Upādāna: Clinging
In this illuminating talk, Bhante Bodhidhamma examines upādāna—clinging or grasping—the eighth link in the chain of dependent origination (paṭicca samuppāda). He explains how clinging functions like fuel that keeps the active process of suffering alive and going, sustaining the cycle of dukkha.
Bhante systematically explores the four types of clinging identified by the Buddha: clinging to sensual pleasure across all six sense bases including the mind; clinging to rites and rituals as if they alone could bring liberation; clinging to views and opinions, which he connects to contemporary political polarization and ad hominem attacks; and finally, clinging to the view of self—the root from which all other clinging springs.
For each type of clinging, practical antidotes are offered. Vipassanā practice allows us to see these processes clearly, while restraint helps us work with compulsive desires. Bhante distinguishes between enjoying toast and eating toast in order to be happy—a subtle but crucial difference. He also discusses how virtuous practices like generosity and compassion naturally undermine the sense of self.
The talk concludes with a profound insight into the Buddha's understanding of identity: that the sense of 'I' actually arises after wanting, not before it. This understanding creates a moment of choice—conditioned by wisdom—that allows us to distance ourselves from craving and move toward liberation.
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa
Homage to the Buddha, the blessed, noble and fully self-awakened one.
So we're tackling this word upādāna. It's translated as clinging, sometimes grasping. It's important because it's the eighth link on dependent origination. Now, its literal meaning, according to the Pali dictionary, is that material substratum by means of which an active process is kept alive and going — fuel, supply, provision. In other words, its role in the psyche is the same as something like petrol or electricity in the car. It sustains the process.
There are four of these clingings. The Dhamma is very good at lists. The first one won't surprise you: clinging to sensual pleasure. Then clinging to rites and rituals as if they were liberating. Third, clinging to views and opinions. And finally, of course, clinging to the view of self.
If we look at the first one, most of you will know this — it's the desire for sensual pleasure. But remember that there are six senses in the Buddhist teaching, and the sixth, of course, is the mind itself. So it means all our emotions, all our thoughts, which are usually dependent on some physical base. The problem is that when we're driven by this sort of desire, it's never fulfilling. As soon as we are fulfilled, we rest for a little while and then we want some more. It leads us to manipulating the world we're living in to make it fit our ends. So we're constantly having this little strife or struggle, sometimes quite minor — little irritations and things like that — and sometimes pretty major. But anything that arises out of that desire to seek happiness in pleasures, in the six sensual pleasures, is obviously going to lead to some level of unsatisfactoriness.
So how do we tackle that? Well, we know it's through vipassanā, to see it clearly, to see that process clearly — this is the first understanding. And then, of course, there's the practice of not indulging it. If we can make a distinction here: when we eat toast, it makes us happy. But if we eat toast in order to make us happy, there's going to be a problem. That's the one we don't want.
The other thing that the Buddha uses is restraint. He's big on restraint. Whenever we feel that compulsive nature over something, it doesn't matter what it is — toast, cup of tea — we just hold back and let go of it. Wait for that over-energy to give way. And if possible, do without one. It's like when you walk on the street and you come across a café and the coffee sort of hooks your nose and reels you in. It's resisting that and just walking steadfastly past that café, at least until the next one. But it's also really restraining everything which is becoming obsessional.
And don't forget fasting. Fasting isn't only not eating if it's become obsessional. It's all the social media, the news, the videos, the shopping, et cetera. Anything that becomes compulsive, we stop for a while just to let go of it. When we come on retreat, the first three days are always difficult. One of the things that makes the first three days really difficult is the change of habits — drinking, getting up at a different hour, not eating at the same time. All these things are irritating. We don't like to change our habits. So that's the first clinging, clinging to sensual pleasure.
The next one is clinging to rites and rituals as a religious practice. Now, some of it is very supportive — for instance, bowing. Bowing can be an expression of surrender, of gratitude, of a sense of offering, like you're offering your day for the benefit of others. And it can be a sense of awe, when you bring the profundity of the Buddha's teachings to mind and say, how did he do it? Lighting a candle can remind us of the three paths, in inverted commas, within the Eightfold Path. The light is the path of insight, the warmth is the path of love, and the action of the flame is the path of wholesome works, good works.
It's important to recite the refuges and precepts every morning, because that just reminds you what your life is about, ultimately. It gives it that deeper meaning. Chanting, beading — it's all good to keep the mind steady, to stop it wandering all over the place. And of course, taking refuges and precepts as a public declaration, where you're committing yourself to the path, has a real strengthening effect. It doesn't mean to say that you might not become a Muslim later on. It's just that at this present moment, you're devoted to this particular teaching.
All these practices — actually, it's like sealing a particular relationship with the public rite of marriage. There's the christening, or the naming ceremony, and there's burials. These are all rituals, they're very meaningful, but in themselves, unfortunately, they don't lead to liberation. Never mind.
Number three — well, this is a big one: clinging to views and opinions. Our whole politics has now become polarising because of people clinging to their views and opinions. What happens is that you forget about the issue and you start to attack the person. These arguments are called ad hominem, argumentum ad hominem. There's a bit of Latin there, which means that the argument, the speaker, attacks the character, the motive, some other attribute of the person making the argument. Forget the issue — as long as they can humiliate the other, they've won the argument. Interestingly enough, the Buddha, actually in very early strata of the discourses, tells his monks and nuns not to get involved in these open debates. You just come away either with a big ego or you just come away humiliated.
Just my own reflection: right up until I think Thatcher came in, politics tended to still be gentlemanly — still patriarchal, so gentlemanly. But then the names came out. They started calling Conservatives who didn't follow her way "the wets," if you remember. People who were unemployed became "scroungers." And so the whole thing began to get quite ugly, really. There was Cameron making fun of Farage, making fun of his name, his poncy foreign-sounding pronunciation. And recently Zelensky was made fun of because of his teeth. Of course, Trump is a master of it. Once he said "Sleepy Joe," really that was the end of it, I think. So it's drawing attention, drawing politics down to this real ugly level of just trying to destroy the person. And of course it's all over — I've just mentioned things in the UK, but everywhere you go this is what's happening.
The antidote, of course, is a little bit of humility, really — to realise that whatever view I have, I can't grasp the whole situation, the whole matrix that the problem is in, and that I need other people's perspective. The wider my perspective is, the more I can say, well, I'm getting close to understanding the situation. Sometimes people think that this teaching tells you not to have a view. Well, remember, the Buddha had a view. He had right view. So we can have views. It's just the way we relate to them in terms of identity — "I am right, everybody else is wrong, I'm a lefty, I'm a right-winger" and so on and so forth. There's no need for it if we come down to just looking at the issues and asking, well, what can we do here? It's as simple as that: what can be done? So this is a big problem, this polarisation, and it's all this clinging to my view.
The final one, of course, is clinging to the view of self, and this is the root clinging. From this clinging, all clinging clings. The problem with the self is it only sees the sensual world, and it only sees the sensual world as a place where it can make itself happy. So you can't blame it. You can't blame yourself for wanting to be happy in the sensual world. What it does, obviously, is collect a lot of stuff — feels safer for it, more money in the bank, et cetera. But then that acquisitiveness has to be guarded, and therefore you're always on the lookout for danger — governments, people like that — to take all your money away. And then, of course, if they're bigger than you, like governments, you tend to run, tend to hide. So you've got this basic triangle, this three-pronged movement into daily life of assertiveness, aversion, and fear. And from that, all the problems arise.
So how do we undermine that? Well, obviously, again, it's vipassanā. I want to point you to this place that we get to sometimes when everything is calm. The mind is still, everything's calm, and you become very much aware of being the observer, the feeler, the experiencer, the knower, the witness — it doesn't matter what you call it. But it's beginning to understand that whatever is perceiving cannot be what is perceived. When I look at the shed that's in my garden here, I can't be the shed. So when I go inwards and I perceive a pain, I can't be it. It's an object of my perceiving. Making that more and more clear to ourselves begins to undermine that sense of self.
We can also undermine it by just practising virtues. Anything that undermines that sense of ego, that sense of selfishness — generosity, love, compassion, sympathetic joy and so on. When we're practising virtues, we must be undermining the sense of self. It's as simple as that.
And finally, there's this core insight that the Buddha gives us about the self. He saw clearly that the identity comes after the wanting. It's language that fools us. I say, "I want a coffee." So the "I" comes first and then the want and then the coffee. But psychologically, it's coffee, want, I. This allows us to just distance from the want. We can actually see the wanting as an object, some feeling within us. And it gives us just one moment of choice. It's the only moment we have of choice. Now, this isn't some airy-fairy free will. This choice is conditioned. It's conditioned by wisdom or lack of it. And what we want to know is, well, how does wisdom grow? It's the very suffering that's being caused that makes us seek the end of suffering, which guides us towards wisdom. And that's how it works. So this is a really amazing insight that the Buddha had into our psychology.
There we have it, these four clingings. Clinging to sensual pleasure. Clinging to rites and rituals as if they were enough to make us liberated. Clinging to views and opinions, the conceit of "I am, I am right." And finally, this clinging to the sense of self. And that one, of course, is the most difficult and the final clinging to be unclung. I'm getting very good with the word cling.
I can only hope my words have been of some assistance and that by your unclinging, you will be liberated from all suffering sooner rather than later.