Ajahn Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu

And we bear these burdens for years, often without ever paying attention to the fact.

The first kind of foolish attachment is to sensuality, especially to sensual pleasures.

We're clinging to sensual pleasures.

The second is to opinions, views, ideologies and beliefs.

Clinging to any kind of opinion, ideology or belief, even if it is Buddhism, becomes clinging to views, the second kind.

The third is a superstitious kind of grabbing onto things, where we hang onto them superstitiously.

And the fourth is to attach to things through the egoistic concept of I and mine.

These are the four ways of attaching to things.

And when we attach...

the things become burdens.

If we know these four and understand them thoroughly, this will be of tremendous benefit to each of us.

Because if we know them, then it is not so difficult to drop them, to be free of them.

it invites us to attach to it in a positive way.

When something is negative, it invites us to attach to it in a negative way.

Don't go thinking that negative things don't have any attachment.

In fact, we're clinging very strongly to negative things.

So if something is positive or negative, they both entice us to attach to them.

And then we turn these things into burdens.

Thus we say that the positive and the negative, clinging to either of them, causes life to bite its owner.

If there is any clinging to positive or negative, then life bites its owner.