Secular Buddhism

So, Cindie, you try to not be attached to people. But you're introverted, you're child free, you live alone... I wouldn't be happy that way. Intrinsically I am a social person, and I have a high libido. If I didn't have a partner (or two) to bounce ideas and myself off of, I'd have a lower quality of life.

That said, I love my own company, and when my primary partner is away, I find it very peaceful and fulfilling to just bang around the house doing my own thing, temporarily. For a few days to a couple weeks, I am OK, and then I want her to come home. Am I attached to her? Yes, we are bonded. Hormonally and intellectually, we are committed, and we enrich each others' lives.

I am a pagan. It suits me better than Buddhism (although I have spoken to Buddha and been answered). I feel very grounded in nature, the earth is my Mother... I can also have my head in the stars. I enjoy big concepts and humanity's struggles to feel at home in the cosmos, in the Divine.

The one thing I am unattached to is outcomes. Or I try to be. I have learned to have low expectations and to take life as it comes. Just to be open minded. Change is inevitable, nothing ever stays the same. People can be not what you thought they were, and let you down.

I live in the moment, I don't worry much about the past, or the future. I can let go of pain and people if I have to. I think I can even seem cold about how I can sluff off people who no longer want to be in my life, and move onto people who do want to be in my life.

So I do not live in bliss. I can't be a monk in a monastery, sitting on my ass meditating all day. But I feel pretty happy with my life, in all its imperfection. Yes, I try to be "zen," and stay centered, and even say OOOMMM... in my head when face with a difficult situation. But I like being "attached" to people. I like being bonded, and taking care of people I love, and being cared for. Is that bad?

I feel a bit disgusted by typical wandering divines, who may leave a houseful of kids behind to go seek their bliss. Is that really worthy, or just selfish?
 
seriously wish there was a like button. You made me laugh after a horrid day. Thank you, Mags.
 
Sorry your day was horrid, Evie, I hope things improve!
 
Yeah, I think the idea that desire causes suffering is a turn-off for a lot of people because it sounds like we should never want anything. But understanding the difference between having preferences and having desires and expectations can be quite liberating and eye-opening when we look at our lives and see where coveting (stuff, people, situations) got us into trouble. I am always striving not to be attached to outcomes or people, so I can just enjoy what is.

This thing which has come to be called "Buddhism" has a great many variants and schools / types ... with diverse doctrinal and interpretive kinds. So folks are apt to disagree on many or most things. (Surprise!)

That said, my sense is that many or most schools see not just any kind of desire as likely to result in suffering (or "unsatisfactoriness" as the word dukkha is often translated). The concern, it seems to me, are those particular desires (and their specific permutations) which are a consequence of the perception of one's self as separate from others, and from the wider world and universe. One might even call them "selfish desires," or desires which are very narrowly self-centered. But it should be mentioned here that, in Buddhist psychology, one who feels (and thinks he/she is) separate in this way is inevitably experiencing dukkha, and is likely to be creating dukkha in the lives of others as well. Such a way of thinking-feeling is not only considered to be a (or even the) principal cause of dukkha, but is also dukkha itself. So it's not quite right to say that "desire causes suffering (or unsatisfactory experience)," as if this linear causal explanation were whole and complete. One must also understand how self-centered, purely selfish desires in fact emerge directly out of dukkha, too, and how the whole parade roots in a basic misperception of the true nature of our being.
 
So, Cindie, you try to not be attached to people. But you're introverted, you're child free, you live alone... I wouldn't be happy that way. Intrinsically I am a social person, and I have a high libido. If I didn't have a partner (or two) to bounce ideas and myself off of, I'd have a lower quality of life.
I have a very high libido, too, and I love feeling connection and closeness with people, to socialize and have deep conversations, and so on. Being an introvert and living alone doesn't necessarily preclude those things. It usually means I just need a certain amount of recovery time when social obligations begin to feel too demanding.

. . . and then I want her to come home. Am I attached to her? Yes, we are bonded. Hormonally and intellectually, we are committed, and we enrich each others' lives.
I don't see non-attachment as being uncommitted or never missing someone.

So I do not live in bliss. I can't be a monk in a monastery, sitting on my ass meditating all day. But I feel pretty happy with my life, in all its imperfection. Yes, I try to be "zen," and stay centered, and even say OOOMMM... in my head when face with a difficult situation. But I like being "attached" to people. I like being bonded, and taking care of people I love, and being cared for. Is that bad?

I feel a bit disgusted by typical wandering divines, who may leave a houseful of kids behind to go seek their bliss. Is that really worthy, or just selfish?

Non-attachment, as I see it, is hard to explain. First of all, I am not Buddhist. Nor do I claim to know very much at all about Buddhism or Buddhist philosophy. I don't know what Ginger and that chick were doing, nor how they interpreted the concept of non-attachment; this is a point in Zen Buddhism that I believe confuses quite a lot of people. I have my own specific way of interpreting certain things I've learned, mostly from sources (groups I belonged to, individuals I've known) who understood a lot about Buddhist thought, and I've done some reading. I am not an expert or scholar in this kind of thing, by any means, though I did take a course on Buddhism, taught by a well-respected Zen Buddhist monk, a few years ago. But how I view non-attachment is very personal to me and how I view life. It certainly isn't about all the stereotypical ideas people have about sitting in meditation and chanting. I never meditate and do not feel drawn to doing that in any way.

When the tern "non-attachment" comes up, people tend to think about Buddhists who spend hours meditating or the Buddhist monks who go off and live a hermit's life of contemplation -- extremes. We confuse non-attachment with "giving up things" and being alone or disconnected, but it's more about how we think and view things than anything else.

I believe the Buddha taught that one should not try to "get rid of" attachment (which would be detachment), but instead to embrace non-attachment. I see a big difference between non-attachment and detachment. Detachment is about not caring and withdrawing or avoiding, and creating a distance. Non-attachment involves caring but without grasping and holding on tightly. It has something to do with how we see ourselves in relationship to our experiences. When I strive for non-attachment, I am doing the best I can to allow myself and others the freedom to be ourselves, and to accept outcomes that don't match my preferences.

Non-attachment is not letting ourselves get tied up in wanting specific results, or expectations, but it totally allows space for us to love deeply, connect with others, care deeply, and give fully of ourselves - but without clinging. It just means that we are not going to glom onto to people or outcomes and try to force life to do what we want it to, and that we won't fall apart when things go differently than we would prefer, when people treat us in ways that irritate or hurt us, or when our egos take a hit. Feelings will rise and fall. We can feel disappointed about something but not attach ourselves to gloom and doom about it. We see what is and attend to it.

Detached people are numb and feel very little empathy. To be detached is to feel a bit defeated and unconnected. Non-attachment is compassionate but realistic - it's about wanting what you have, not wanting what you don’t have, knowing who you are, and letting go of expectations. So, when we let go of attachments, we're really just letting go of behaviors and beliefs that get in the way of seeing ourselves, others, and life situations clearly. We're letting go of inaccurate, incorrect ideals and images about ourselves and the world around us that we want to hold onto in our minds for whatever reason.

I've said here many times before that having expectations is the killer of joy and happiness. I've seen many times how my expecting things to go a certain way or expecting people to be [fill in the blank], have fucked me and situations up. Expecting is a form of demanding, a form of attachment. Having a preference is just acknowledging something without getting attached to it.

Example: you can pick a flower and enjoy its fragrance, still knowing that it will die very soon. You could prefer it would stay a fresh bloom forever. However, if you're attached to the idea of keeping it alive, you will spend an awful amount of energy and time on avoiding the inevitable. But if you're non-attached, you can savor that flower for what it is and then accept its death because you accept that things change and things/people/life is imperfect. You can extrapolate this idea out to a lot of situations, people, dynamics, etc. I hope I'm making sense.

To me, non-attachment centers on freedom. The freedom to be myself and allowing space in my life for others to freely be themselves. It isn't about avoiding deep feelings and deep connection with people, but a large part of it for me is also not placing responsibility for my emotional state on anyone other than myself. That's how I see it, anyway.
 
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What nycindie said:D
 
New to the forum but a Buddhist for 25 years.
And when I say a Buddhist I don't mean this as an intellectual pursuit.
I have spent a lot of time on the cushion working with my mind.
Have a number of retreats under my belt the longest of which was 30 days of practice.

Buddhism first and foremost is a set of methods and perspectives that allow a person to meet their life fully and openly.
It is not a religion.
It does not fit the perimeters of a religion because there is no divine agent.
Second because there really isn't salvation, thought the word is used in the traditions.

There are a few things that should be covered in talking about Buddhism.
The first is everything that is being talked about is translated and therefore not exact.
Translation presents problems on lots of levels but the first is, is the translation literal or figurative?
The next is it descriptive or prescriptive.

In any wisdom tradition there are great poetic verses describing how wonderful the universe is via the traditions world view. Kingdom of heaven etc.

But what is being described is often taken as a prescription for behavior and belief instead of a description of the result of the methods of training for that specific tradition.
When this happens people try to practice the description and it literally drives them crazy.
Things like you should practice "Detachment"
Detachment or better non-attachment is a description of the result of training in meditation with a specific POV.
Not a prescription for just being disengaged.
See the difference?

Buddhism has 4 Noble truths. This is common for for all traditions.
The 4 truths follow ancient medical methods of dealing with ailment.
Siddhartha was after all an educated man before he went into the wilderness.

So these 4 truths are basic problem solving.
1:Identify the problem.
2:Identify the root cause of the problem
3:Conclude there is a solution
4:Layout the path to that solution.
Its very very very simple.

The 4 noble truths are
1:life is suffering.
Suffering here is a bad translation.
A better translation is Life is struggle.
Look at this forum, a lot of it is about the struggle of finding balance in all of these relationships.
People looking for help with their struggle.

2: The cause of that struggle is Ignorance.
Ignorance here is needing a specific piece of information.
You need to know something that you don't at this point know.
And because of this you struggle against your experiences.

3:There is an end of this struggle called Nirvana. Nirvana just means cessation.
Cessation of struggle.

4:There is a path to end this Struggle.

There are 8 folds of this path.
They are listed as right this and right that.
Again, right is not really the correct word.
Its more like appropriate.
And most often people take something like "Right Speech" As a prescription of behavior.
In other words don't be a lier, don't speak harshly, don't gossip etc.
But what we actually find is that if we bring attention to our speaking we stop lying. Because we are paying attention we see the lie as it begins to form in our mind and begins to come out of our mouth.
So attention to actions is the prescription and appropriate behavior is the description of the result which eventually leads to peace.


This is where training in meditation comes in.
Meditation comes in 2 forms.
Resting in attention IE calm abiding.
And using that attention to look into our experiences and habits. IE Insight or Vipassana.
We especially look into our reactive emotional habits.
Reactive emotional habits and patterns are suffering, struggle and dissatisfaction and that is what the Buddha Dharma's aim is to end.
Part of what one sees when practicing is that life is built out of our 5 senses and our thoughts and emotions.
There is nothing more than that.
When we look deep enough we see that there is no fixed solid entity having these experiences.
This is the non-self of Buddhism.
When emptiness of self and emptiness of other is truly experienced the result is the expression of openness in 4 ways.
1:Loving kindness
2:Compassion
3:Sympathetic joy or the joy we get from other peoples happiness.
and
4:Equanimity. Peace of mind and the understanding that we all hunger and thirst for the same things.
Peace, safety, love etc.
I think we can all see why this would be a good thing and how it has a direct relationship to Working with one or many relationships.

When the Buddha says the cause of suffering is desire what is actually being said is the way the mind has a cyclic method of dealing with the things it values.
The mind when it encounters any experience, object, whatever, values it in one of 3 ways.
It sees it as good, bad, or neutral.
Because of this the mind then grasps at what it perceives as good or pleasurable, pushes away what is bad or unpleasant and ignores everything else.
This is done unconsciously and creates all sorts of problems in life.
You could say that this perceiving when it is mistaken which it is a lot.
Again, see many of the problems talked about here on the forum.
X doesn't value me, and I'm going to be left out or am going to loose something etc.
Is this true perception or is it tied to this cycle of reactive habits?
So, its not really the wanting that is the problem, it is our reaction to the wanting.
Look into any emotional reaction and we can see an unfulfilled want under it.
When we are not in reaction or having what are considered healthy responses to life IE love, compassion, joy and equanimity we don't feel a want.
There is no grasping for anything there.

The purpose of the method is to see through that whole game of mind.
To see what the ground of experience is and to see ones habitual reactive patterns and to let go inside the experience of the pattern.
To not take it as real, as truth as solid etc.

Its very valuable and in my life has been of tremendous benefit.
But its practice.
It requires work, real work and is much less philosophy than it is training.
And even for me after 25 years there are things I run into that the patterns are so deep and so painful that I fail in my ability to just let go in them.

That in large part is why I am on this forum.

Finally just like a person reading a book on polyamoury does not make them poly and really cannot say anything about what it is like to be poly. Reading a book about Buddhism and thinking you understand it without living it is a disservice to ones self and Buddhism.
It is specifically about experiential knowledge which may begin with an intellectual investigation but one who practices knows that is the least of what is actually happening in it.

As far as secular Buddhism goes.
Because the tradition is 2500 years old and spread out through many cultures it picked up in each of those cultures superstitions etc.
Especially for the uneducated "Believers" who were not practitioners.
Take Tibet as an example.
Tibetans think the world is flat. No bullshit. Until they were exposed to the rest of the world in the late 20th century Tibetans believed the world was flat.
The Dalai Lama was taught the world is flat.
Consider that.
That is there cosmology.
The work they did in codifying the Buddha Dharma is amazing.
Tibetans are great a making lists and categorizing things.
The desire to take what is useful from Tibet's 1000 plus years of training and investigation without taking on their belief that the world is flat is the reason there is secular Buddhism.
Which also seeks to eliminate patriarchal hierarchy which even with Buddhisms egalitarianism still exists.

I'll leave it for now, but I'm glad to talk with anyone about this.
It has done tremendous things for my life.
 
Hey TR72,

Thanks for sharing that perspective on Buddhism, it helped me get a better view.
 
While I've studied Buddhism, I was never drawn to it as a per se religion, though I consider myself influenced by hinayana teachings. This led me to circle around to Zen principles with very little recognizable Buddhism, as well as being floored by stuff like
Also, Camden Benares' Zen Without Zen Masters.
 
about a year later-

i've asked this forum for coping mechanisms with dh & his gf for their 2 yr relationship. i have been lurking on this forum- it has been helpful, thankyou.. dh latched onto poly label but i have had poly ideas since 1960s [1960s free love & hippies??

i have been exploring/practicing asian transcendence most of my life [off-and-on since 1960s]. to cope with dh & his gf, i have tried meditation, essays in this thread, reading kimchi comics, chakra work, oil paintings & writings to get uglies out, & more. i need/want people more in tune w asian transcedence than w views of a cheating dh, lack of gumption on my part, looks of disapproval, god or bible solutions... you get the picture.

i have considered myself more taoist than anything else since my teens in 1960s. i figure people w buddha tendencies & positive poly relations would be helpful for my dillemma. i need help for the last remnants of my anxiety levels rising when he leaves to be w her, or spends 2-5 days of get-away time w her.

i try so hard to transcend... tips? comments? de-attach non-attach un-attach etc??

fyi- i'v been wheelchair/home bound for several years [ms], had mild stroke mid-january 2017. w 4 weeks of rehab [mid-jan to mid-feb]. me asexual 15-20 years.
gf & i have met a few times in 2 years but no connection between us. this week i've changed her from poly to mistress.

from one of my writings-
dh & i are having some of the best times in 32 years of marriage.
he still has gf. l don't miss the sex. she can take care of his libido.
but the lhe laughs they share... now here come the tears & sobs.
don't think, don't think. don't think.
i pretend he lives out of the country.
i pretend i have a new live-in care taker seeing to my physical needs.
new rob is different in nice ways. old rob is away, out of the country.
 
The way that I was taught to practice is really based on meeting my experience and having a genuine experience as opposed to trying to transcend anything.

I meet my feelings and allow myself to simply feel them.
I'm not getting rid of anything or judging it as good or bad.
Feelings want to be felt.
But in order to do this without spinning of into reaction, stories, or distraction to avoid the pain I have to have stable attention.
This is what meditation does first and foremost.
It builds stable attention.

The ability to rest attention in the body and feel the weight and sensations of the breathing body and to come back when I notice I'm distracted is the foundation practice.

After I'm able to do that, I look with that attention.
I look at the experience to see what its nature is.

Is it me?
Am I my feelings or are my feelings just a certain type of sensation passing through the field of Awareness?

Is being hungry me? Or am I experiencing hunger?
Same with jealousy and insecurity.

Are these experiences permanent or impermanent.
Do they shift energetically?
Sometimes really powerful and sometimes not?

I look and I gently hold the experience in my attention the same way I would hold a child or a puppy or a kitten that is fussy or sick.
Firmly but gently.
I hold it and let it be exactly what this is.

I do this until I harden to the experience and then I go do something else for a while.
I do this again and again, being very gentle with myself.

Its work.
Very hard work.
And its painful.
But it helps to see my boundaries.
My desires and my needs.

I have to say the last two years has been terribly hard for me with an experience my wife and I went through.
After two years of practicing like this I had a breakthrough.
It was very painful.
A night of sobbing uncontrollably but paying attention through the whole thing.
Holding all my pain in attention.
My mind was crystal clear and I had a tremendous insight about my life in the process.
I'm more at peace right now but had to really pour myself into the practice.
Good luck.
I hope you find what you are looking for.
 
wow! wonderful imagery & insights. it will help with the relationship issues lingering around & with meditation practices. i will read it again & again.

wonderful!
 
What helped me when I was with Blue was focused meditation on loving-kindness....only specifically directed at Blue and his other partner(s). It almost always worked in regards to Blue. I also visualized myself letting go of fear, anxiety, and jealousy towards other partners. That worked most of the time, but not as much with the last partner, Azure. In the end, when I knew I needed to end the romantic and sexual part of our connection, I began visualizing myself letting go of Blue, with love. It helped. The last thing that really helped me was self-compassion......not trying to change how I felt, or judge myself for those feelings, just extending compassion to myself while I was experiencing the pain. That probably helped me the most.
 
compassion to myself has always been hard. "self-pity" rings out in parental tones. but i will try again during meditation loving-kindness, imagining a friend is nearby giving me compassion. hand on my arm perhaps.

thx for writing.
 
My guy, Zen, is into Buddhist philosophy (obviously, with the nickname I chose) and recently we have been on the subject of koans. These are like little parables, that you meditate on, or argue about, or just think about...and sometimes, I am finding, I'll go and read some, and one will sort of jump out and stick in my head, like my brain fixes on it as "this thing I need to figure out." And I feel like if that happens, there is a bit of wisdom that I need in it and I need to pay attention until it emerges. Maybe not even in an extremely focused way, but in a mindful way, of being simply aware of thoughts or feelings, patterns or ideas, that arise in connection to the story.

If you google Zen koans, you'll come across a number of sites that have collections of them. I'm enjoying the mental exercise. And maybe you will discover something there that speaks to you.
 
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