Buddhist Non-Attachment Philosophy And Psychological Well-Being In Vietnamese Buddhists

Abstract

Non-attachment in Buddhism has been conceptually proposed to have an impact on personal well-being. Nevertheless, there has been limited empirical studies investigating how non-attachment influences health, and in particular, its effect on eudaimonic well-being. Our key research questions were: Do demographics influence non-attachment and psychological well-being? And, to what extent can nonattachment and demographics affect psychological well-being? To investigate these, developed the following aims: (1) to compare non-attachment and psychological well-being in people with different Buddhist status and types of practice (indicated by the types of groups they practiced with, the extent to which they took refuge in The Three Jewels, and the frequency with which they practiced the Dharma); (2) to examine the relationship between non-attachment in Buddhism and psychological well-being, including the related components of psychological well-being. Participants were 472 Buddhists from five sanghas in Vietnam. Data was collected from January to April, 2016. Each participant was given a battery of measures comprised of: The Non-Attachment Scale ( Sahdra, Shaver, & Brown, 2010 ), The Ryff Psychological Well-being scale ( Ryff, 1989 ), and a demographic questionnaire. Results revealed a significant positive correlation between non-attachment and psychological well-being ( r = .60). Those who practiced with a Sangha, took refuge in the Three Jewels, and practiced Dharma daily, had higher non-attachment than those who did not. Non-attachment contributed 35.8% to psychological well-being. In particular, participants with greater religious commitment, mindfulness, and meditation practice, found it easier to be detached from the outer world, to find happiness, and perceived greater psychological wellbeing.

Keywords: Non-attachmentWell-beingPsychological Well-beingBuddhist

Introduction

Religious psychology is one of the oldest branch of psychological science (Joshi & Kumari, 2011).

It emerged from the early work of James (1902), Freud (1913), and Jung (1938), and has recently

experienced a rise in popularity (Pargament, Koenig, Tarakehwar, & Hahn, 2004). In the last ten years,

there has been increasing appreciation among psychologists and practitioners of the potential for religious

principles and philosophy to influence human well-being. Some argue that, for the reason that

participation in a particular religion can extend a person’s support network, religion promotes individual

well-being (Diener et al., 2011; Krause & Hayward, 2013; McIntosh, 1995; Revheim & Greenberg,

2007), others argue that it reduces distress (Hefti, 2011); enhances stress coping ability (Pargament et al.,

2004; Park, 2005; Bradshaw et al., 2010), promotes self-evaluation (Whittington & Scher, 2010),

purposeful perception of life (Martos et al., 2010; Diener et al., 2011), and postive perception of the

future (Levin, 2010).

In the last decade, psychologists have become interested in contructs and practices of Buddhism

and Buddhist psychology (Pargament et al., 2004; Ekman et al., 2005; Wallace & Shapiro, 2006). This

trend may be reflecting interest among many agnostic scientists in a “spiritual” practice that can be

beneficial for nonreligious people, however, it could also be owing to increased recognition of Buddhist

practices in clinical psychology, and from a recent movement towards a positively-orientated approach to

psychology and well-being (Snyder & Lopez, 2009).

According to Buddhism, attachment, adversion, and ignorance are the three major human poisons,

and they are innate to the human condition (Dalai Lama, 2000). However, they can be resisted and virtues

cultivated, through the practice of generosity, which should be performed in the spirit of unconditional

love (i.e., giving freely, without attachment or expectation) (Drakpa, Sunwar, & Choden, 2013). In other

words, the Buddhist approach to happiness is to strive to free one’s self from attachment.

Basic concepts

Attachment

Attachment theory was first proposed by Bowbly (1969, 1973) and Ainsworth (1985). It considers

that the quality of a person’s relationships and their mental states throughout their lifetime, are strongly

determined by the type of attachment they experienced with their primary caregiver during early

childhood. Although attachment theory focuses on the interaction between an individual’s relationships

and personality development, little consideration was given to how this model could be utilised to create

the conditions for psychological wellbeing in adulthood (Sahdra, 2013).

Buddhist psychology, meanwhile, describes attachment ( saraga–upadana in Pali) as ‘wrong

thinking’ – the mistaken decision to look for security and happiness in possessions, wealth, and reputation

(Sahdra, 2013). There are four parameters of attachment ( upadana – grasping): attachment to sensuality

( kamupadana - sense pleasures), attachment to views ( ditthupadana - views), attachment to rules and

customs ( silabbatypadana – rule and custom), and attachment to the doctrines of self ( attavadupadana –

doctrines of self). The Dalai Lama (2001) suggests attachment as the origin and root of suffering and the

reification of the ego-self. In this study, we use Shonin and colleagues (2014) definition of attachment as

“the overallocation of cognitive and emotional resources toward a particular object, construct, or idea to

the extent that the object is assigned an attractive quality that is unrealistic and that exceeds its intrinsic

worth” (p. 126).

Non-attachment

Non-attachment ( viraga – non-attachment) refers to the absence of raga, meaninglust, desire, and

craving for existence (Harris, 1997), or the absence of lust. Non-attachment, however, does not imply

withdrawal, but rather the freedom to see the world clearly. Non-attachment is achieved once a person is

aware that no possession, relationship or any achievement is infinite and that none will be able to satisfy

human need (Harris, 1997). In other words, non-attachment is the flexibility to free oneself from desire

and to choose peace. A person who practices non-attachment is not tied to any opinion, appearance or

desire for possession, and they may be more resilient to the trap of self-defensive cognitions (Sahdra et

al., 2010)

Well-being

Well-being is the subjective evaluation of general life satisfaction and can also refer to specific

life-domains. Well-being is considered from two different perspectives: hedonic well-being and

eudaimonic well-being.

From the hedonic perspective, well-being is life experience with the presence of satisfaction and

absence of sadness (subjective well-being) (Bradburn, 1969; Diener, 1984). According to Diener, Lucas

and Oishi (2005), subjective well-being is the individual evaluation of the cognitive and affective aspects

of their life. Two core principles of subjective well-being are cognition (satisfaction) and affect (both

positive and negative affect) (Bradburn, 1969; Andrews & Withey, 1976; Diener et al., 1985). Other

authors, however, have conceptualised subjective well-being as a combined model, between pleasure

(positive emotion) and engagement and meaning (Seligman et al., 2006). Alternatively, it has also been

conceived as a variable determined by excited activities balanced with challenges and personal skills

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

In contrast, the Eudaimonic approach, does not separate human well-being from human potential.

Once the potential is actualized, a person will function healthily and positively (Diener, 1985; Ryan &

Deci, 2001). Being well does not only mean experiencing life with more excitement and less sadness, but

it is a process of self-actualization (Ryff, 1989). Ryff (1989) proposed a six-factor model of eudaimonic

well-being: positive self-perception (self-acceptance), positive relations, independence and autonomy, life

purpose, environmental mastery, and personal growth. The five dimensions model of Keyes (1998), on

the other hand, conceptualized well-being as being composed by: social integration, social contribution,

social acceptance, social actualization, and social coherence.

Contemporary researchers, while agreeing that well-being features a subjective, psychological, and

a social aspect (Negovan, 2010), have increasingly emphasized the psychological aspect of human

experience, and with it, its relation to religious belief. For example, Unterrainer and colleagues (2012)

suggest that from a religious approach, well-being has six dimensions: immanent hope, forgiveness, a

sense of meaning, transcendent hope, general religiosity, and connectedness. Returning to Buddhism, as

another example, Buddhism does not emphasize the achievement of goals or self-satisfaction, but on the

self-balance experience (Joshi & Kumari, 2011) and positive relaxation (Tsai et al., 2007). Well-being

from a Buddhist approach is a result of freedom from the mind itself, namely from its tendency to angst,

and the result of the ability to realise one's fullest potential in term of wisdom, compassion, and creativity

(Wallace & Shapiro, 2006).

Non-attachment and well-being

Distinct from other religions, Buddhism conceptualizes human life as suffering and from which

no Buddha or spiritual feature can help people to escape (Finn & Rubin, 2000). In Buddhism, suffering is

not simply one's dissatisfaction, it is the result of humanity’s misconception of life (Ekman et al., 2005).

Therefore, rather than emphasizing the image of Buddha as a saviour figure, Buddhism focuses on the

message of The Four Noble Truths as an approach to life. The first, the Truth of Suffering, and the fourth

truth, the Truth of the Path Leading us to the End of Suffering, convey an essential component of

Buddhism, that life begins and ends with suffering. The other two truths have closer relations with non-

attachment and with psychological well-being.

The Truth of the Cause of Suffering refers to the Buddhist concept that craving and ignorance are

the root causes all suffering. Craving is commonly presented under the form of grasping or attachment .

According to this model, sadness, is the result of the human craving for objects that they found attracted

to (Chah, 2011). In other words, humans have a tendency to find happiness in the possession of material,

pleasure, health, knowledge, position, compliment, and recognition. As a result, they are attached to their

environment and their relationships with it, rather than their inner strength for their own happiness.This

concept follows that, once attached, well-being is unstable according to the variation in the outside

phenomena (i.e., the possession of objects, relationships with others) that it is now dependent on. From

this perspective, status is another object of attachment, people become tied to the pressure of having to

achieve, and to possess in order to find happiness (Sahdra et al., 2010).

The Truth of the End of Suffering implies that only when all the deep roots of suffering are

removed, suffering will end. And with the end of suffering, happiness emerges as freedom from

expectation and dissatisfaction (Fink, 2013). According to Buddhism, as everything is impermanent,

happiness cannot be sustained by holding onto property or objects. Buddhism proposes that everything

has three characteristics: impermanence, selflessness, and dissatisfaction, and each existence is the

consequence and cause of another, nothing is absolute or unchangeable. Although Buddhism has been in

existence for a centuries and has spread around the globe, this perception is not common to humanity, and

often theworld is perceived as absolute and all forms as completely independent from each other (Ricard,

2006). Therefore, the majority of people seek happiness in the pursuit of success, youth, health,... Those

satisfactions are controlled by one's environmental stimuli, and their social interactions. Accordingly,

when those stimuli are removed, happiness is also diminished (Wallace & Shapiro, 2006).

From a Buddhist point of view, the only way to achieve inner peace is to eliminate attachment, or

to cultivate non-attachment. Non-attachment does not mean to run away or repress negative thoughts and

emotions, but to face and carefully analyse where they come from, how they take place, and how they

impact one's self and others. For example, when a new situation arises, one is often overcome with greed,

hatred, and ignorance, from which emotions arise. These emotions, which could be pleasant, unpleasant,

or neutral, act to blind humans to the true nature of peace, they will ignore, evade or deny it, and instead

cling to their attachment (Fryba, 1995). The focus of Buddhism, therefore, is to free people from their

emotion in order to perceive and accept things / phenomena as they are, not as they are created from the

illusions of the mind (Grabovac et al, 2011).

Problem Statement

Several empirical studies have indicated a positive association between non-attachment and well-

being. For example, empirical findings indicate that subjective well-being and constructive well-being are

negatively associated with destructive emotions (Wang et al., 2016), stress (Naidu & Pande, 1990), and

closed-mindedness (Sahdra & Shaver, 2013). However, from the hedonic approach, there has been little

research into the relationship between non-attachment and eudaimonic well-being. With this study we

hope to contribute to this gap in the literature.

Research Questions

As the above discussion highlights, the relationship between non-attachment and well-being has

been largely neglected in research. The present study is designed to fill this gap. Our research questions

are:

Q1. Is there an effect of demographics on non-attachment and psychological well-being? (gender,

age, refuge status (in The Three Jewels), practice Dharma, frequency of mindfulness practice and

mediation)

Q2. What is the association between non-attachment and psychological well-being?

Q3. What is the contribution of non-attachment and demographics to the variation of

psychological well-being?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research is:

To compare non-attachment and psychological well-being in people with different Buddhist status

and types of practice (group of practice, taking refuge in The Three Jewels, and frequency of mindfulness

practice and meditation).

To examine the relationship between non-attachment in Buddhism and psychological well-being,

including related components of psychological well-being.

Research Methods

Findings

The mean score of the non-attachment scale was 4.37 ( SD = .81). When compared to Sahdra and

colleagues’ (2010) study on adult participants in The United States of America, the mean obtained in that

study was much smaller for those participants who did not practice meditation ( M = 4.39, SD = .76), and

those who did ( M = 4.64, SD = .82) (Sahdra et al., 2010).

Effect of demographics on non-attachment and psychological well-being

Gender

An Independent Samples T-test yielded results indicating that there was an effect of gender on

non-attachment. Female participants had higher non-attachment scores ( M = 4.44, SD = .77) than male

counterpart ( M = 4.22, SD = .87) t (466) = 2.56, p < .01. No effect of gender was found on Psychological

well-being total score t (467) = .88, p > .05, neither on its components.

Age

One-way ANOVA analysis did not demonstrate an effect of age on non-attachment, F (4, 461) =

1.72, p > .05. Also, no effect was found between age and Psychological well-being total score, F (4, 462)

= 1.38, p > .05. Participants in different age groups did not show any difference to subscales of the

psychological well-being scale. There was only significant difference in the Personal growth subscale,

F (4, 462) = 7.00, p < .001. The 18-25 age group reported a higher score than did those of the 36-55 and

over-55 groups. The 26-35 age group also has higher scores compared to the over-55 group (Table 3 ).

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Dharma practice arrangement

One-way ANOVA analyses showed that non-attachment scores were related to Dharma practice

arrangement (a community of people that we practice with), F (3, 443) = 29.54, p < .001. Participants who

practiced with a sangha had the highest non-attachment score ( M = 4.77, SD = .68), and it was

significantly higher than practicing with friends ( M = 3,95; SD = .66; p < .001) or with family members

( M = 4.11; SD = .79; p < .001). It also found that those who practiced alone ( M = 4.53; SD = .85) had

significantly higher non-attachment than did those who practiced with friends ( p < .001) or with family

members ( p < .001), but not higher than those who practiced with a sangha.

People who practiced in a Sangha had the highest psychological well-being scores ( M = 4.51, SD =

.60). On the whole scale, F (3, 434) = 20.47, p < .001, and on individual subscales: self-acceptance F (3,

433) = 15.19, p < .001; positive relations with others F (4, 433) = 19.18, p < .001; personal growth F (4,

434) = 10.96, p < .001; purpose in life F (4, 434) = 19.36, p < .001; environmental mastery F (4, 434) =

15.45, p < .001. People who practiced alone had higher psychological well-being scores ( M = 4.19, SD =

.59) than those who practiced in a group of friends ( M = 3.94, SD = .60), p < .001. People who practiced

alone also reported higher self-acceptance scores ( M = 4.09, SD = .74), personal growth scores ( M = 4.54,

SD = .77), purpose in life scores ( M = 4.29, SD = .73) than did those who practiced with friends ( M =

3.81, SD = .59, p = .02), ( M = 4.16, SD = .87, p < .001), ( M = 3.97, SD = .81, p < .05), respectively.

Those who practiced with their family members had higher purpose in life scores (M = 4.27, SD = .81)

than those practicing with friends ( p < .05).

It should be noted that, on the autonomy subscale, the one-way ANOVA did not yield any

significant difference between groups, F (3, 443) = 2.64, p > .05.

Taking refuge in The Three Jewels and Buddhist status

Participants who had taken refuge in The Three Jewels reported higher non-attachment and

psychological well-being scores, which are statistically significant. Monks in this study reported higher

non-attachment and psychological well-being scores (except on the Autonomy subscale) compared to

laypersons. An Independent Samples T-test demonstrated that the difference was statistically significant.

Detailed analysis is presented in Table 04 .

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Frequency of practicing Dharma

Practicing Dharma includes a wide range of actions such as meditation, chanting, and praying.

One-way ANOVAanalyses showed that there was a significant effect of frequency of practice on non-

attachment, F (4, 461) = 28.06, p < .001, and on psychological well-being, F (4, 462) = 18.67, p < .001

People who practiced daily scored highest on the non-attachment scale ( M = 4.77, SD = .74) and

on the psychological well-being scale ( M = 4.42, SD = .61). Across scales, the several times a year group

had the lowest scores.

Those who practiced several times a year had lower non-attachment scores ( M = 3.82. SD = .71)

and psychological well-being scores ( M = 3.82, SD = .52) than those who practiced daily (non-attachment

score M = 4.77, SD = .74, p < .001; M = 4.42, SD = .61, p < .001, respectively) and those who practiced

one to four times a month ( M = 4.33, SD = .57, p < .001; M = 4.32, SD = .57, p < .001). Furthermore,

autonomy scores of this group ( M = 3.58, SD = .43) were lower than that of those who did not practice

praying ( M = 4.01, SD = .60, p < .05).

Factors predicting psychological well-being

Among demographic variables, only frequency of Buddhist practice was correlated to

psychological well-being r (462) = .30, p < .01. Univariate linear regression was used to evaluate

predictive ability of psychological well-being of frequency of practice and non-attachment. Results

showed that frequency of practice could predict 8.8% of variance of psychological well-being and of non-

attachment, 35.8%.

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Conclusion

Acknowledgments

This is to acknowledge funding from Vietnam National University, Hanoi. This study was conducted part of the project: “Religious beliefs and its effects to human well-being". Project number: QG.15.44.

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