[cylon]

Khempo Yurmed Tinly, the buddhist teacher featured in the extended version of What the Bleep. He was explaining Buddhism from a perspective that I hadn't heard before. You can youtube it.

He said that the suffering Buddha talked about was not-being aware of your unity with the universe. Everything is an illusion (we all know that part) and the suffering comes from the feeling that there is something that is not you. Not that you shouldn't seek happiness, not that you should run away from life, not that you should give up possessions, or act above it all... but simply that the reason we are attached to things is that we think they are THINGS separate from us, but in reality all is one, we can't LOSE anything that we already are.

Like closing your eyes and wondering where your hands went. (that's me).

He said the Buddha reached enlightenment when he realized that there was no separation. No mention of letting life happen around you while deciding not to play the game.

So maybe it's not the "world" that is the problem that makes attachment to it so troublesome, maybe attachment itself is like a scarcity mentality that stops the real abundance coming to us.