Non-attachment

I’ve always been attracted to the idea of non-attachment as promoted by Buddhist philosophy.

As someone who is invariably caught up in thoughts I often find myself attaching to the material world and in particular, outcomes. The very idea of being able to unattach is a very appealing one andI I can imagine a life of not suffering and being above all worldly pleasures.

Buddha, or Siddhartha as he was known as at the time of striking off to find enlightenment, came to the conclusion that the way to avoid the inevitability of human suffering was to detach from the constraints of pleasure, achievement, striving and reputation. Which he promptly did and found enlightenment.

His conclusion was reached one day when he’d managed to convince his father to let him go out for a chariot ride around the city where he was basically being kept a prisoner by his father. He had had a rather sheltered life and was surprised to encounter, first an old person, then a sick person and finally on his last chariot ride, a corpse.

It was at this moment that he realised the futility of human existence and that our ultimate destiny is old age, illness and death. The only way he could conceive of escaping from such suffering was to renounce the pleasures of life.

Of course the real pity of all this was that Siddhartha didn’t actually take the time to jump down off his chariot and have a quick chat with these suffering souls that he had encountered. He may have been surprised by the perception they had of their own existence.

He may have discovered that they may have been pretty content with their lives. You see people in general tend to adjust their expectations to their own reality, that is to say, as we get older we no longer expect to be able to do things that we could do when we were 20 and people who live in quite extreme poverty, although there are limits, tend to be just as happy and content with their lives, on a subjective level, as affluent middle aged middle management.

When Stephen Hawking was asked how he found the motivation to continue with his work given his physical condition, he replied that at the age of 21 he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and from that moment his expectations became zero, so anything above that was a plus.

Buddha would’ve probably pitied Stephen Hawking more than Stephen hawking did himself.

But our expectations can adjust up as well as down. This can be seen in millionaire lottery winners, who after an initial increase in happiness, soon return to base default level as expectations about their own happiness increase.

People tend to adjust to adversity very well and after emotional or physical suffering our levels of contentment very quickly return to our default level as we adjust to new circumstances and adjust our expectations. In fact there is not one person I know who has gone through painful and difficult times that does not feel a better person for having done so. 

Cutting ourselves off from all worldly pleasures with the aim of avoiding suffering seems pointless, especially when it seems that suffering is a fundamental part of the human experience. On top of that, moving through adversity seems to make us better people.

Here in the West, we are privileged to live in a Democratic, more or less egalitarian society, where we’ve never been so healthy or lived so long. We enjoy culture and art and can argue about politics. We feel passionate about things and surely a life of unattachment is a life that lacks passion.

We are spiritual beings that are fortunate to enjoy a brief spell of worldly pleasure. Dive in I say, indulge and drink deeply from the well. Let’s make mistakes and embrace our neurosis, enjoy every moment of pain as we do every moment of pleasure. 

Always, always, always live well