-Giving in to lust
-Giving in to gluttony
-Unnecessary use of technology for distraction
-Giving up on important goals
-Excessive sleep and rest when not doing physical activity or recovering from sickness
If you have any advice on how to overcome these, I’d kindly appreciate it. I’ve been a prisoner of greed for a long time, and I’d like to break free. Replies from monastics would be particularly appreciated.
There’s a pattern of setting the intention to overcome these, perhaps being successful for a while, and then engaging in old habits again. Clearly the intention is not enough.
What I find is that when there is interest in Dhamma then those things become less interesting. But nature is nature and lobha has been accumulated for aeons - we are not suddenly going to be behaving like saints.
I don’t think so. But it is an enticing object for the person addicted - whether to gambling, alcohol or doom scrolling. And it may need more effort to reduce the activity. Sometimes finding other habits that are non-destructive can substitute: like going to the gym
I wrote this to a similar question:
We, whether laypeople or bhikkhu, lead the life that is appropriate to our station.
Question: but don’t we have to give up everything?
Eventually, but we need to be realistic. The first type of clinging to be given up is wrong view.
Visuddhimagga:* And here [false-] view clinging, etc., are abandoned first because they are eliminated by the path of stream-entry. Sense-desire clinging is abandoned later because it is eliminated by the path of Arahantship. This is the order of their abandoning. *xvii 245
Here I would like to add a point about sense desire clinging. It is clear even to the non-Buddhist that sense desires rule our lives.
Visuddhimagga: Sense-desire clinging, however, is taught first among them because of the breadth of its objective field and because of its obviousness. For it has a broad objective field because it is associated with eight kinds of consciousness. The others have a narrow objective field because they are associated with four kinds of consciousness. […] And self-doctrine clinging is taught last because of its subtlety. xvii 246
Hence we read many suttas rightly extolling the dangers of sense desire. And the new Buddhist quickly sees the truth in that. They may then feel they should first stamp down on sense desire. This can lead to problems. If they have some apparent success then they feel they can control the mind by dint of will. Or if they don’t succeed they feel they are failing. Or they go through a cycle of winning and losing in this regard. But what is prime is eliminating wrong view.
Another aspect is learning to understand dhammas now. Seeing contacts visible objects and then lobha arises or aversion. Same with sound and tastes and hardness/softness, heat/cold. We can learn to see that these are merely natural processes, empty of a self who is governing any of this - and that is the beginning of satipatthana.
THis is taking advantage of the various attachments as they can be the very phenomena that are used to develop understanding at deeper levels.
Dear Sir, thanks for your reply. You’ve clarified that addiction is not a special kind of greed, but it may be harder to overcome. So what is the element of the addiction that makes it so hard to overcome? Is it habituation? Past karma? Mental habits? Self view?
How to describe addiction (or something less intense like a passing fancy for cupcakes) in abhidhamma terms?
It is all these factors and more.
Yet in the end it comes down to what appears at the 6 doors, the ayatanas.
A man sees a beautiful woman and is entranced - but actually there are only various colors appearing at the eyedoor and then processes of cittas that include perception and lobha that attach to concepts that relate to the visible object, " it would be nice to meet her..etc etc".
A woman sees the same woman and different trains of thought occur " i like her shoes…or..".
For food we accumulated even in this life a liking for some tastes more than others..
The common reaction to seeing the hold that all these sense objects have over us is to try to restrain. We resolve not to eat chocolate for example. And sure that can work.
As I indicated above there is another way, and that is to learn about the processes and see the underlying tendencies that are so strong. There can be moments of learning about the various factors you mention - they are not us, they are elements. This is Abhidhamma as it happens.
It is not so direct as using dint of will to tamp down desires; but it has special value as it is leading out of self view.
The difference between concepts and realities is gradually discerned and then the way becomes clear.
So a key to development is realising that it is nature as it is that we are understanding- we are not trying to change nature.
And thus bad habits are real, conditioned and anatta. There needs to be patience with them.