Detachment Is To Be Present, Not Unfeeling
January 23rd, 2020
When I first started studying Buddhism and considering following the philosophy, I had a strong initial resistance to the idea of non-attachment, to detachment. I felt that to live detached and unmoved was a sad misuse of the wonders of human existence and I would have been right, except the concept of detachment is not this, it is not a retraction from the world, from people and experiences.
Words are powerful things and understanding can come down to word choice, we innately give some words positive or negative connotations. The word ‘detached’ for most of us brings to mind a certain sociopathic, uncaring, repressive quality that is not something to aspire towards. The word ‘acceptance’ perhaps feels more positive, more peaceful. ‘Acceptance’ is a good synonym for the Buddhist concept of detachment. The teaching is to detach from outcomes, to be accepting of any outcome so as to exist equanimously. This is a release from how things ‘should’ be or how you may ‘want’ them to be. In the Buddhist teaching to want is to crave, and to crave is to suffer.
Suffering is brought about by resisting what is and craving what could be. Both of these states suggest a disconnection from the present moment and the present moment is all that we really have or all that really exists. If you can train your mind and heart to be accepting of the present state without craving something different, something better or more exciting or less challenging, then you will find peace and happiness, then can you truly, fully enjoy every moment. Detachment isn’t about being numb but being fully present, fully feeling no matter what you are experiencing.
You may at first think that whilst being accepting when things are going well is plausible, how can you be accepting and equanimous in the face of adversity and does this teaching create an insouciance that rejects forward movement and self improvement? I invite you to firstly ask yourself, how often when things are going well do you fully reside in contented acceptance of the moment? Is it more truthful to say that when things are going well you actually spend the time in disbelief, in fear of the loss of happy circumstance or in imaging how it could be better still? For most of us this is true. Our basic instincts are geared towards survival and this registers as a state of fear and wanting. So whilst we may think that we would be happy if some future achievement or moment was reached we can now begin to see that we are missing our happiness due to an inability to just stop and exist in the moment we are in. To be able to do that is what is meant by detachment.
We can use certain somewhat steady things in our lives to start to grasp the idea of detachment and its ability to aid in a peaceful and contented life. As an example, I live and work from a beautiful property in Barbados, it is my dream home, in my dream environment that I have always wanted. And now I get to be there. It is the first place I have ever felt truly at home, truly safe, I feel extremely blessed. There are times when the happiness this home brings me stops me in my tracks and that is a wonderful thing. But before I really began to study and understand detachment I would think and talk about my home and how it was the most important thing to my happiness, that I would be devastated to have to leave for any reason, that all my efforts in life were geared towards remaining in this home. So whilst I was expressing my happiness to be living in this space what I was really experiencing was fear. The more I spoke of my potential devastation the more I came to believe that would be the outcome if I did move. Take a moment to think about how often you’ve moved home in your life, for all sorts of reasons, was it sensible or helpful for me to have decided that staying in this place was the single most important thing for my continuing happiness?! When I grasped this, when I sat myself down and accepted that at some point, for some reason, even if that reason is my eventual death at a grand old age, I would not be living in this place and that is absolutely ok and it is my choice whether at that time I let it be a calamity or just the natural changing of experience, only then did my gratitude become genuine, only then was I able to look around me and be completely content, and only then did I recognise that the next home could bring me joy too, would bring me joy. The peace is beyond any imagined happiness any thing or any experience can potentially bring. These things and situations that we assert as necessary for our happiness in life will change and end, at some point, we forget to be content and grateful in our imaginings at their loss, or we become apathetic and jeopardise them because we forget their temporary nature; we take them for granted and at their loss we lament. When you accept everything as it is with the knowledge it will change and end you are able to be fully present and nothing is taken for granted, nothing is strangled or left untended.
Another of the certain teachings of Buddhism is that all things must change. That is an absolute. This is why non-attachment is so important to our contentment. If we are happy but we accept this current state will at some point change, and wishing that to not be so is futile, we can enjoy our happiness without fearing the moment it may change. Maybe that change will be more pleasant, more exciting, there is no need to look graspingly into the future wishing for more because the moment of change will assuredly come; maybe the change will be less pleasant, less exciting and still the moment of change will assuredly come so why fear it and ruin this present? And if the change is less pleasant then so too will that change so there is no need for despair.
Returning to the earlier question of whether detachment creates a lack of forward momentum in your personal growth, I have found that the freedom from fear and the acceptance of change helps to allow self improvement. There is no fear of failure in an unattached state nor fear that by changing course or aspiring for more you may end up with something you didn’t plan for or expect. All things become possible and with that an excitement for what actually is presents itself and excitement creates an energy that makes many things possible. If you are reading this whilst in a unfavourable time of your life, I compassionately encourage you to know that all things must change. I know sometimes challenges seem unending or permanent but that itself is a fearful outlook and the craving for easier times disconnects you. This teaching isn’t towards fateful resignation or determinism lacking free will, almost the opposite, we have the free will to choose to be accepting and to choose another path. You can choose to be ok with how your current state is because you know it can and will change and then you can choose to alter something to start motions towards that change. Maybe there is a habit that doesn’t serve you that you can begin to move away from, maybe there is a new attitude to people that you can express to facilitate kinder treatment in return. If something has happened, such as the ending of a relationship, equanimity teaches you to be grateful for the time you had because it was always only going to be for a piece of time, there is an abundance of love, the more you feel and express it in all things the more you see and feel love return to you. If you are grieving know that everything you feel is a natural expression of the love you had and felt and a dedication to the time you shared, even your sadness is beautiful, beautifully human, with acceptance you can be grateful even for your grief whilst knowing that the pain will lessen with time. Acceptance teaches us that we do not need to fight against pain or sadness, that we don’t need to grasp onto pleasure at all costs and this restores calmness and peace of mind. Emotions are just chemical responses that arise and subsist, they do not have to define us or determine our experience of life.
Detachment is a difficult subject to fully understand and live, the last takeaway is not to be hard and judgemental with yourself, especially if you are struggling or suffering and you can’t find the way to acceptance; frustration will only increase your suffering. Support in many different guises is available to us all and the path to emotional wellness is a somewhat constant learning curve that has its own changing peaks and troughs. Be accepting of your humanity.
With loving kindness.
