How to Get Rid of Attachments to Samsara
如何斷除對來生的貪著
Kyabje Gosok Rinpoche
How to Get Rid of Attachments to Samsara
Eliminating Attachment to This Life
The Three Principal Aspects of the Path are renunciation (the desire for liberation), bodhicitta (the altruistic mind of enlightenment), and the wisdom realizing emptiness. The cultivation of renunciation can be divided into two parts:
- eliminating attachment to this life and
- eliminating attachment to future lives (samsara).
Due to habitual tendencies accumulated over countless lifetimes, we often believe that if we do not pursue wealth and material comforts, how can we live securely with food and clothing? However, this view is erroneous and misleading.
Attachment to this life drives us to exhaust ourselves in pursuit of fame and gain. Despite our best efforts, success is not guaranteed, and in the process, the influence of greed, anger, and ignorance leads to immense suffering. This, in turn, generates heavy negative karma, binding us to the cycle of samsara and causing us to fall into the three lower realms, where we endure unimaginable suffering.
On the other hand, if we can abandon attachment to this life, practitioners not only achieve fulfillment in this life but also secure rebirth in the higher realms of humans and gods, avoiding the lower realms.
Therefore, attachment to this life is a major cause of our inability to attain happiness and freedom from suffering. The Kadampa masters taught:
“All the suffering we experience in samsara stems from attachment to this life. Only by ceasing to create further negative causes can we avoid the results of suffering.”
Yet, people often act contrary to this advice. Though they fear the consequences of negative actions, they continue to accumulate such causes, personally committing harmful deeds, encouraging others to do so, or rejoicing in such actions.
With such inverted views and behaviors, how can they escape the painful results of their karma? Only by abandoning attachment to this life and refraining from creating further negative causes can suffering be brought to an end.
Achieving Happiness in This Life
Strong attachment to this life easily keeps the mind in a state of anxiety and confusion. Because of attachment, we desire complete fulfillment of wealth and material comforts in this life. Consequently, when wealth diminishes due to adverse conditions, when misfortunes strike, or when our seemingly perfect circumstances falter, the mind immediately falls into unease, chaos, and fear, dreading the loss of what we currently possess.
Since all worldly phenomena arise dependently on causes and conditions, they inevitably undergo the stages of formation, abiding, decay, and extinction. Therefore, practitioners should abandon attachment to this life. By doing so, they paradoxically achieve happiness in this life, secure rebirth in the higher realms in future lives, and even open the door to liberation and Buddhahood.
Abandoning attachment to this life does not mean quitting one’s job, giving away all possessions, or living a destitute life. Rather, it means cutting off the craving and clinging to worldly riches and status. When we pursue wealth and fame with strong attachment, we often fail to achieve our goals or even achieve the opposite.
For example, when we strive desperately to gain a good reputation, we may inadvertently create obstacles to achieving it. Conversely, if we abandon attachment to fame, we might earn sincere praise from others. Thus, abandoning attachment to this life not only avoids creating unhappiness and hardship in this life but also brings about happiness and peace in both this life and future lives.
It is like draping a piece of soft, wet leather on the body. Initially, it feels comfortable, but as the leather dries and hardens, it clings tightly to the skin, causing great discomfort. At that point, one must use a knife to remove it.
Similarly, when we first enjoy worldly wealth and pleasures, there may be a brief sense of happiness. However, when this temporary comfort fades, it is followed by various forms of suffering. At such times, only by wielding the sword of wisdom—discerning the truth of phenomena and cutting off unwholesome pursuits—can we free ourselves from suffering.
Practitioners should reflect: Who causes us to suffer greatly in this life? Who causes us to fall into the three lower realms? Who causes us to be disgraced? All answers point to ourselves.
Due to attachment to this life, we commit various harmful actions such as killing, stealing, and even harming our parents who have shown us great kindness, or treating our virtuous teachers as servants. Such grave misdeeds are all rooted in attachment to this life.
As a result, we bring disgrace upon ourselves and bind ourselves to endless suffering. Such behavior is truly foolish! Therefore, practitioners must abandon attachment to this life.
The Sage of Humans and Gods, Shakyamuni Buddha, was once a prince of a kingdom, possessing immeasurable wealth, power, palaces, consorts, ministers, and subjects. However, he became disillusioned with all these and resolutely abandoned attachment to this life, leaving home to practice asceticism. Eventually, he attained the fully enlightened state of Buddhahood.
His teachings guided countless beings, including thousands of bodhisattvas and arhats, and countless disciples achieved the fruits of stream-enterer, once-returner, and non-returner. He also gained the most excellent reputation in both worldly and transcendent terms. Among his disciples who attained sainthood, some came from royal families and achieved their spiritual attainments by abandoning attachment to this life. This example demonstrates that abandoning attachment to this life does not lead to suffering or misfortune but instead brings about the fulfillment of both worldly and transcendent virtues.
The Key to Liberation from the Ocean of Samsaric Suffering
Ordinary beings often strive tirelessly for the happiness of this life. However, they either fail to achieve it or enjoy it only briefly, thereby accumulating grave negative karma. As a result, they suffer greatly in this life and are dragged by their negative karma into the three lower realms at death, enduring even greater and more terrifying suffering—far removed from their original goal of seeking happiness.
Therefore, practitioners who wish to attain liberation from the endless ocean of samsara must reflect that the key lies in abandoning attachment to this life. By continuously contemplating and practicing (the path), one can eliminate the afflictions of greed, anger, and ignorance from the mindstream. Thus avoiding further rebirth in samsara and achieving liberation, ultimately attaining Buddhahood.
Refuge and Bodhicitta
The practice of any Dharma teaching must be based on taking refuge and generating bodhicitta. Taking refuge in the Three Jewels is the foundation of all practices. Through the inconceivable virtues of the Three Jewels, one generates and enhances the vast altruistic mind of enlightenment (bodhicitta). This is the significance of taking refuge and generating bodhicitta.
Therefore, before practicing any teaching, one should first visualize the refuge field. The central figure is Shakyamuni Buddha, with Manjushri and the lineage masters of the profound view tradition on the left, and Maitreya and the lineage masters of the extensive conduct tradition on the right. Surrounding them are countless Buddhas, bodhisattvas, arhats, dakas, dakinis, and Dharma protectors. Shakyamuni Buddha represents the embodiment of the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) as well as the guru, yidam deities, Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and Dharma protectors.
Seven-Limb Practice
Next, one performs the seven-limb practice:
- prostration,
- offering,
- confession,
- rejoicing,
- requesting the turning of the Dharma wheel,
- requesting the Buddhas to remain in the world, and
- dedication of merit.
After completing these offerings, one engages in sincere supplication. Visualize oneself surrounded by countless sentient beings, each of whom has been like one’s mother in past lives. They are now enduring immense suffering and have not yet generated any realization of the stages of the path. The practitioner then prays to Shakyamuni Buddha, visualizing him emitting countless rays of five-colored light and nectar, which enter the crown of one’s head and those of all sentient beings. This purifies all karmic obscurations and obstacles to realizing the stages of the path, enabling the generation of proper reliance on spiritual teachers, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the wisdom realizing emptiness. This practice of accumulating merit and purifying negativities serves as the preliminary practice, after which one proceeds to the main practice.
Practice and Familiarization
For the Three Principal Aspects of the Path and any other teachings taught by the Buddha, practitioners must not merely regard them as Buddhist knowledge, thinking that understanding their meaning is sufficient without striving to practice and familiarize themselves with them. Without such effort, no realizations of the stages of the path will arise in the mindstream. This approach yields no benefit and instead creates various obstacles. It is like a hunter’s trap: if the prey escapes the first time, it will recognize the trap the next time and avoid it, making it impossible for the hunter to capture it again.
In the verse “Rare is this precious human life; fleeting is its duration,” contemplating the rarity of a precious human life serves as the preliminary practice for meditating on impermanence, while contemplating the fleeting nature of life is the main practice. Regardless of which practice one engages in, it is essential to generate a genuine inner experience, transforming the mind and truly correcting one’s thoughts and motivations. One must not merely recite the words superficially, treating the practice as a mere formality, as such actions are devoid of any meaning.
Eliminating Attachment to Samsara (Future Lives)
“The Infallible Law of Karma and the Suffering of Samsara; Repeated Contemplation Can Sever Desire for Future Lives.”
The meaning of this verse is to explain the second part of meditating on impermanence: eliminating attachment to samsara (future lives).
Through contemplating and practicing the teaching “Rare is this precious human life; fleeting is its duration,” practitioners can realize the brevity of life and the uncertainty of death, and accept the inevitability of their own mortality. However, if death meant total annihilation, there would be no need to concern oneself with where one will be reborn.
Yet, it is an undeniable fact that consciousness propels beings into future lives, and the destination of rebirth is determined by the karma accumulated in past and present lives. Karma can be categorized into:
- virtuous (white) karma,
- non-virtuous (black) karma, and
- neutral karma.
Among virtuous karma, there are:
- meritorious actions (leading to rebirth in the desire realm) and
- immovable actions (leading to rebirth in the form and formless realms).
- If the force of meritorious actions is stronger, one will be reborn as a human or in the heavens of the desire realm.
- If the force of immovable actions is stronger, one will be reborn in the heavens of the form or formless realms.
- If the force of non-virtuous actions is stronger, one will be reborn in the three lower realms—hell, hungry ghosts, or animals.
Practitioners should reflect on the experiences of this life and realize that it is filled with various forms of suffering. The root cause of this suffering lies in the non-virtuous actions committed in past lives. As long as the causes for obtaining a defiled body—afflictions and karmic obscurations—have not been purified, even if one is reborn as a human in the next life, one will still have to endure countless sufferings.
Therefore, practitioners must not only understand the boundless suffering of the three lower realms but also recognize the sufferings of humans and gods. Believing that rebirth in the higher realms guarantees freedom from suffering and allows one to enjoy the pleasures of wealth and status is a misguided view that indicates lingering attachment to the glories of samsara.
No One in Samsara Is Exempt From Suffering
The purpose of being reborn in the higher realms is not to enjoy various pleasures. Even if one is reborn as a god, free from the suffering of suffering, and enjoying the results of past virtuous actions, once these merits are exhausted, one must face the consequences of past non-virtuous actions. Compared to beings in the lower realms, gods merely experience suffering at a later time. Ultimately, no one can escape the suffering of samsara.
Thus, from the highest heaven of the formless realm to the lowest of the desire realm (Avici Hell), all sentient beings must endure various forms of suffering without exception!
It is like prisoners who endure various forms of restriction and servitude, occasionally finding moments of respite. Yet, even during these brief respites, they remain imprisoned and unable to escape.
Practitioners may have been gods in past lives, endowed with great supernatural powers and meditative concentration, or kings possessing immense wealth and power. Yet, here they are, still trapped in the cycle of samsara, perhaps now suffering in the three lower realms or enduring countless hardships as humans in this life.
Therefore, practitioners must realize that suffering is the very essence of samsara, and apart from this, there is no true happiness to be found.
Liberation From Samsara
The only way to attain liberation from samsara is to completely purify the virtuous and non-virtuous karma accumulated in the mindstream and cease creating new karma. The root cause of karmic accumulation is the strong self-grasping inherent in the mindstream. Therefore, practitioners must understand the meaning of karma and its effects, and through contemplating this, sever attachment to this life.
In The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment , karma is included in the lesser scope (aiming for a better rebirth) to eliminate attachment to this life.
In contrast, the Three Principal Aspects of the Path incorporate the contemplation of impermanence to eliminate attachment to this life and place karma within the intermediate scope (aiming for liberation) to eliminate attachment to future lives (samsara).
Thus, to eliminate attachment to both this life and future lives, one must deeply contemplate and understand the meaning of karma and its effects, thereby purifying the karmic obscurations in the mindstream. Only then can one avoid being propelled by karma and cease endlessly wandering in samsara.
The above is a translation from our Chinese webpage, based on original Tibetan teachings.
