Do we Own anything? Attachment and non-attachment.

[Celtaur]

So of course Apple sue's their competitors every time they turn around. Now Apple may have to put on it's website that Samsung did not steal it's idea, by court order. It has me wondering if tree's should sue Apple for their design it copied.

It's ironic that Steve Jobs was a Buddhist. One of the basic beliefs in Buddhism is that we don't really own anything, that everything is impermanent, and we should not get attached. Well I know "it's just business" but it really has me thinking about how ridiculous this entire concept of money and owning things really is.

Apple suing other companies for stealing their "rectangular design" has got to be the most ridiculous thing ever. A rectangle? seriously... Apple thinks they invented the design of a rectangle with rounded corners. That is really ridiculous. Who on earth couldn't think of a rectangle as a design for a phone, other than Apple? It's a basic shape that has been known about for thousands of years.

We don't own anything. It's all from some void and returns to the void, it's just a temporary illusion, and it's illusions that we cling to. All idea's all things are from the great mystery, God, the void, the wold, the universe, however you wish to conceive of it, but we don't own any of it, we just meet it, and pass it by. Even art, ideas, books, all those thoughts come from the invisible void of nothingness and although we feel attached to it, it's not really ours. We're just simply the conduit that it comes through.

So, although we live in a world that has been on the idea of attachment for so long and we can't really see it being otherwise, I do wonder what it would be like if we didn't have attachments.

I would think that attachments are necessary, as in the protective mode we have to our children for instance. That attachment is necessary for survival and it is also through attachment that we believe we experience love.

So back to business. It seems we've come full circle. Do we need attachment? Is it necessary and do we own anything?

[brifae]

Buddhism does not equal Communism or socialism,
A dangerous concept as the potential of tyranny and corruption by the state increases, as we pay more for less services...sound familiar?

[Ashwini]

Do we need attachment? Is it necessary and do we own anything?

Interesting question and so often asked and explored as well. From a philosophical point of view we own nothing. We come with nothing and leave with nothing as well. At a more spiritual level, one may even say that our body is not our own but a medium for the soul to travel. However, these points of view are interesting to debate and ponder on intellectually but hard to live by.

What happens when you walk out that door to work? When you need that money to do a list of thing that you need - want - desire? I'm going back to Malslow for a minute here. According to his pyramid, one needs to fully satisfy a need at one level to be able to move to another. As individuals, I think we are still stuck in the lower levels of the pyramid which reflects back on society in general. As a human race, we are struggling between physical and emotional needs. Different people have varying degrees of attachments to different things. I truly believe that when an individual or a society as a whole moves to a high plane of understanding and existence, we can then not only understand, but live these spiritual truths. Some of us have already started to bride the gap between Knowledge and current state of existence. Some of us are yet to begin but will get there eventually. Until then, these will always be questions for the hungry mind.

[brifae]

hard to live by because there is no utopian governance
Look at how communist China has treated buddhist monks and tibet murdering and killing others by starvation, destroying almost all buddhist temples. Notorious human rights violations and banning religious rights:
In January 1994, the PRC government increased restrictions on religious practice by foreigners in China through State Council Decrees 144 and 145. Decree 144 states that foreign nationals may bring in religious materials only "for their own use," and bans materials deemed "harmful to the public interest." The decree also prohibits evangelizing, establishing religious schools and other missionary activities. Decree 145 gives authorities substantial leeway in restricting religious activities deemed harmful to "national unity" or "social stability," and limits the practice of religion by foreign nationals to state-sanctioned places of worship.

This is what the Dalai Lama thinks of the politics:
It is ironic that most of his work has been done from his home in Sarnath, northern India, where he fled when Chinese troops entered Tibet in March 1959.

Tibet has been under Chinese Communist rule ever since.
http://www.freetibet.org/about/Introduction-to-tibet

The 66-year-old Dalai Lama said that if Tibet is not free when he dies, his reincarnation will be born in a free country elsewhere.

The political implications of this statement makes it impossible for the Chinese to have a hand in one day deciding who the next Dalai Lama will be, or for a chosen candidate of theirs to have popular support among Tibetans.

Six years ago the Chinese government seized Panchen Lama, Tibet's second-ranking religious figure and placed him into detention. China has since proclaimed another boy to be the real Panchen Lama.

[Kacki]

This reminds me of a cause that I am passionate about... the patenting of Life. After seeing Vandana Shiva (check her out! at http://www.navdanya.org/) speak at my college, I became more aware of how corporations such as Monsanto have the audacity to patent the DNA of life itself within seeds. Within the past month, Glaxo-Smith-Klein bought the rights to the Human Genome. I don't yet understand why they need the intellectual property rights to such a worldwide. The conspiracy theorist within me thinks the worst, but I am maintaining a positive outlook.

I also feel, concerning the original question of attachment, that more and more people are realizing that STUFF and THINGS do not make you happy in the end. This is not an easy lesson to learn, but I feel that there is a great opportunity for those who are beginning to understand how to give their things to others freely (because is feels so good!). By sharing with others and expressing the way it makes you feel, it encourages them to share as well!

What a beautiful system.

Peace and Blessings,
Kacki

[angelman]

Maybe if you stand in your nearest cemetery and contemplate your question ? none of the inhabitants have any of their earthly attachments ! 'you cant take it with you is a saying usually referring to money but it refers to all the material things of this world. From a Shamanistic point of view life is a series of little deaths teaching us (or at least giving us the opportunity to learn) to prepare for the big one, these little deaths are experienced as endings and partings and we either accept and learn and grow or resist and learn and leave the growth for another day or another lifetime, I look at death and see all that I am surrounded by as being left behind and so i invite that knowing into my Now which allows me to be blissfully unattached to anything and everything, this does not mean that I do not use and enjoy what comes and goes in my life, no matter how close any of this gets to me I know we it is only time shared and not ownership or permanent. If this involves picking up the pieces and starting over again so be it and I am equally unattached to the new illusion.
P