Question:

I am fairly new to Buddhism, though I have been interested in the Buddhist system of beliefs for many years. I am wondering if you can suggest any practices to help develop non-attachment, particularly in regards to food and material things. Perhaps you have covered this in a previous episode, I have not listened to all the back podcasts yet. Thank you for your time and for the work you put into the website and podcasts. It is very helpful to a novice Buddhist like myself.

Answer:

No, I don’t think we’ve covered this before, at least not from the “how-to” perspective, and yes, it’s a difficult thing to master.

In the Four Noble Truths, Buddha himself explained that one of the primary causes of suffering is attachment. He meant more than just attachment to material things; he meant attachment to ideas, people, emotions, beliefs, and much more. But let’s focus on just worldly material possessions for today.

In the East, historically, it has been tradition for householders to support wandering monks, mendicants, ascetics, and other traveling “holy men.” It was completely possible for these men to survive owning nothing but the clothes on their backs, and in some regions, even clothing was an option. With modern society in the East, and even moreso in Western countries, this lifestyle just doesn’t work well anymore. Generally speaking, we don’t look at “homeless people” as holy men; often it’s quite the opposite. Clearly, for most of us, we need to find some kind of middle way between being totally homeless and propertyless and blatant greedy materialism.

There’s nothing wrong with having a job, driving a car, wearing decent clothes, and owning a few “toys.” The trick is not to get too attached to them. How would you react if somehow you lost it all tomorrow?

In my own life, I never really learned this lesson until I went to Japan. Basically, all I took with me was the contents of two suitcases, and had to make do with those items for the duration of my stay (finding clothing in my size over there was not something I ever managed to do). It was tough, but it was also easy to visualize how it could have been worse; I wasn’t broke and I did have options if there was something I really needed. Still, I had a house full of possessions back in the States that I was giving up, and it turns out after a couple of weeks, I didn’t miss those possessions at all. Upon my return, I have been slowly working at getting rid of many of those things. It’s just “stuff” now, and I see now that “stuff” is just another ball & chain.

So I’ll open up the question to all of you: How do you manage your attachment to material things? Is it a problem for you, and if it’s not, then why not?