By Leo Babauta
In this webinar, I talked about the attachments that cause our difficulties, and how to be mindful of them and start letting them go. (See notes below.)
I’ve broken this webinar recording into two parts:
- Part I: A short meditation, & my talk on mindfulness and attachment. (See notes)
- Part II: I answered questions on failing at habits, figuring out what your attachment is, perfectionism, and more!
But if you want to watch or listen to the full webinar in one piece, you can download the full video here, or the full audio here.
Part I: Leo’s Talk (with notes)
You can download this video here, or download just the audio. Or watch below.
Here are the notes from my talk (video is below the notes):
- Fears, procrastination, frustration, anger, anxiety … are all caused by attachments and clinging. In this webinar, we’ll examine these attachments and how to use mindfulness to practice letting go and being at ease.
- Attachment is the root of suffering of all kinds.
- Happiness is removing this suffering, getting out of our own way.
- We are attached to what we want, attached to not having what we don’t want.
- Mindfulness is the key to freeing ourselves of attachments.
- If we can see the attachments, we can start to work with them.
- If we can see the suffering that’s caused, we can have the intention of letting the suffering and the cause go.
- If we can see the present moment, we can start to work with the solution.
- What’s the solution? Realizing that: there’s nothing to cling to. The ideal is not solid, just a dream.
- Why do we cling? We want certainty, don’t like uncertainty.
- The alternative to attachment is accepting the moment in front of us.
- See the moment clearly, relax into the moment.
- Relax: notice the physical and mental tightness; tighten harder, then relax.
Part II: Questions and Answers
You can download this video here, or download just the audio. Or watch below.
Questions answered in this video:
- How do you see/what are your thoughts around being attached to wanting to be ok?
- I guess I feel frustration when I do SO well with habit(s), then fall off! I enjoy restarting too.
- How do you figure out what the attachment is? I know it’s something to do with work but don’t know WHAT it is?

- How do I let go of perfectionism? Is wanting to do things well a bad thing? You wouldn’t publish a badly written article, would you?
- You’re meditating, and you can’t let go of something you’re upset about or obsessing about … what do you do?