Everyone shut your eyes for a minute. Shut your eyes. I am seeing some eyeballs, shut your eyes. Take a breath. Was that a male breath, or a female breath? Take another breath. Was that an old breath, or a young breath? Take another breath. Was that a sexy breath, or not? Take one more breath. Was that a beautiful breath, a gorgeous breath, a strong breath? Okay, you can open your eyes.
All those words don't make any sense for your breath, do they? That's why we want to let go of our attachments to our body. If you're in the moment, if you're actually being in the moment and being aware of the process of what you're doing; then you're not going to be so worried about your body.
We do want to keep a strong body. It's our vehicle. If we have a weak body, we are not going to be able to practice as well. If we have an injured body or a sick body, it's going to be harder to practice. So we would like to keep a healthy body. In this sense, we are attached to the body as being our vehicle, and we want to keep it strong and healthy.
But the attachment this question is talking about, I think, is the attachment to whether my body is beautiful, strong, has muscles here, has fat there, is the right shape, and hair has not fallen out, or whatever.
Now, one way to let go of this sort of attachment is to develop strong body awareness. The more you develop actual body awareness and awareness of what you are doing right here in this moment, when you develop strong body awareness, you don't have a negative type of attachment to your body. You are using your body to develop the mind, but you are letting go of your attachment to it.
Now, there are also other ways, which many of you can easily understand, to help let go of attachment to the body. Think about the beautiful people on the planet, the gorgeous, handsome people. When you're walking in the supermarket and you see the magazine pictures, you know, the ones with all these movie stars, and whatever. If you could have their perfect, handsome, beautiful body, but you also have to have their mental state, would you trade? There's not many people, not many average, ordinary people like yourselves, who would actually want to totally trade their life with any particular movie star or whatever. You may want parts of what they have, but no, you can't have just parts, you have to have all of it. Not many people would trade. Why? Because the inner beauty is more important! What you're doing inside is far more important than what you're doing outside.
Sit down with someone who is gorgeous, beautiful, handsome, a movie star, whatever; while they're angry. Sit there while they swear at the waiter because the tea is a little cooler then they want. Or the steak is medium-rare instead of rare. You know, watch some great movie star, watch some millionaire person get angry. Do you want to sit there with them as they swear out some young, eighteen-year old waitress? It wasn't even her fault - what's the problem?
Ok, you're sitting outside with someone else who is not so beautiful, not rich, maybe they are fifty pounds overweight, maybe they have pimples everywhere, maybe they can't comb their hair right, and maybe they wear the dumbest clothes you have ever seen. Ok, but the food comes and it's the wrong dish, and they go, "Oh, I did not order this, but gee it doesn't really matter, I am happy to have some food. How is your food going?" And they are so loving, and so kind. Ok, who would you rather sit and eat a meal with? It's obvious, isn't it?
The outer body, we don't have to be so attached to it and think that we should look like the people in the magazine photos. No, we don't have to think that. That's ok. It's ok to be attached to your body in the sense that it's your vehicle. Try to take care of it as best you can, try to keep it healthy and strong. But to go overboard, and to want it to be so beautiful, and to want it to be so handsome, and to want it to be so whatever, that's a negative type of attachment and no, we don't want that.