Attachment/Detachment
How to avoid suffering and gain detachment.
Suffering vs Pain
There is a difference between suffering and pain. Some things can cause you to experience pain without suffering, e.g. massages or exercise can be painful but fulfilling, not suffering.
Even mentally painful situations that evoke sadness can be without suffering, such as an expected mutual breakup. This is because over time the attachment to that person dwindles and becomes smaller.
However, if the breakup is unexpected, there is often a large amount of attachment still there, which leads to suffering. This is applicable to many situations such as deaths too. Usually, our response to the death of someone you are attached to (e.g. family/friends) is very different from the response to someone you barely know and are detached from. The root of suffering is attachment.
Without attachment, you may still experience pain in the form of some emotions but not suffering.
Detachment
In life, you cannot avoid negative emotions such as pain, grief, sadness, etc. They are a part of life. However, you can avoid suffering.
This is done via detachment—not detachment from reality, but from your expectations of the outcomes of your actions.
For example, there’s a difference between someone making a pitch at work and placing their focus on what they create and do in the pitch, compared to placing their focus on the expectation or outcome of the pitch.
If you are attached to a fantasy or an outcome, it will cause much more suffering if it’s not the outcome you hoped for. For instance, if you apply to a school and are rejected, it will cause much more suffering if you are attached to the idea of getting into that school.
If you are not attached, you can still have desires and be emotional or sad if things don’t go the way you wanted, but you won’t suffer. Attachment and expectation go hand in hand.
How to gain detachment
The key to cultivating detachment is to focus on your actions and decisions rather than the outcomes of those actions. This means focusing on practising the piano before a performance instead of focusing on the outcome of the performance.
It’s easy to become attached to ideas, which can give them power over your suffering. If you start to notice this tendency and move away from it, focusing more on the action itself, it will be immensely helpful.
However, do not mistake detachment for disregarding life, events, or emotions. There is a difference between apathy and detachment. Detachment does not mean that you don’t care or don’t feel about things happening in life; it simply means that you are not completely controlled and forced into suffering by them.
Feelings are still present and can be even more regulated and fulfilling when detached from specific ideas and outcomes. Detachment involves having fewer expectations of outcomes. This means that when you haven’t overly fixated on the idea of an outcome, and you still get it, the fulfilment is much greater.
Try paying attention to the moments when you are most happy/fulfilled; you could even write them down. Do the same with suffering. Try to recognize if there’s a relationship between the expectation/attachment to both of these feelings.