Because of attachment you cling to the person’s body. . . . But all you’re doing is holding on to your own hallucination, you’re attached to your own projection, the exaggeration made up by your own mind.

Attachment is a deep habit

You mentioned in your letter the habit of attachment to sex, how difficult it is for you. Of all the delusions, you have to understand how unbelievably strong the habit of attachment is. The habit of attachment to sex, desiring sex, didn’t begin in this life. It is from past lives. In fact, it didn’t have a beginning; it is beginningless. From beginningless rebirths you have had this mind habituated to attachment to the opposite sex and to sexual pleasure.

Of course, it is not necessarily always the opposite sex; I am not including lesbians or gays. This is just a general explanation, and once you understand the reasoning, the basics are the same, whether you identify as heterosexual, gay or lesbian, etc.

Attachment to sex is a causative phenomenon. It arises in the mind because of the habit from having done it before. And then there is the condition, the object of attachment, in your case the body of the opposite sex. Every time attachment arises—attachment to anything—it leaves an imprint on the mental continuum, like planting a seed, and that causes attachment to rise again. That leads to the action. Then again, the same problem: that action leaves imprints on the mental continuum. We become more and more familiar with the habit and end up engaging only in nonvirtue.

All our thoughts and actions are imprinted on our consciousness

There are two things: imprints in our mind left by attachment and imprints left by ignorance. Because of attachment you cling to the person’s body, and because of ignorance you hold on to it as real. I talk more about this in chapter 11. This is why it is difficult to separate from the person. But all you’re doing is holding on to your own hallucination, you’re attached to your own projection, the exaggeration made up by your own mind.

There are so many imprints in our mind; our consciousness records experiences like a camera does. The mental continuum is like a film that from beginningless rebirths has had countless imprints put on it by attachment. It is beginningless, like the chicken and the egg. Due to past imprints, attachment arises, which leaves further imprints. You see the opposite sex, then you project, then you believe. The imprint of attachment is actualized, and again attachment arises.

This habituation makes our future lives so difficult. “Future lives” means not just one life, but all the future lives. With these habits, our suffering of samsara has no end. It’s endless—not only endless lower-­realm suffering, but endless suffering in human rebirths as well.

Again and again you will engage in all those negative actions with attachment. There will be no end to other sentient beings complaining about you and no end to the police and the judge and others having to put you in prison. There will be no end. Why? Because of the habituated mind of attachment.

It is mentioned by Buddha in The Sutra of One Hundred Actions:

That with which we are habituated is always made familiar by nonvirtue.
Because of that, again, one relies on nonvirtue
And engages in nonvirtue
And follows nonvirtue.
Because of that, again, in the future, one relies on nonvirtue
And engages in nonvirtue
And follows nonvirtue.
 

Think about this quotation, remember it every day, again and again.

With attachment there is no wisdom, no compassion

There is no freedom, no peace, when you are overwhelmed by attachment. The mind is so uncontrolled. It leads to sexual misconduct and other negative actions. Because the motivation is nonvirtuous, the actions become nonvirtuous, which causes suffering in the lower realms.

And because the mind involved in sexual attachment is totally unconscious, totally confused, there is no compassion. This means that the motivation is only self-­cherishing thought, pleasure for oneself.

Analyze the body: there is nothing to be attached to!

When we’re attached to someone, we’re usually attached to their body. Of course, it is not necessarily always the body. Sometimes we’re attached to the voice, a singsong voice, let’s say, or to their knowledge or intelligence. Sometimes we are attached to their personality, their sense of humor, even their smell.

When it’s the body, attachment has a lot to do with the face. You believe there is a truly existent face, not merely labeled by your mind. This projection exaggerates a beautiful hair style, beautiful nose, beautiful cheeks, nice this, nice that. But it’s just your interpretation. Your mind makes up “beautiful.”

First you exaggerate, then attachment arises, then you believe “this is beautiful.” Not only does your mind label it that, but you believe it. Attachment clings to that view and it’s hard to separate from it. This shows that, from the object’s side, there is nothing to be attached to. It is a projection of your own mind.

The object your ignorance holds as real—the body you’re attached to as beautiful—doesn’t exist. Ignorance holds on to it as not merely labeled, then, appearing beautiful, it becomes the object that you’re attached to and you sink into it like oil absorbing into paper.

Perhaps you think the skin is beautiful. But if you look at the skin under a microscope it will appear differently than without a microscope—it looks like mountains. There is no truly existent skin. It is just a collection of cells. There is no beautiful skin from the side of the skin, not even the slightest atom is there from its own side. How you see the skin is according to your view; it comes from your own mind; it is your own mind’s projection.

Now, if you take off the skin, if the skin is separated from the body and put aside, suddenly, there is nothing to be attached to. Without skin, there is no way to be attached to the rest of the body. Without skin, it would be shocking, it would be incredibly shocking!

Let’s say the body you are attached to smells of poop—the same body, the same shape, same style of hair, same nose, cheeks, lips, but it smells. You wouldn’t be attached to it then, would you? Or let’s say there is blood coming out of the body—there is certainly no attachment to that. In fact, you’d be frightened!

There is also attachment to the organ of the opposite sex. That is due to imprints from past lives, the imprint left on the mind by attachment to the opposite sex. This time you are a male with a penis, but in the next life when you become a woman, let’s say, your karmic view of what you are attached to might now be the man’s organ.

These are some of the logical reasons that prove that there is nothing from the body’s side to be attached to. We need to understand that there is nothing coming from there.

The objects of our attachment change because our view changes

Also, the object that we’re attached to now does not always remain the object of our attachment. This happens for everybody, whether they have received teachings on meditation and have consciously practiced seeing the object differently or not. One day the object no longer seems attractive to us.

Another case to consider is this. For a person who isn’t a lesbian, or isn’t gay, there wouldn’t be any attraction to someone of the same sex, would there? But if, let’s say, they become gay or lesbian, now they have a view that they didn’t have before. The mind changes its projection.

Or let’s say you are not attached to a particular person. Then, after a while they are very kind to you, nice to you. They give you lots of gifts; whatever you like, they give you. Now, even though there was no attachment before, all of a sudden your view changes. Suddenly, they appear beautiful to you; they become an object of attachment. Now your view is totally different.

Before that, you see, the karma of seeing that person’s body as beautiful, the imprint left by attachment projecting the person’s body as beautiful, had not ripened. Now, suddenly, today, the karma ripens. Suddenly, this unbelievably strong desire for that person’s body arises. There is a sudden huge change in your mind. Now you have a different view of the same person, which you didn’t have before. Attachment now exaggerates the beauty of their body, and you find it difficult to separate from the person.

Our mind makes things up, but we believe that what we see has nothing to do with us!

It’s clear, then, that there is no beautiful body from its own side. It is a total mind-­creation; your own mind creates the object. It does not exist from its own side. It came from the negative imprint left by attachment from the past. It is just the view of your karma; what you are attached to is only your own karmic view; only what you think.

You are attached to whatever your mind labels, you are attached to your own view, but you believe, totally, that it has nothing to do with you, that nothing came from your mind, that it came from the object of your attachment. This is a total hallucination.

You need to see that there is nothing from the side of the object. There is nothing existing from its own side. It is your own projection, coming from your mind, labeled according to your own karmic view. It is a concept made up by your mind.

Always dissatisfied

The other problem with attachment is the dissatisfied mind. You’re not satisfied with the pleasure you had before, so you desire more pleasure or better pleasure. The mind is never satisfied with the previous sensation.

And the pleasure doesn’t last, so you want to repeat the act again. There is always expectation, always looking for pleasure that will bring satisfaction. But no matter how many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years you try for that, you will never get satisfaction.

If you follow attachment, even in one billion years you will never get satisfaction. Even if you owned the whole world, including the sun, the moon and the planets, even if you possessed them all, still you wouldn’t get satisfaction.

This dissatisfaction is the heaviest suffering, the biggest problem in people’s lives in the West. In fact, the more you have, the unhappier you are. There is only suffering inside, no inner peace, no happiness. All this comes from the nonvirtuous thought of attachment.

But attachment can be removed

You can decide to see the body of the person as a dependent arising. Your view of the body is not something that is permanent; it’s not something that you can’t do anything about. It is not like that. Therefore, there is no question that with meditation on the teachings, you can stop attachment arising toward the object of your attachment, the body.

Then, when you reach the levels of the path to enlightenment such as the right-­seeing path and the path of meditation (there are five paths: of merit, preparation, right-­seeing, meditation and no more learning), there is no question that you can gradually cease the delusions altogether with the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. Actualizing the right-­seeing path removes the intellectually-­acquired delusions, and then actualizing the path of meditation ceases the simultaneously-­born delusions.

Recognize attachment when it arises in the mind

When attachment arises, be aware of it. Be able to recognize what is happening while it is happening, knowing that it is your own mind labeling, then believing in it. “This is my karmic view. What I am attached to is my karmic view.” This is helpful. Then you are aware of the problems you are creating in your life that you didn’t have before.

It’s kind of a shock to discover there is no such thing there to be attached to! This helps to kick the habit. Meditating in this way is the method to make your mind free from desire, free from this habit that has continued from beginningless rebirths. You need to keep your mind immersed in this by meditating on it every day. Remember it again and again.

remember

• We make up the object of our attachment.
• Attachment comes from the habit of previous attachment.
• The object of attachment changes.
• Attachment dulls our mind.
• Because of attachment we are always dissatisfied.