Parting from the four attachments: a daily review from the short Sakya teaching
Once a day, check the day against four attachments, to this life, to saṃsāra, to your own interest, and to grasping, in the words of the teaching Sachen Kunga Nyingpo received.
Why it works
Lotsawa House records the four-line instruction as received by Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092–1158) from Mañjuśrī. Each line names one attachment and what it excludes: the first says that a practitioner attached to this life is not a true practitioner, the second that attachment to saṃsāra leaves no renunciation, the third that attachment to one’s own interest leaves no bodhicitta, and the fourth that grasping leaves no view. The daily review gives four concrete questions instead of a general wish to be good; that framing is this page’s own.
How to do it
- Choose a fixed time each day, such as before sleep, and sit for a minute to recall the day.
- Read the four lines through once, slowly, in the Rigpa Translations version on Lotsawa House, which is publicly available.
- For each attachment in turn, ask one question about the day: did I act for the comforts or reputation of this life; did I act as though this cycle were all there is; did I put my own interest first where it mattered; did I hold a view as though it were a possession.
- Name one moment, however small, where an attachment showed up. Do not solve it tonight.
- End with the four lines and one breath.
Evidence
No study has tested a four-question daily review of this kind. The four lines come from the translated teaching; the questions are this page’s own suggestion for practising them. (anecdotal)
Sakya and other lineages state the four attachments in different words, and the questions above are a practical reading, not a canonical formula.
Sources
- Sachen Kunga Nyingpo. The Instructions on Parting from the Four Attachments, trans. Rigpa Translations (2011, rev. 2012). Lotsawa House.
- Lotsawa House. Parting from the Four Attachments — topic page, describing the four-line instruction that Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092–1158) received from Mañjuśrī, and filed under Mind Training (Lojong). lotsawahouse.org.
- Lotsawa House. Sakya Series — topic page listing Parting from the Four Attachments among the Sakya texts. lotsawahouse.org.
Common mistake
Using the four lines to berate yourself. This page’s guidance is to keep the review brief and honest, not a verdict on your worth.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Lamdré: The Path with Its Result in the Sakya Tradition
- Reflect on the impure vision: the ordinary cycle, seen in one episode
Take one ordinary cycle of wanting and disappointment from your own week and look at it as the impure vision, the first of the three visions the Sakya course page names.
- Know what meditation experiences are and are not: the experiential vision
Notice a vivid meditation experience, such as warmth, light or stillness, and hold it as an appearance that arises and passes rather than as an attainment.
- Aspire to the pure vision: the result as the aim of the path
Let the aim of the path, complete awakening, become a felt aspiration rather than a concept, and point the day toward it.
- Approach a Lamdré teaching: what to ask before joining the tantric parts
Before you engage Lamdré’s tantric parts, learn the Sakya structure, ask how a teacher received the teaching, and check with a qualified lineage-holder what you are ready for.
- When a meditation experience unsettles you: ground first, shorten, and reach a teacher or clinician
If a reflection or a sitting leaves you shaky, unreal or frightened, stop the practice, ground yourself in ordinary contact, and bring it to a teacher or clinician.
Related concepts
- Tibetan Buddhism: The Four Schools, Bön, and Where a Beginner Starts
Four schools, one shared ground, and the devotional practices that hold Tibetan Buddhist life together
- Mahāmudrā: Looking Directly at the Nature of the Mind
The Kagyu path of calm, then looking at the mind itself — practised the way the manuals lay it out
- Lamrim: The Stages of the Path and the Three Scopes
Atiśa’s three scopes and Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise: a contemplative map from a precious human life to awakening
- Bodhicitta: The Awakening Mind and How It Is Cultivated
The intention at the heart of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and the classical ways Tibetan teachers train it
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