Buddhist Non-Attachment • Alone in a Cave?
What the frig is non-attachment and how can it help us in relationships and life
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The Buddhist view of attachment/non-attachment is different than what we think of it being, here in the west, especially when it comes to relationships.
I hear, “How can you love without being attached to someone?”
Well, that’s not quite the deal. It isn’t deattach = love with non-attachment.
The Buddhist perspective
The word ‘attachment’ in Buddhism doesn’t have the same connotation as our modern day perspective. So what’s the hubbub about attachment then?
Why did the Buddha man even care?
Simply, it’s the uncomfortablity/pain/suffering that results from the holding onto something.
That burning, yet beautiful hot stone.
It’s not only about what you hold onto (have attachment to) but how that holds onto you! When you allow it to hold onto you.
Non-attachment doesn’t mean we don’t own things, or have to live in a cave with nothing to attain non-attachment, or to never love another again. No way!
Even though living in a cave for a few months in a lush, green warm forest is sounding pretty good right about now…
Non-attachment is not allowing things, people, thoughts, feelings, pasts, or expectations to own us.
Because this action of attachment adds deeply to our suffering when it no longer provides us with our conditioned comfort.
Everything breaks, everything here ends. That’s inevitable.
Attachment that is painful, in this sense, is our unwillingness to face the reality that there is an end. It’s in the misunderstanding that…
