464. Digging For Attachments

Discovering my attachments is not always easy. Even when I think I’ve unearthed the last of them, there is still another yet to be found. Some of them exist so deep inside me that they have become fundamental to my self-understanding, which usually means I’m completely blind to them.

There is some desire, aversion, or belief that I’m clinging to, but I cannot see it against the background of ordinary life. Often the suffering that follows from such an attachment is too nebulous to be traced back to anything specific. Even though I try to investigate my experience as openly and honestly as I can, I still cannot locate any specific attachment.

Attempting to force a solution by holding my attention on particular experiences or thoughts that seem relevant will only produce frustration and disappointment. I need to keep my attention loose and free, which will allow me to see what I need to do in the present moment. The hidden attachment will continue to produce suffering, but instead of focusing on these feelings, I need to monitor my attention itself.

Attachment not only causes me to act in harmful ways, it also manipulates my attention towards particular goals. If I notice my attention becoming fixated on a particular thought or feeling, I can gain useful information about the location of my attachment. I may get nothing more than a hint of what is happening, but even that can be enough to provoke new questions, which might allow me to dig up some part of the hidden attachment.

To enable this possibility, I need to allow my attention to probe even those areas of myself that I’m most afraid of seeing. It is often in these deep crevices of the self that the most pervasive attachments lurk, and so it is precisely here that I must look to give myself a greater chance at liberation from suffering.