by Dharmacharya Gurudas Sunyatananda

Created on: October 28, 2008   Last Updated: January 17, 2009

We often talk about the path of non-attachment a central concept found in the Perennialist teachings of Buddha Sakyamuni and Rav Yeshua (Jesus the Nazarene). In order to actually release our attachments, it is helpful to understand what causes them.

In general terms, attachment arises from grasping. There are four types of grasping: grasping after opinion, grasping after sensory pleasure, grasping after rule and rite, and grasping after the theory of "self". In even more general terms, we can say that grasping after those things we imagine to bring us happiness, and grasping to avoid those things we perceive as causing us pain are the foundational conditions, which give rise to attachments.

Grasping After Opinion

How many times have we found ourselves at odds with someone or some group, because they differ strongly in opinion from us?

Now I am not suggesting that having a personal opinion, even a strong personal opinion, is wrong. In fact, I believe that our opinions add to the experience of personal growth and development. But we must guard ourselves against becoming attached to them.

When we recognise an opinion as an opinion, it's difficult to be attached, because we see that thought or idea as a perception based observation. In a world that is not static, our perception is bound to shift and change, and as it does, our opinions (should) change as well.

Some years back, while I was still serving as the exarch and metropolitan archbishop of the autocephalous Franciscan communities in North America, a transcript of my weekly sermon was published, in which I stated my personal and theological opinion that the traditions of "virgin birth" and "immaculate conception", "stigmata" and "resurrection" were concepts that could not rationally be considered as literal fact, and were simply part of the cultural and religious mythos of a primitive mindset from which the institutional Church developed. One of the men I ordained to become bishop-protector of the Canadian Provinces a brilliant and well-educated, former Roman-Catholic priest was apparently of the opinion that such mythos and legends, along with the Medieval and Tridentine prescriptions for liturgical prayer, ought to be considered as literal fact. He felt strongly enough about it to separate himself from our community, and start his own sect.

For some time, I am quite certain that he and his disciples (who were comprised of individuals we dismissed from our community for various reasons) allowed their opinions to

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