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From: tilley@ssd.Kodak.Com (David Tilley)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Question on detachment
Message-ID: <1990Dec21.003216.2518@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 21 Dec 90 00:32:16 GMT
References: <1990Dec20.011732.6053@nas.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
Organization: Eastman Kodak
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Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov

In article <1990Dec20.011732.6053@nas.nasa.gov> SECBH@CUNYVM.BITNET writes:
>In article <1990Dec1.212606.14671@nas.nasa.gov>
>david@star2.cm.utexas.edu (David Sigeti)
>
>In caring for the terminally ill, it is quite easy to discern those
>care partners who have achieved some state of non-attachment.
>They have a capacity for focusing on the most concentrated
>instances of time and circumstances, and I believe this is because
>they are not involved (either attaching or attempting to detach)
>from the larger "drama", i.e. - the patient is getting worse,
>he is going to throw up, he is going to die soon, etc.  The process
>of, say, cleaning a patient who is in great pain, and changing his/her
>soiled bedding without being able to remove him from the bed
>can comsume anywhere from 20 minutes to 40 minutes.  But done with
>non-attachment it can be a series of small actions, of precise and
>careful touchings - each one with its own certain purpose, but
>which cumulatively become a clean individual in a clean bed.
>However, for those whose focus is on that big picture, that
>goal, the process is usually a nerve-wracking and tedious one
>marked with frustration and clumsiness.  I think this comes from
>being attached to that "goal" - a clean patient in a clean bed,
>which can interfere with all those movements and gestures which
>are appropriate to all the many moments that occur before arriving
>at that point ("goal").
>

This seems (to me) to be connected with the Sutras on Mindfullness. If you
are constantly mindfull of the current moment of the current action
then you will be free of the goal. (See The Miracle of Mindfullness by
Thich Nhat Hahn).

Has the Bardo been of any help or meaning to you?

dave