Nonattachment

Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. As a kid, I used to get attached to my toys, my books, and even my clothes. I think it's because very few things brought me joy at the time, so if a pair of sweats was particularly comfortable, for example, I kept them long after outgrowing them.

Everything in my room held some deep meaning to me with a backstory, intention, or purpose. I even kept knickknacks with which I no longer played because just looking at them or holding them in my hand transported me back to fond memories, which is what I was really trying to hoard; it was never about the items themselves, but what they represented. In other words, I was attached to the past, which means I was detached from reality.

When I was 13, I packed a few clothes into a suitcase as if going on vacation for a week, flew to the U.S. with my family to see if we might want to live in California someday, and we ended up staying in San Francisco for good. I never returned to my childhood bedroom or saw anything that was in there ever again. My dad flew back a few months later to sell, donate, or trash everything that was in the house, and I know it sounds devastating, but it was actually liberating.

I don't think I've grown attached to anything since then. And nowadays, the moment I sense an attachment to something developing, I give it away. Love and attachment are not the same thing, they are the healthy and unhealthy versions of the same thing. Learning not to get attached to people is developing the ability to love them immensely, not because they will be in your life forever, but because they probably won't.

My friends joke that I love harder and deeper than anyone they know because I stay conscious of the fact that relationships tend to fade, fail, or crumble, and... people die. It's the opposite of morbid, which is an unhealthy infatuation with death, it's a celebration of life!

So, when I love, there is no sense of ownership or attachment, just sheer joy from getting to share another moment together, and another moment, and another moment, not because it will last forever, but because nothing ever does. In Buddhism, nonattachment is practiced by training the mind to return to the present moment whenever it gets stuck in the past or sprints forward into the future. It's like training a puppy to stay beside you when you go for a walk.

And much like that puppy, your mind can also become your best friend. I know people in toxic codependent relationships, and I've also witnessed my single friends sabotage what would have otherwise turned into healthy relationships by getting so scared of the other person leaving them, they dismiss the feeling of love, instead of dismissing the attachment. We must learn to separate the two. Nonattachment is ultimately about freedom from suffering.

Nonattachment makes us adaptable, while attachment makes us inflexible. People fear change because they are attached to the way things are. That's right: we don't just get attached to things or people, we are often attached to ideas, beliefs, or to life staying a certain way, people behaving the way we think they "should," and so on... Nonattachment actually lowers our stress levels, while attachment to the future fuels anxiety, and attachment to the past is at the root of depression.

The key to liberation is learning to stop identifying with outcome, which doesn't mean we are indifferent or any less passionate, we simply avoid getting attached to the end result. Progress often happens very slowly, so we must loosen our grip on thinking everything must occur according to our timeline. Nonattachment frees us from focusing on that which we cannot control, and focus instead on what is possible in the present moment.

I think of it as a gift of time, energy, and clarity that you give yourself. I now feel free to love everything and everyone without the fear of losing them. I mean, I'm very much aware that if I don't die first, for example, I will one day receive a phone call informing me of my dad passing. But that doesn't mean I need to disconnect from him now, nor does it mean his death makes the time we have left together any less wonderful.