?)

There are many suttas about the development of insight: SN 22.26, SN 35.80, AN 9.36, and AN 7.49 foremost among them. :blush: I hope those help!

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But what is your intention in doing so?
Is this craving to end existence? If so then how to give it up is to become dispassionate towards life & follow step by step things that gladden your heart and make one happy.

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This is not an orthodox answer to your question.

If you feel that life is great and all worth it, couldn’t feel better and all makes sense - then go on. Embrace it and live it to the fullest. (Don’t harm others.)

There is time enough to return to the 1st noble truth once you start feeling its truth. And if you never should, I really want to swap lifes with you.

Cheers.

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Thank you for the reply. I must read it soon. I already like the quote “It is not the sound that disturbs you; it is you that disturbs the sound.”

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SN 35.101 Na Tumhaka Sutta: Not Yours

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I think the most sensible way to start is with all the things you already know are not yours, like when you catch yourself angry or frustrated and realise that you dont actually care about the incident-email-car fender-whatever, and you can let it go.

Then work up to bigger things like, i dunno, when you catch yourself in the mirror and think “I always wanted to be a writer and i never achieved it” or “who even was may dad?” And see if you can let it go.

As you get to deeper and subtler parts of yourself and your world, it will take more and more profound and perfected wisdom on your part to let them go.

Ultimately, because it is your whole life, and your whole world, and everything you ever suffered for, its worth trying to understand it with wisdom.

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The wisdom you seek is experiential…

IMO the cause of the attachment is the illusion of control over ‘one’s Life’.

Seeing through that illusion can happen in multiple ways … going through life changing circumstances such as Divorce/ Bankruptcy/ Imprisonment/ War, volunteering in the Emergency Department/ Terminal Cancer ward of your regional hospital, trying desperately to ‘jhana’ one’s way to Peace, voluntarily taking up the precepts and living while surrendering all control over intimate aspects of one’s life…

One cannot control / predict when or how that ‘Aha!’ moment will arise. All one can do is foster skillful circumstances that might cause it to occur (MN 107).

TLDR - “You” can’t remove the attachment. There is nobody who ‘achieves’ it. It just happens. Because.

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But what kind of attachment is @mheadley referring to?

Attachment to the life-force? But life-force and the felt phenomena are different things according to Suttas, so I do not see how one could attach to that.

Is this attachment to something pleasant or unpleasant?

MN50 states Buddha Kakusandha advises mendicants to practice brahmaviharas when they are abused.
And on another occasion when they were “living the life” - being venerated, praised: advises to focus on disenchanting perceptions.

Or in An6.42: one could consider “worldly life” in terms of possessions, honor, and popularity.

MN121 Or is the question about perception of people, then the following addressed it:

They understand: ‘Here there is no stress due to the perception of people or the perception of wilderness. There is only this modicum of stress, namely the oneness dependent on the perception of earth.’ They understand: ‘This field of perception is empty of the perception of people. It is empty of the perception of wilderness. There is only this that is not emptiness, namely the oneness dependent on the perception of earth.’ And so they regard it as empty of what is not there, but as to what remains they understand that it is present. That’s how emptiness manifests in them—genuine, undistorted, and pure.

Or is it about “my life” as pride of life?

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mheadley,

I cannot be alone in the struggle to remove this nasty possessive attachment to the life-force.

“nasty possessive attachment”–that’s a nasty, possessive aversion, isn’t it?

In the thoughts initial and sustained that made up Gautama’s way of living SN 54, the thoughts connected with the mind are:

Aware of mind I shall breathe in. Aware of mind I shall breathe out.

(One) makes up one’s mind:

“Gladdening my mind I shall breathe in. Gladdening my mind I shall breathe out.

Composing my mind I shall breathe in. Composing my mind I shall breathe out.

Detaching my mind I shall breathe in. Detaching my mind I shall breathe out.

(SN V text V, 312, LIV, X, I, i; © Pali Text Society Vol V p 275-276)

I like the Pali Text Society translations, you’ll have to excuse me. They are available online, but they’re not digitized, so far as I know.

Now I abbreviate that mindfulness, in my own practice:

Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation.

For the record, here’s my full abbreviation of Gautama’s way of living:

  1. Relax the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation;

  2. Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;

  3. Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;

  4. Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of inhalation and exhalation.

I keep in mind Gautama’s description of the first jhana:

Whatever happiness, whatever joy, Ananda, arises in consequence of these five strands of sense-pleasures, it is called happiness in sense-pleasures.

Whoever, Ananda, should speak thus: ‘This is the highest happiness and joy that creatures experience’—this I cannot allow on [their] part. What is the reason for this? There is, Ananda, another happiness more excellent and exquisite than that happiness. And what, Ananda, is this other happiness more excellent and exquisite than that happiness? Here, Ananda, a [person], aloof from pleasures of the senses, aloof from unskilled states of mind, enters and abides in the first meditation that is accompanied by initial thought and discursive thought, is born of aloofness and is rapturous and joyful. This, Ananda, is the other happiness that is more excellent and exquisite than that happiness.

(MN I 59, PTS Vol II p 67)

Here’s the kind of detachment of self that has actually affected my life, although I can’t claim “perfect wisdom”:

Whatever… is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling… perception… the habitual tendencies… whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body.

(MN III 109, PTS Vol III p 68; emphasis added)

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"A woman or a man, a householder or one gone forth, should often reflect thus: ‘I am subject to death; I am not exempt from death.’

[…]

“And for the sake of what benefit should a woman or a man, a householder or one gone forth, often reflect thus: ‘I am subject to death; I am not exempt from death’? During their lives beings are intoxicated with life, and when they are intoxicated with life they engage in misconduct by body, speech, and mind. But when one often reflects upon this theme, the intoxication with life is either completely abandoned or diminished. It is for the sake of this benefit that a woman or a man, a householder or one gone forth, should often reflect thus: ‘I am subject to death; I am not exempt from death.’”

Abhiṇhapaccavekkhitabbaṭhānasutta

And as regards intoxication with health (ārogyamada) and so on, the conceit that arises as intoxication thus: ‘I am healthy; the rest are unhealthy; there is no sickness in me even for as long as it takes to milk a cow’ is called “intoxication with health”.

The conceit that arises as intoxication thus: ‘I am young; the person of other beings is like a tree growing on a cliff. But I am still in the first stage of life’ is called “intoxication with youth” (yobbanamada).

The conceit that arises as intoxication thus: ‘I have lived long, I am living long, I shall live long, I have lived happily, I am living happily, I shall live happily’ is called “intoxication with life” (jīvitamada).
(Dispeller of Delusion II 221)

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