{"id":711,"date":"2009-07-20T11:16:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-20T11:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html"},"modified":"2009-07-20T11:16:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-20T11:16:00","slug":"meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html","title":{"rendered":"Meditation: “Attachment” is the Worst Failure Ever (Apologies to Republicans)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republicans “Bombed” Google<\/a> so that a top search result for worst failure ever<\/a> would lead to the Obama administration<\/a> site.<\/p>\n

When it comes to translation of Buddhist terms and ideas, I can think of an even more massive fail<\/a>. I have been thinking about the word attachment<\/a> in relationship to Buddhist meditation<\/a> and the practice of Buddhism<\/a>. I think it’s just about the worst translation imaginable, and has probably turned countless people away from Buddhism. Upadana<\/a> is the Sanskrit\/Pali word, and I feel that the words fixation, grasping, or obsession<\/a> get at the meaning much more insightfully. <\/p>\n

\"worst_failure_ever.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n


\nLast week at the Interdependence Project<\/a>, Dr. Miles Neale<\/a> defined attachment as: “exaggeration of the positive qualities of the object of our mind.” This was a provocative and interesting definition to contemplate.<\/p>\n

My main problem with the word attachment is that it refers not so much to a problematic state of mind, but the state of circumstances of our life. In psychology, attachment theory<\/a> is the study of human beings and their relationship structures throughout life. To be a human is to have attachments, such as family, friends, career, school, whatever. To me, the word just reminds us of our web of circumstances. To say that the cause of our suffering is our external circumstances flies in the face of everything Buddhist practice is trying to get us to realize.<\/p>\n

Shambhala<\/a> teacher Pema Chodron<\/a> has done wonderful work reframing and deepening our understanding of this key Buddhist idea using the Tibetan word for upadana (dzinpa or shenpa<\/a>). She introduces the concept of “getting hooked” as an experiential way to meditate<\/a> on this core cause of suffering<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Can we detach ourselves from the word “attachment?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans “Bombed” Google so that a top search result for worst failure ever would lead to the Obama administration site. When it comes to translation of Buddhist terms and ideas, I can think of an even more massive fail. I have been thinking about the word attachment in relationship to Buddhist meditation and the practice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-interdependent-activism-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nMeditation: "Attachment" is the Worst Failure Ever (Apologies to Republicans) - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meditation: "Attachment" is the Worst Failure Ever (Apologies to Republicans) - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Republicans “Bombed” Google so that a top search result for worst failure ever would lead to the Obama administration site. When it comes to translation of Buddhist terms and ideas, I can think of an even more massive fail. I have been thinking about the word attachment in relationship to Buddhist meditation and the practice…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-20T11:16:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/07\/worst_failure_ever-thumb-450x403-6485.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ethan Nichtern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Meditation: \"Attachment\" is the Worst Failure Ever (Apologies to Republicans) - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Meditation: \"Attachment\" is the Worst Failure Ever (Apologies to Republicans) - One City","og_description":"Republicans “Bombed” Google so that a top search result for worst failure ever would lead to the Obama administration site. When it comes to translation of Buddhist terms and ideas, I can think of an even more massive fail. I have been thinking about the word attachment in relationship to Buddhist meditation and the practice…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html","og_site_name":"One City","article_published_time":"2009-07-20T11:16:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/07\/worst_failure_ever-thumb-450x403-6485.jpg"}],"author":"Ethan Nichtern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html","name":"Meditation: \"Attachment\" is the Worst Failure Ever (Apologies to Republicans) - One City","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/07\/worst_failure_ever-thumb-450x403-6485.jpg","datePublished":"2009-07-20T11:16:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-07-20T11:16:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/52c98770e14a482ace0de36ea672938f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/07\/worst_failure_ever-thumb-450x403-6485.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/07\/worst_failure_ever-thumb-450x403-6485.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/meditation-attachment-is-the-worst-failure-ever-apologies-to-republicans.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Meditation: “Attachment” is the Worst Failure Ever (Apologies to Republicans)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/","name":"One City","description":"The Interdependence Project","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/52c98770e14a482ace0de36ea672938f","name":"Ethan Nichtern","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13e\/13ee2d28169053f9c0745fa2e72f15b7x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13e\/13ee2d28169053f9c0745fa2e72f15b7x96.jpg","caption":"Ethan Nichtern"},"description":"Ethan Nichtern is the author of the acclaimed book One City: A Declaration of Interdependence (Wisdom Publications, 2007) and is currently finishing a novel. His writing has been featured in numerous print and online publications. He is the founding director of the Interdependence Project and the host of the I.D. Project\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s popular weekly podcast (available on iTunes). He is currently on the part-time faculty of Eugene Lang College at New School University in NYC, where he teaches Buddhism. Ethan lectures regularly at universities and venues around the country on Buddhism, meditation, contemporary culture, and activism.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/enichtern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}