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           Obstinate and stubborn opinions have various origins, but in the main they are bound up with
customs, traditions, ceremonies, and religious doctrines.         Suborn personal convictions are not a
matter of great importance.      They are far less numerous than convictions stemming from long-
held popular traditions and ceremonies.     Adherence to views is bassed on ignorance.       Lacking 
knowledge, we develop our own personal views on things, based on our own original stupidity.   For
instance, we are convinced that things are desirible and worth clinging to, that they really endure, are worthwhile, and are selves, instead of preceiving that they are just a delusion and a deception,
transient, worthless, and devoid of selfhood.           Once we have come to have certain ideas about something, we naturally don't like to admit later on that we were mistaken.      Even though we may
occasionally see that we are wrong, we simply refuse to admit it.     Obstinacy of this sort is to be consodered a major obstacle to progess, rendering us incapable of changing for the better, incapable
of modifying false religious convictions and other long standing beliefs.     This is likely to be a pro-
blem for people who hold to naive doctrines.         Even though they may later come to see them as naive they refuse to change on the grounds that their parents, grandparents and ancestors all held
those same views.    Or if they are not really interested in correcting and improving themselves, they
may simply brush away any arguments against their old ideas with the remark that that is what they
have always believed.           For these very reasons attachment to opinions is to be considered a dangerious defilement, a major danger, which, if we are to better ourselves at all, we ought to make
all efforts to eliminate.
     3)   Attachment to rites and rituals  (Silabbatupadana).   This refers to clinging to meaning-
less traditional practices that have been thoughtlessly handed down, practices which people choose
to regard as sacred and not to be changed under any circumstances.    In Thailand there is no less of
this sort of thing than in other places.    There are beliefs involving amulets, magical artifacts, and all
manner of secret procedures.         There exist for instance the beliefs that on rising from sleep one must pronounce a mystical formula over water and then wash one's face in it, that before relieving
nature one must turn and face this and that point of the compass, and that before one partakes of 
food or goes to sleep there have to be other rituals.    There are beliefs in spirits and celestial beings,
in sacred trees, and all manner of magical objects.     This sort of thing is completely irrational.   Peo
ple just don't think rationally; they simply cling to the established pattern.     They have always done
it that way and they just refuse to change.      Many people professing to be Buddhists cling to these
beliefs as well, and so have it both ways; and this even includes some who call themselves bhikkhus,
disciples of the Buddha.      Religious doctrines based on beliefs in God, angels, and secred objects are particularly  prone to these kinds of views; there is no reason why we Buddhists should not be
completely free of this sort of thing.
   The reason we have to be free of such views is that if we practise any aspect of Dhamma unaware of its original purpose, unconscious of the rationale of it,
the result is bound to be the foolish, naive assumption that it is something magical.      Thus we find
people taking upon themselves the moral precepts or practising Dhamma, purely and sinply to con
form with the acceted partern, the traditional ceremonial, just to follow the example that has been
handed down.     They know nothing of the nationale of these things, doing them just out of force of
habit.    Such firmly established clinging is hard to correct.       This is what is meant by thoughtless
attachment to traditional practices.        Insight meditation or tranquillity meditation as practised nowadays, if carried out without any knowledge of the rhyme and reason and the real objectives of
it, is bound to be motivated by grasping and clinging misdirected, and just some kind of foolishness.
And even the taking of the Precepts, five, eight, or ten, or however many, if done in the belief that
one will thereby become a magical, supernatual, holy individual possessed of psysic or other powers,
becomes just misdirected routine, motivated simply by attachment to rite and ritual.
     It is necessary, then, that we be very cautious.   Buddhist practice must have a sound foundation
in thought and understanding and desire to destroy the defilements.       Otherwise it will be just foolishness; it will be misdirected, of course, irrational, and just a waste of time.
    4)  Attachment to the idea of selfhood  (Attavadupadana).  This belief in selfhood is something
important and also something extremely well concealed.     Any living creature is always bound to
have the wrong idea of  "me-and-mine".      This is the primal instinct of living things and is the basis of all other instinct.       For example, the instinct to seek food and eat it,  the instinct to avoid
danger, the instinct to procreate, and many others consist simply in the creature's instinctive aware-
ness of and belief in its own selfhood.        Convinced first of all its own selfhood, it will naturally desire  to avoid death, to search for food and nourish its body, to seek safety, and to propagate the
species.     A belief in selfhood is, then, universally present in all living things.       If it were not so, they could not continue to survive.     As the same time, however, it is what causes suffering in the search for food and shelter, in the propagating of the species, or in any activity whatsoever.    This is
one reason why the Buddha taught that attachment to the self-idea is the root cause of all suffering.
     He summed it up very briefly by saying.   "Things, if clung to, are suffering, or are a source of
suffering."    This attachment is the source and basis of life, at the same time it is the source and 
basis of suffering in all its forms.       It was this very fact that the Buddha was referring to when he
said that life is suffering; suffering is life, that means body and mind (five aggregates) which are clunf to are suffering.          Knowledge of the source and basis of life and of suffering is to be consi-
dered the most profound and most penetrating knowledge, since it puts us in a position to eliminate
suffering completely.    This piece of knowledge can be claimed to be unique to Buddhism.   It is not
to be found in any other religion in the world.
  The most efficacious way of dealing with attachment is to 
recognize it whenever it is present.         This applies most particularly to attachment to the idea of
selfhood, which is the very basis of life.         It is something that comes into existence of its own accord, establishing itself in us without  our needing to be taught it.     It is present as an instinct in 
children and the small offspring of animals right from birth.         Baby animals such as kittens know how to assume a defensive attitude, as we can see when we try to approach them.    There is always
that something, the  "self," present in the mind, and consequently this attachment is bound to mani-
fest.   The only thing to do is to rein it in as much as possible until such time as one is well advanced 
in spiritual knowledge; in other words to employ Buddhist principles until this instinct has been over
come and completely eliminated.     As long as one is still an ordinary person, a worldling this instinct remains unconquered.         Only the hihest of the ariyans, the Arahanta. has succeeded in defeating it.         We must recongnize this as a matter of no small importance; it is a major problem common to all living creatures.    If we are to be real Buddhists, if we are to derive the full benefits
 from the teaching, it is up to us to set about overcoming this miscomception.       The suffering to which we are subject will diminish accordingly.
       To know the truth about these things, which are of everyday concern to us, is to be regarded as
one of the greatest boons, one of the greatest skills.   Do give some thought to this matter of the four
attachments, bearing in mind that nothing whatever is worth clinging to, that by the nature of things,
nothing is worth getting or being.    That we are completely enselved by things is simply a result of these four kinds of attachment.      It rests with us to examine and become thoroughly familiar with
the highly dangerous and toxic nature of things.      Their harmful nature is not immediately evident
as is the case with a blazing fire, weapons, or poison.        They are well disguised as sweet, tasty,     fragrant, alluring things, beautiful things, melodious things.     Coming in these forms they are bound
to be difficult to recognize and deal with.       Consequently we have to make use of this knowledge the Buddha has equipped us with.    We have to control this unskillful grasping and subdue it by the
power of insight.        Doing this, we shall be in a position to organize our life in such a way that it 
becomes free of suffering, free of even the smallest trace of suffering.         We shall be capable of
working and living peacefully in the world, of being undefiled, enlightened, and tranquil.
      Let us sum up.    These four forms of attachment are the only problem that Buddhists or people
who wish to know about Buddhism have to understand.    The objective of living a holy life (Branh-
mancariya) in Buddhism is to enable the mind to give up unskillful grasping.       You can find this 
teaching in every discourse in the texts which treats of the attainment of arahanship.     The expres-
sion used is  "the mind freed from attachment." This is the ultimate.   When the mind is free from
attachment, there is nothing to bind it and make it a slave of the world.    There is nothing to keep it
spininning on in the cycle of birth and death, so the whole process comes to a stop, or rather, becomes world-transcending, free from the world.    The giving up to unskillful clinging is, then, the
key to Buddhist practice.