Not Holding to Fixed Views

Excerpt

The phrase “I’m right, you’re wrong” is the archetypal expression of our tendency to attach to views and opinions: “If I think it, it must be true, and if you think differently, sorry, but you’re wrong. You might be a good person, but you’re just wrong.” This is the very opposite of the attitude expressed in the last four lines of the Mettā Sutta (SN 1.8):

By not holding to fixed views,the pure hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense desire,is not born again into this world.

“Not holding to fixed views” means letting go, not clinging. In a number of his teachings, the Buddha talked about four different kinds of clinging, four different zones of attachment. The first kind is clinging to sense-desire, sense-pleasure (kām-upādāna). The second kind is clinging to precepts and practices: rules, observances, conventions (sīlabbat-upādāna); the blind belief in conventional structures. This can include rules of religious behavior, but also be things like the value of money. The next kind of clinging is clinging to the feeling of self, attavād-upādāna, the “I, me, and my” feeling. But the kind of clinging examined here is clinging to views and opinions, as in the line from the Mettā Sutta: “not holding to fixed views,” diṭṭhiñca anupagamma in Pali. This final type of clinging is called diṭṭh-upādāna. …