More reflections on attachment/non-attachment
The piece below on “Lies to stop believing” has attracted a wide range of views, both complimentary and critical.
I’ve just been reading the Jewish philosophy magazine, Tikkun, and come across this piece on “Wanting Fully Without Attachment“, which contains the following excellent couple of paragraphs, which resonated with what I was trying to get across:
“If you are an activist or in some other way engaged with working to transform external reality, you may wonder whether this path would ultimately lead to apathy or lack of engagement with the world. What about children’s need for food or safety, for example? How can we not insist that these needs be met? Yet, even in this acute example, we can still see the difference between giving up and letting go of attachment. It is not about giving up on the hope for all the children in the world to be safe and have sufficient food. Nor is it about giving up on working to eliminate hunger and violence. Rather, it is about being able to tolerate internally the possibility — which is also the current reality! — that it just may not happen that all the children in the world will be safe and have sufficient food. If we cannot tolerate the possibility, then how can we have space inside to interact with life as it is? If our approach is based on what should happen, without this capacity to accept life, what would keep us from trying to force a solution? We have all seen so many historical examples of revolutions that turned into a new regime of horror. How will we ensure that we can sustain our vision and openness if we cannot tolerate what is happening and those who are supporting what is happening? To protect ourselves, we often turn away from the dual horror we need to experience to keep our hearts open. We protect ourselves from the horror of knowing that one child under five years old dies every six seconds, or almost 18,000 daily, from malnutrition and related causes (not to mention the effects of wars of all kinds). And we protect ourselves from the fear of succumbing to the anger and desperation that lead to re-creating domination and horror. Without the tools to keep our hearts open, many of us do, indeed, shut down and tune out the plight of the children so that we can even manage to continue with our own personal lives.
If, however, we remain open to the possibility that no solution will arise and at the same time continue to bring our heart and attention and action to working toward a solution, our work takes on an entirely different flavor. We work toward our dreams, we embrace the vision and our needs in full, and we remain open in the face of what is happening. In doing so, whether or not we have external success (and so far as I know, none of us knows how to move the world from here to where we want it to be), our work itself becomes a modeling of what the world could be.”
I wish I’d managed to put it so well!
This is also a very buddhist approach. Reminds me of the book I’m reading at the mo – Open to Desire by Mark Epstein, which looks at working with desire rather than denying it/becoming hooked. A difficult middle path.
Doesn’t this mean making peace with failure…not in a bad way…but just knowing that all we can do is the work in front of us…but accepting too that what we may not see what we desire…
I think so. If we cannot be at peace with the possibility of failure, then I think we are condemned to suffering.
also reminds me the Byron Katie idea of Loving What Is.
yep interesting piece & quite a challenge to hold the paradox of hope and non-attachment at the same time.
That is a great piece of writing.
It brought to mind a quote from Abraham Hicks, although this was said in realtion to a quite different subject:
“Making peace with where you are always moves you in the direction of what you really want”