Q: Is there any basic exercise to practice non-attachment?
A: The non-attachment, or I can call it the renunciation, is combined together with practice.
Many people when they think about the non-attachment, they think is something to realize and something to think about it, and then somehow over time you will overcome very quickly and then, overcome really quickly and you just simply focus into a deity practice. We often think like that, but actually it’s not. The meaning of renunciation, and then combined together with the dharmic visualization practice has to go together simultaneously at all times.
Because if you don’t have the reflection of the samsara, of the reality of the suffering and the renunciation of that, if you don’t have that, then what happens is that you will have lack of humbleness, and you will have an ego and pride, saying that “Oh, look at me, I’m doing a Vajrayana practice, I’m doing a deity practice, I’m doing great protector practice”, and so on, so forth.
So if you have that, then again you have failed as a practitioner. So therefore renunciation is not something you think of it in the beginning, and then leaving behind and then just simply practicing. That’s not the right perspective.
The right perspective is that you practice the deity, whichever the tradition may be, and then at the same time, simultaneously, continuing with the meaning of renunciation at all times. And that is the principle that you have to uphold. And if you uphold with that kind of a method and attitude, and then slowly, the non-attachment will decrease by itself.
Because the very existence of the non-attachment, or the very existence of the attachment, is illusion of our own mind. And the very existence of the illusion of our own mind is due to our ego and pride and that very existence of the ego and pride is due to the ignorance. And the very state of the ignorance is being in a state of unknown.
So therefore we have to understand, we have to understand that. So therefore we have to combine our dharma practice and the meaning of renunciation at all times. You cannot think of a practice dharma and not reminding yourself with the meaning of impermanence.
When we think about the meaning of impermanence, you don’t have to think about “Oh, everything is miserable, everything is short, nobody knows who is going to die next”, you don’t have to think in a very traumatic scenario. You can just think about, you have to look at the impermanence little bit like the weather behind me. “Few hours ago there was a sun, and now it’s dark. That is also impermanent. Oh I see.” Having that kind of a gentle soothing attitude in the beginning. And then slowly, gradually over time, then you can adapt to the more realistic, towards the more challenges of the different realm of meaning of impermanence.
So therefore practicing Dharma, whichever the visualization, meditation may be, have to combine together with the meaning of renunciation, and then along with the renunciation, and then all this impact of the illusion, the impact of the attachment, will be less and less and less over time. So that’s that.
Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – 20 December 2020
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