Non-Attachment Explained: How to Care Deeply Without Clinging to Suffering

You might have heard of the doctrine of non-attachment as part of the path. Sometimes it's associated with Buddhism and sometimes with other lineages as a path to freedom, a path to awakening.

But I think a frequent mistake is made with respect to non-attachment. And that is this. Non-attachment sounds a bit like not caring. Like walling oneself off from the world. And in fact, sometimes it's taught this way, and I think that's a mistake, that the world is just an illusion and you're not supposed to care about the world, care only about the inner life.

I don't know how we can live in modern times with hunger and war and natural disasters causing so much grief and fear among our fellow humans and not care. Well, sometimes we numb ourselves out, doom-scroll or drink or turn to other substances or just ignore it, all in an attempt to protect ourselves from the trauma of our fellow humans and of our fellow beings as we watch the devastation of this planet.

But non-attachment doesn't mean not caring. It means not grabbing onto that caring and holding it as though it needed to be held in order for us to be righteous people.

“I need to suffer for my fellow humans now. I need to cling to this grief and fear. It's appropriate that I do so.”

It's part of the script that we've been given.

I offer a different approach: Open yourself up to the world. Open yourself up to the grief and suffering as much as you can. As much as you can, no more, no less.

And then when it starts to land in your body, learn techniques on how to move that tension, move that grief, move that fear out of your body physically. Yesterday I spent just a good chunk of the afternoon on a reclining chair in my backyard just vibrating, and I could feel the despair that I had inadvertently allowed to attach to my body to move through me.

This and many other techniques are available to us so that we can keep our hearts open to the plight of our fellow humans and the plight of all of the other species that are going through so much suffering these days and still not cling to that grief, that fear, that despair. And let it flow through us. Let it impact us. Let it inform our choices. But let it not plague us and make a prison for us.

Non-attachment does not mean non-caring. Take it all in. Open yourself up to it. And then let it all go.

Click here for the video.