Pragna Paramita - Renunciation

Attachment is a kind of emotional involvement, our desire for certain things to remain the same as they are. For example, we are in a pleasant place like a beautiful beach of the sea. We like it very much and we want to hold on to it, we get attached to it. We get attached to sensual pleasures. We get attached to someone we like or love. There is a negative side of attachment called aversion. Aversion is a kind of negative attachment.

Basically there are two faces of attachment. Our desire for the pleasant things as they are. And our desire for the unpleasant things to change. We know pleasant things will change and end. If we do not realize it and keep on craving for things that are changing or going to change or going to end, we go through mental suffering. If we realize that nothing stays forever and accept the reality, we will not suffer. It is hard to let go of attachment for things, position, power and people in our life.

We identify ourselves with things like cars, political persuation, national persuasion, sports. Such identification has its pleasant aspects but it leads into longer term suffering. I see some of my friends identifying themselves with a certain football team. No team always wins. They go through victory and defeat, ups and downs. My friends emotionally go through ups and downs along with the team’s ups and downs. Identifying ourselves with a certain team in the longer term brings suffering to us. Attachment to a person whom we love makes both persons miserable. We need to learn how to overcome our attachment caused by identifications.

The opposite of attachment is non-attachment. It’s a state of mind in which we minimize or release our attachment to whatever we are attached to. It’s a kind of equanimity, upeksha, mental state of non-attachment to the worldly wind of success or failure. It does not mean that we should not be successful or strive to be better.. It is wise not to identify with the outcomes which are not guaranteed. We find joy in the process. If the outcome is great, that's great. If the outcome is not great we accept it with equanimity and move on. Samatva Yoga uchyate. Yoga is defined as equanimity in the mind.

Non-attachment has a “near enemy”. It is indifference or disinterest, a “near enemy” of non-attachment. That’s not the right way to practice non-attachment. Indifference is like emotional divorce. “...the mind of non grasping is the essential unifying experience of freedom”-Joseph Goldstein. It's a free mind, a non-attached mind, a non-grasping and non-craving mind, a mind of non-identification. An attached mind is not free. A skillful state of mind operates in non-attachment. But it operates on the basis of kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity.

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