A: The attachments can be to either content or context, as well as to intended or hoped-for results. To undo a difficult positionality, it may be necessary to disassemble it and then surrender its elements. The payoff that is holding an attachment in place may be that it provides a feeling of security or pleasure; the pride of being ārightā; comfort or satisfaction; loyalty to some group, family, or tradition; avoidance of the fear of the unknown, etc.
When belief systems are examined, they turn out to be based on presumptions that are prevalent in society, such as right versus wrong or good versus bad. For instance, āI have to have chocolate ice cream (content) āand then Iāll be happyā (context) is based on another positionality, that the source of happiness is outside oneself and has to be āgottenā (in overall context). All these propositions indicate a series of dependencies (e.g., the
Buddhaās Law of Dependent Contingencies or Dependent Origination), and when they are surrendered, the source of happiness is found to be in the joy of existence itself, in this very moment and, beyond that, in the source of oneās existenceāGod.
Attachments are illusions. They can be surrendered out of oneās love for God, which inspires the willingness to let go of that which is comfortably familiar.
I: Reality and Subjectivity: Ch.20, Perspectives, Pg. 352-353