Let’s Talk About Upādāna (取)
Shall we talk today about upādāna?
Upādāna? You mean “grasping”?
According to a Buddhist dictionary, upādāna (取) means “to seek after all manner of objects without pause, to take hold and not release.”
The desire to make something yours.
The desire not to let go of what is already yours.
I suppose you could call it the urge to possess?
You might also connect it with the simple image of “taking” something.
Like — “to get your hands on something,” “to reach out and grasp it,” “to never want to let go once you have it”?
Picturing the desire to possess alongside the actual motion of the hands might help make it vivid.
When one is bound by upādāna, whether something can be obtained or not becomes what one is most concerned with in life.
The View of “Mine” or “Not Mine” — Inside the Hand, Outside the Hand
“Mine” or “Not Mine”
“Within my grasp” or “beyond my reach.”
Is this what it means for this to become the main concern of life?
Yes. But do you remember a conversation we had before?
Someone said, if I recall: “Whether or not a thing belongs to you, the thing itself still exists, does it not?”
Yes.
Was that the talk about “being” and “non-being”?
It was.
We get caught up trying to grasp things and calculating how to make them ours.
But that’s exactly when we should observe ourselves carefully and reflect calmly.
That is also what I said.
Whether you obtain it or not, it is already there.
Yet whether it is inside your hand or outside your hand — when one is gripped by upādāna, that difference becomes everything.
I believe I said something like that before.
The Talk of “Being” and “Non-Being”
Speaking of “inside the hand” and “outside the hand” — let us take an example. A thing exists. Here, the robes we are wearing exist right here, do they not?
Yes. They clearly exist.
Then will they exist forever?
Of course not. Robes wear out, they tear…
Someday they will be “non-existent.”
They are in being — and yet they will pass into non-being.
They will pass into non-being — and yet here they are, in being.
We see that this is being and non-being.
As you always teach, when we observe things carefully, everything is changing.
Becoming “Ordinary”
Yes. And yet — take something you own.
After a while, having it simply becomes something ordinary, does it not?
Of course. If you wear something every day, its presence feels completely normal.
And when things are taken for granted, don’t people grow increasingly indifferent to them?
Ah, perhaps so.
And then they stop taking care of them.
They start to take for granted that something — or someone — will just be there…
And yet even the things that seem simply to be there will someday cease to be.
I believe that because I know it will someday be gone, I can treasure this moment while it is here.
Yes. And there are those who only realize after it is gone how grateful they should have been.
But in truth, even the things that feel ordinary — the things that are simply there — will inevitably be gone someday. We don’t know when, but we do know it will happen, surely?
Right. Though it’s easy to forget when something has become so taken for granted…
Even the things before us that feel ordinary will someday no longer be there. That is why, truly, the fact of something being is a far more remarkable and difficult thing than we usually imagine.
“The Ordinary and the Wonderful”
To exist is difficult. And yet the things right here before us — the most familiar, the most constant — are the ones most easily taken for granted.
What we call “ordinary” is, in truth, something to be deeply grateful for.
Is that what you’re saying?
And yet no matter how remarkable something is — if it is always near and constantly present, it starts to feel ordinary.
What is taken as ordinary is something to be grateful for.
And what is truly wonderful gradually becomes ordinary.
Once something is obtained, it becomes ordinary — and we stop cherishing it.
And then you’re never satisfied, always chasing the next thing, and the next after that, without end?
Yes. Because what you haven’t yet obtained — what feels rare, what feels just out of reach — is what begins to pull at you…
The ordinary becomes invisible, and we stop valuing it.
The wonderful feels precious, and we cling to it.
The Parable of Feeding the Flames
If that is how things go, it is like feeding logs endlessly into a fire.
If you keep throwing logs into the fire without stopping, the flames will eventually exceed what it can contain…
The flames spread to what is nearby, then further still — until everything around is caught up in the blaze.
More logs, greater flames.
Then what if no more logs are added?
Naturally, the fire would diminish.
What Does It Mean to Stop Adding Logs?
Precisely. So then — what does it mean to stop adding logs?
“Inside” or “outside.” “Being” or “non-being.” “Ordinary” or “wonderful.”
If the act of dividing and separating these — of drawing distinctions — is what feeds the fire, then…
Whether it’s inside your hand or outside your hand, the fact that something is there does not change.
Could that way of seeing be what it means to stop adding logs?
So does that mean you don’t necessarily have to make everything your own possession?
Well — if you need something, you can borrow it rather than own it. There’s much that can be shared. And if you don’t need it, you can give it to someone who does.
But if you’re fixated on what is “yours,” you can’t even lend or borrow things — you can’t let go of what you don’t need, and you can’t rest unless you own what you think you should own.
Simply put — you lose your flexibility. (laughs)
I see. Then what about “being” and “non-being”?
How does that play out?
For instance — even if something is very dear to me, if I believe it will certainly always be there, I find I can no longer truly cherish it.
Because if I think that no matter how carelessly I treat it, it will still be there — that its being there is simply a given — my handling of it inevitably becomes rough.
I understand. And the opposite extreme — thinking that because it will eventually be gone, it is as good as already gone — that also makes it impossible to cherish. That would be something like nihilism, wouldn’t it?
“Everything is nothing, so nothing we do has meaning” — that kind of thinking.
So… it is here, and yet someday it will be gone. Someday it will be gone, and yet here it is now.
“Being” or “non-being” — not just one side alone.
A View That Does Not Lean to One Side
Taking the ordinary for granted makes us stop valuing it.
But treating something as so wonderful and special causes us to cling to it.
Neither “ordinary” alone, nor “wonderful” alone.
What is ordinary, seen differently, is wonderful — and what is most wonderful, eventually feels ordinary.
I see. “Inside” or “outside,” “being” or “non-being,” “ordinary” or “wonderful” — the more we lean toward one side alone, the more the truth of the other side vanishes from view.
And, to follow the thought further — clinging to “adding logs” or “not adding logs” as opposites would be the same cycle repeating itself. (laughs)
Ah — yes, of course.
When we carefully observe the arising and passing of things in this way, what truly matters begins to come into view.
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