Question: Dear Sayadaw, I have an attachment in my mind: By participating in the 10-day meditation course, I am avoiding responsibilities to my family, to my children, and to the center I am currently working at. Currently I have 3 small children, 8 years old, 7 years old and 5 years old, and I am working at the health center. Please give me advice so that I can let go and reduce attachment so that I can concentrate more on the meditation course? I am grateful to Sayadaw.

As a meditator, she should emphasize to be dutiful on practicing meditation. your main responsibility is to be dutiful on practicing meditation. If you are not practicing enough you are not dutiful to buddha dharma sangha. Compared with our family our boss or company leader, buddha dharma sangha is more important, is the most important of all.

Doing all kinds of good deeds with right understanding and mindfulness and detachment are the most important of all. Now you are already dutiful on your family and on your family. But thats not complete, it will never end. If you are trying to be dutiful on practicing mindfulness and detachment, there will be the end and you can be satisfied. Therefore, you should choose the middle way in doing all kinds of good deeds like this. The more you can practice mindfulness and detachment, the more you can detach from your family or company.

In this way, you can get the chance to guide your family members or to people in your company to do good deeds with mindfulness and detachment like you can do. We all need change, not only your family members, but also friends and leaders of the company also need changes. Now you are on the right changes. Therefore, you should emphasize to change your life and your mind as a real meditator. If you can change your life and your mind, you maybe able to change the life of family members or company members. You just need to detach from family members and company members. The real problem is ignorance and attachment in your mind. Your family member and company members can survive wirhout you for sure. With this right understanding, we should try to detach from our family members and company.