Ajahn Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu

So through successful development of samadhi, one can be easily free of these five hindrances.

This brings us to Upadi the Vekā, which is solitude on the spiritual level.

Upadi means burdens, so to be free of all burdens, when the mind is not burdened or worn down or made heavy by any of the objects of attachment.

When the mind is clinging to something, when anything is grabbed onto, then it gets carried around by the mind, and this is a burden, an unnecessary heaviness and constrictedness.

But when one lets go of all these attachments,

then it is like dropping all burdens and the mind is free of these things and then has spiritual solitude.

To hold on to things and carry them around is called Upadana in the Pali language.

This means to carry heavy things, to carry burdens.

Upadana we often translate as attachment or clinging.

There are two ways of carrying things.

We should understand the difference.

The first way is to hold on to things, to carry things stupidly.

This is called Upadana.

It is to carry things in a way that makes them a burden, to make problems for us.

However, it is possible to hold things, make use of them, or to carry them in a wise way.

This is called Samadhana, which has nothing heavy or burdensome about it.

So we have these two ways of relating to things.

There are four basic ways that we turn things into burdens in our ordinary lives.

And just as we go about the ordinary business and all that of our lives, there are four basic ways that we are grabbing onto things and carrying them around with us.

In fact, there are things that we pick up when we are young and carry them with us for the rest of our lives.