Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The best and flexible way of living is non-attachment aka non-grasping. How to practice non-attachment?

Non-attachment is much harder than it sounds. Take a look at your own living you will see you attach to thousands of things – coffee in the morning (I can’t live through the day without coffee); I hate Hue people; if you have no religion, you’re no good; I hate tattooed people; no swearing; no slang; I want money and more money… You can see that we are attaching to many things – religion, politics, money, power, position, sacred books, hometown, country, foreign countries, culture, arts…

Whenever you stick tightly to any idea, you are attaching.

Non-attachment (non-grasping) means you are ready to change your mind, your habit, or your idea… whenever you are in a situation that you think you should use a different method, a different thinking, to work.

Yesterday to told a student: “You need to have self-discipline. Make sure you spend at least 4 hours each day at your table to do your homework.” Today you tell another student: “Do whatever you like, I know you will do well.” That is non-attachment – you use different teachings for different students, because you know you need to treat each student differently, to bring out each’s potential.

Each of us has many prejudices, pro and con, about people, things, animals, ideas, isms. That is attachment.

Non-attachment means you are ready to change your thinking, change your action, change your opinion, whenever you feel that the situation you are in requires you to change.

Non-attachment means an extremely flexible and realistic way of living, to think and act according to the circumstances, instead of sticking to one method, one way of thinking, one opinion all the time.

So, to practice non-attachment, you need to “look” often to see everything you do often, everything you love, everything you hate, every way of your thinking, every opinion you have about religion, politics, people, animals… Anything you think or do or don’t do is a potential attachment, if you don’t control yourself well enough not to attach.

That is how you practice non-attachment. When you see one of your potential attachments, you will simply tell yourself: “I am not attaching to this, or any other thing.”

You want to be non-attaching at all times, because that is a very wise way of living. It makes you quick in all movements, happy all the time, and successful in anything you do.

Wish you all be non-attaching

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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