The Subtle But Practical Art of Meaningful Detachment

To Become Calm, Present, and Non-judgmentally aware

The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror; it grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives but doesn't keep. — Chuang-tzu

This man is neither trying to stretch the stay of pleasant things nor hastening the departure of unpleasant things. On the contrary, mere mortals are often busy accumulating everything that is projected to be things of pleasure.

Please don't believe me; have a look at your physical shape. It is nothing but an accumulation of everything you’ve been eating for all these years. Similarly, your mind is an accumulation of all the noises neatly repackaged as information and opinions broadcasted from the tallest towers of intellectual superiority.

In fact, our identity is broadly defined by the exceptional contours of our accumulated possessions, accumulated relationships, and collected thoughts. So much, so that being an integral part of this consumerist society, every one of us finds it difficult to resist the mentality of accumulation.

If this is the rule, then you are definitely not an exception.

And as a rule-abiding compliant citizen, you don't shy away from making your way through impossible layers of cut-throat competition. As a result, your desire to surpass every possible yardstick of success can hardly be termed as misplaced ambition. Here, accumulation is nothing but a socially accepted metric to measure every possible success.

The accumulation, as such, is not an issue. However, the real problem arises when you start identifying with these accumulations.

There is no denying that these accumulations are yours, but definitely not you.

Eventually, somewhere during this life journey, most of us realize that “We are beyond these accumulations.”

However, we tend to struggle with this realization because we usually chose to deny it or ignore it.

And during the phase of denial, if you happen to have the luxury of money at your disposal, you always wish to buy your way through every available shortcut, including buying the costliest retreats assuring you that ever-elusive peace of mind.

And the most common advice dispensed liberally at these retreats is to inculcate a sense of detachment in your life.

In fact, every scriptures and discourse you can lay your hand on have always extolled the magic of detachment. It is usually recommended as a one-stop remedy for most of your problems.

If you are striving for some long-lasting peace of mind, then there is no way to ignore the advice of detachment.

My struggle to rise above the apparent trappings of this accumulated mentality has been anything but smooth. In my endeavor to bring more sanity into this complicated life, I tried to weave in some sense of detachment within my daily activities. But somehow, it didn’t prove to be the panacea it is often proclaimed to be.

Following the omnibus advice of “detachment” has its own set of challenges in this age. In fact, if followed blindly, your behavior might get interpreted as a psychotic one.

For example, if you are meeting your friend who gets hospitalized after an unfortunate accident and is visibly in great pain. There is no way you can share your words of wisdom — “my dear friend, pain in your body is nothing but the manifestation of your own mind — there is no point identifying with your body because ultimately it’s going to stop working one day.”

Though every word of yours can stand the testimony of timeless wisdom, it’s definitely not going to be appreciated by your friend who is busy pushing his own boundaries of physical pain.

In the absence of a ready-made prepackaged answer, everyone here is left on his own to find something that could be perceived as a workable solution.

Because invariably in our journey to find answers to existential queries, there is a possibility we might stumble upon a few pearls of wisdom, but never with a guarantee of finding any specific & practical solution.

Whatever you may have successfully accumulated can be yours, but it can never be you.

Once you allow your intellect to get identified with anything, it starts distorting your perception.

If you notice carefully — parents, family, community, caste, creed & religion, everyone is relentlessly campaigning to ensure that you are identified with them, so that you will never hesitate in serving their purpose. People are so susceptible to getting classified due to these campaigns that everything gets distorted.

A strong set of likes & dislikes is another indication that your identification with something has become strong. In the long run, these identifications end up causing so much trouble that there is a standard recommendation of “detachment” for it.

To appreciate detachment's relevance, one needs to understand the periodical context (both societal and cultural) during which it was initially advocated.

An examination of both the Buddhist and stoic period shows the widespread prevalence of war, encroachment, slavery, and exploitation of every possible kind during the period. The late Roman empire was increasingly cruel to the subject it ruled; while wealth disparity kept widening at an alarming rate, life was extremely difficult for ordinary citizens. There was no sense of control in their life. Somehow public life, in general, became synonymous with suffering.

The only control in their life was how they chose to respond to their external conditions. Hence internal control was advocated. In fact, living with some sense of detachment helped the populace survive the onslaught of the physical and emotional trauma of every kind.

Can we say the same about the age at which we all are living?

Luxuries enjoyed by ordinary people now (electricity, hot water, fridge, oven, television, internet, & ubiquitous cell phone) were not available to the past's royals. Life has now become more safe and predictable.

Thanks to continuous advancement in medicine and technology, most of the external manifestation of sufferings has more or less ceased to exist. Life is not synonymous with suffering anymore — not even for the population at the bottom half of the economic pyramid.

But does it mean the end of suffering?

Not exactly.

Not even for the people at the top of the pyramid. For them, external causes of suffering have now been replaced by internal ones.

Now the Causes of Internal sufferings include — 1. Unfulfilled Desires 2. Lack of meaning & purpose 3. The perceived lack of control in life 4. Inability to overcome the fear of the unknown

1. Unfulfilled Desires

It has now emerged as the primary cause of a less fulfilled life. At the very core, ‘desires’ are merely thoughts that we are unable to drop. It’s not the thought itself that matters; it’s what you do with it.

Most of your thoughts are involuntary; they come uninvited.

Therefore it’s far more critical to keep yourself reminding that you are not just your thoughts — it’s an attempt in futility to identify with them. In case you start pursuing every desire of yours, then it has the inherent potential to color your emotional and mental well being.

Giving your thoughts the freedom to approach you while you keep the strength to direct them at will, ensure the presence of serenity in your life.

2. Lack of meaning & purpose

Despite having achieved a modest amount of success in life, there seems to exist quite a widespread discontent among achievers — mainly when it boils down to finding meaning & purpose in life.

As long as you are preoccupied with searching for the meaning of life, you are losing each moment of it as you are on the path of self-inflicted prolonged unhappiness.

We just need to remember that at the core of our happiness lies the perfect alignment between who we are and what we choose to become.

The primary reason why there exists so much deviation between the two is what HBS Professor Clayton Christensen calls strategy sequencing — where the default attitude being “First I will work a job I hate and make a lot of money and then I’ll have a family & then I’ll do what I want & be happy.”

That’s the precise reason why the number one regret of life is — not having the courage to live the life you want.

What a modern tragedy — we are so profoundly conditioned that we need the courage to find what we really want from life.

However, we have this tendency to show lots of courage when it comes to following in the footsteps of someone celebrated as a success icon. Ironically, while chasing security and certainty, we usually end up living an impersonated and unhappy life.

3. The perceived lack of control in life

A staggering proportion of human activity is motivated by the desire to feel safe and secure.

Ask yourself if you have any problems right now. The answer, unless you’re currently in any physical pain, is very likely to be no.

Most problems involve thoughts about how something might turn out badly in the future or thoughts about things that happened in the past.

The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you.

4. Inability to overcome the fear of the unknown

Faced with the anxiety of not knowing what the future holds, we invest ever more fiercely in our preferred vision of that future — not because it will help us achieve it, but because it helps rid us of feelings of uncertainty in the present.

Clinging to a preferred vision of the future, especially a particular version of a happy life, while fighting to eliminate all possibility of an unhappy one is the cause of the root problem, not its solution.

Illogical fear of the unknown will always ensure that you have gravitated towards the allure of certainties and securities. Thereby missing all those possibilities lying beyond the periphery of secured walls.

Is it possible to address these causes of internal suffering by developing a sense of detachment?

Before finding any workable solution through the recommended path of detachment, we need to understand the fundamental problem with detachment — the moment you detach yourself, your ability to experience life is also compromised significantly. Because in the absence of involvement, there is no life.

Life cannot be experienced unless there is involvement — the more profound the involvement, the deeper the experience of life.

Nothing dramatic or spectacular needs to happen in your life to experience and cherish small moments of life.

If you are willing to get deeply involved with the most straightforward aspect of your life, every aspect of your life will become spectacular.

If that is so, then why is so much detachment being taught everywhere?

In fact, what I have seen is if you start detaching yourself from life, you tend to start avoiding life. In contrast, we all are here to experience life in all its possibilities, not avoid life.

Is it possible to experience life unless you are involved?

If the answer is No, then why are we afraid of getting involved?

There is widely perceived fear that you might get yourself entangled through attachment if you get too much involved in life. But we often forget that this entanglement happens because of the discriminatory nature of our involvement.

Our involvement is coming from specific identifications. And we are often selective when it comes to identifying ourselves with visible logos. It is this particular identification which is causing entanglement, not the involvement.

If your involvement is beyond your identifications, you will see that commitment brings absolute joy to life. In fact, when your relationship is indiscriminate and spontaneous, it tremendously enhances survival.

If life is not enhanced within you, all the higher life possibilities might elude you forever.

In the process of becoming more enlightened, people prefer to grow emotionless. But they often forget that you will slowly become more lifeless if you practice how not to be involved with life.

You will become less of life as days go by — too much of mind and very little of life. As life recedes in you, you will see nothing fantastic can ever happen.

Only if life is happening exuberantly within it can carry you to higher possibilities.

Therefore, to live non-attached is to live life without becoming hooked by mental narratives about how things ‘should be,’ or ‘should never be,’ or ‘should remain forever.’

The perfectly non-attached person is just calm, present, and non-judgmentally aware.

— Thanks for Reading.

Resources:

Want more on this topic? Here’s where to look:

Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Inner Engineering by Sadhguru