Most are pretty advanced enough to know that attachments are not good to have. However, still being attached to something is a problem. It is still a day to day struggle to fight being attached to our attachments. We are, attached to our attachments ourselves. Thats right. Thats not a typo or brain fart.
My life, my job, my family, my husband, my house, my car, my shit basically. All I own. Its a wonder that many do renounce the world and go into hermitages, renounce all human life even, just to get away. Because they know the power of attachments, the hold and the pull.
Attachments are what bind us to the world of maya. The grand play. And its difficult to be able to 'see' clearly in the illusory world, what is real, through the clouds of our attachments.
Because our attachments rule us, they define us. "I am this because I am connected to that." We are attached to our personal stories. Our childhood. Our teen years. Our college years. Our midlife. Our age. Our this and that. We think all of this is 'ours' in some way. But its merely passing and fleeting. We dont even own our own bodies. If we owned anything, we could have charge of it. Do what we wanted to. If we truly were masters of our house, we could avoid 'our bodies' being sick, or getting old. But we cannot. So what really, truly does own them then? That is the great question. What does? That doesnt provide an easy answer.
What do we truly have ownership of then, if we own nothing, and nothing is worth getting attached to? Do we even own that little sliver of spark, of buddha nature, of spirit dwelling within us? Can we control that, even after we die? Do we stand a chance, as discussed on the thread of self or not self? We cannot if we are attached to the most difficult thing to let go of, the *I*
The I is the part of us which attaches to anything and everything. I am this, I am that, I own this, I own that. I dont own this, I want that. I can have this, I cant have that. The I constantly prods over itself with its various demands. Its what creates misery in one way or another. and eventually, after much subserviance, will eventually lead to our demise because it was never real to begin with, and it was hopelessly clinging to the unimportant in the first place. My this, my that, my my.
So examining attachments and severing them, esp in mind is very important to do. Its critical or else we'll be slaves of the I, which may be a part of us, but is not us. It is a tyrant which takes over and demands like a needy child, and keeps us from walking the path on the journey back home, inwardly home where we belong.