60. A strategy for loosening attachment

Someone said: “When I bring the mind to stillness, I try to keep it firmly in that stillness. But when it meets up with an object or preoccupation, it keeps tending to lose the foundation I’ve been trying to maintain.”

Luang Pu responded,

“If that’s the way it is, then it shows that your concentration isn’t resilient enough. If these preoccupations are especially strong—and in particular, if they concern your weak points—you have to deal with them using the methods of insight. Start out by contemplating the coarsest natural phenomenon—the body—analyzing it down to its details. When you’ve contemplated it so that it’s perfectly clear, move on to contemplating mental phenomena—anything at all, in pairs, that you’ve ever analyzed, such as black and white, or dark and bright.”