Non Attachment Quotes

Resistance is the subtlest form of attachment. ~ Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Even most of those whose wealth was not inherited or won often lose sleep over losing their wealth. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Habit has two parts, Toni [Packer] says. There is the habit itself (finger biting, smoking, drinking, whatever), and there is the observer who wants to stop, who is also a habit. And there is the conflict, the battle between the desire to indulge, which is an escape from what is, and the desire to stop, which is also a movement away from what is. ~ Joan Tollifson

When I experience Love I must go to God. When I experience non-attachment God must come to me. ~ Meister Eckhart

The secure attachment of Western psychology is actually akin to Buddhist non-attachment; avoid-ant attachment is the inverse of being mindful and present; and anxious attachment aligns with Buddhist notions of clinging and grasping. ~ Sharon Salzberg

Things sometimes go our way and sometimes they don't. All we can do is apply ourselves to our profession, giving our very best effort but emotionally letting go of the outcome. Why? Because if we obsess about an outcome, we cannot possibly honour the present moment. ~ Christopher Dines

When Patanjali says "non-attachment", he is not anti-love. Really, he is for love. Non-attachment means be natural, loving, flowing, but don't get obsessed and addicted. Addiction is the problem. Then it is like a disease. You cannot love anybody except your child - this is addiction. Then you will be in misery. Your child can die; then there is no possibility for your love to flow. Even if your child is not going to die, he will grow. And the more he grows, the more he will become independent. And then there will be pain. Every mother suffers, every father suffers. ~ Rajneesh

To remember non-attachment is to remember what freedom is all about. If we get attached, even to a beautiful state of being, we are caught, and ultimately we will suffer. We work to observe anything that comes our way, experience it while it is here, and be able to let go of it. ~ Sharon Salzberg

Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked. (53)
(Quote is actually Robert A F Thurman but Huston Smith, who only wrote the introduction to my edition, seems to be given full credit for this text.) ~ Huston Smith

Sure all life's highways at some point must end,
so I plan to ride it in style and plummet in a swan dive
when the pavement runs out ...
And hopefully leave behind artistically
that which may make other roads
an even better ride ... ~ Tom Althouse

No one can control their results. We can, however, control our attitude. When we practise compassion, it is most effective when it is unconditional and free from seeking an outcome – compassion is a matter of choice rather than a self-seeking action. And so, if we assist another human being from a place of presence and compassion, we are not looking to find our happiness off the back of others' suffering. Nor are we trying to control them. Compassion is a conscious choice rather than an emotional knee-jerk reaction. ~ Christopher Dines

We are allowed to worship him. Stand in that reverent attitude to the whole universe, and then will come perfect non attachment ~ Swami Vivekananda

It is useful to study different traditions in order to be free of attachment to any one way of expressing what is beyond expression. (x) ~ Ravi Ravindra

See how everything is temporary, and wanting it to be permanent will only cause you to suffer. And then see how letting go of that wishing, and accepting the changing nature of things, and being unattached to each moment of those changing things, will help you to be calmer and happier. Embrace the non-attachment. Embrace the changing nature of things as beautiful. Accept the impermanence. ~ Leo Babauta

Sirri al-Saqati, who died in 867 of the Christian Era, said:
'True wisdom is: non-attachment to self and devotion to Truth. ~ Idries Shah

Every day as I wave to my children when I drop them off at school, or let one of them have a new experience - like crossing the street without holding my hand - I experience the struggle between love and non-attachment. It is hard to bear - the extreme love of one's child and the thought that ultimately the child belongs to the world. There is this horrible design flaw - children are supposed to grow up and away from you; and one of you will die first. ~ Sarah Ruhl

One day you will disappear on a funeral pyre - just into nothingness, as smoke. Don't get attached to anything. This attachment takes you away from your real being; you become focused on the thing to which you are attached. Your awareness gets lost in things, in money, in people, in power. And there are a thousand and one things, the whole thick jungle around you, to be lost in. Remember, non-attachment is the secret of finding yourself, then awareness can turn inwards because you don't have anything outside to catch hold of. It is free, and in this freedom you can know your self-nature. ~ Rajneesh

Non-attachment is not the elimination of desire. It is the spaciousness to allow any quality of mind, any thought or feeling, to arise without closing around it, without eliminating the pure witness of being. It is an active receptivity to life. ~ Stephen Levine

Detachment is hard on your heart - and it actually creates blocks to what you want. Non-attachment, on the other hand, is actually nourishing, and much easier to put into practice.

DETACHED is rigid; a bit chilly, a tad cranky; like an uptight intellectual, cut off from his/her heart. And here's the thing, detachment is often a cover up for fear - fear of not getting what you want. Detachment is defending itself against disappointment - which is why it's a bit bitchy.

There's another way of wanting that's both rational and faith-fuelled: Non-attachment.

NON-ATTACHMENT is open and spacious. It can hold your intense longing, and it can hold possibility. Non-attachment knows that some things take time, that you have to meet the universe half way, that free will is the guiding force, and that anything is possible.

As Michael Beckwith said to me, "Detached is, 'I'm not playing anymore. I'm taking my ball and going home.' Whereas non-attached is 'I'm playing full-out, but I'm not attached to an outcome.'" Ya, THAT. ~ Danielle LaPorte

The attitude of letting go, of letting things be as they are, of non-attachment, does not imply a condition of reactive distancing or detachment, and is not to be confused with passivity, dissociative behaviors, or attempts to separate yourself even the tiniest bit from reality. It is not a pathological condition of withdrawal adopted to protect yourself. Nor is it nihilistic. It is exactly opposite: a supremely healthy condition of heart and mind. It means embracing the whole of reality in a new way. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Try not to seek after the true
Only cease to cherish opinions. (172) ~ Edward Conze

There is no gap between the ignorant and the wise. A foolish person is a wise person; a wise person is a foolish person. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

As spiritual searchers we need to become freer and freer of the attachment to our own smallness in which we get occupied with me-me-me. Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisitiveness and competitiveness and from our likes and dislikes. If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy. Also recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness from which we may deviate. (39) ~ Ravi Ravindra

It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual 'magic' causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience. ~ Christopher Dines

This is the whole secret of non-attachment: live in the world, but don't be of the world. Love people, but don't create attachments. Reflect people, reflect the beauties of the world - and there are so many. But don't cling. The clinging mind loses its mirrorhood. And mirrorhood is Buddhahood. To keep that quality of mirroring continuously fresh is to remain young, is to remain pure, is to remain innocent. Know, but don't create knowledge. Love, but don't create desire. Live, live beautifully, live utterly, abandon yourself in the moment. But don't look back. This is the art of non-attachment. ~ Rajneesh

This is a really slippery business, and many people can get all into craving for non-craving and desiring non-attachment. This can be useful if it is done wisely and it is actually all we have to work with. If common sense is ignored, however, desiring non-attachment may produce neurotic, self-righteous, repressed ascetics instead of balanced, kind meditators. A ~ Daniel M. Ingram

What any desire really aims at, is a state of non-desire. This non-desire is a state in which we demand absolutely nothing. Thus it is a state of extreme abundance, of fullness. This fullness is revealed as being bliss and peace. You now know that you are really seeking nothing else but fullness and absolute peace. ~ Jean Klein

The greatest achievement is selflessness.The greatest worth is self-mastery.The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.The greatest precept is continual awareness.The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.The greatest generosity is non-attachment.The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.The greatest patience is humility.The greatest effort is not concerned with results.The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances. ~ Atisa

If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. The saying that "All abilities come from one mind" sounds as though it has to do with sentient matters, but it is in fact a matter of being unattached to life and death. With such non-attachment one can accomplish any feat. ~ Tsunetomo Yamamoto

Only by practice and non-attachment can we conquer mind. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Dare to live by letting go. ~ Tom Althouse

Non-attachment is about not being attached to anything - including non-attachment itself. ~ Peter Merry

A witnessing consciousness lives in life but with tremendous non-attachment, with great non-possessiveness; it possesses nothing. It lives totally, it lives passionately, but still knowing that I don't possess anything. ~ Rajneesh

As an empath, it's vital that you learn how to hold space for your emotions, even the most painful ones. By anchoring yourself in your breath, you can learn how to witness the emotional energy of others within you, without attaching yourself to these sensations. ~ Mateo Sol

Become alert about desire and non-attachment begins to appear. This is not to be made to happen, it follows naturally from awareness of attachment. Each one of us has to become aware of his attachments, and keep being so! Nothing should be done unconsciously. ~ Rajneesh

The doctrine of non-attachment. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Abide not with dualism,
Carefully avoid pursuing it;
As soon as you have right and wrong,
Confusion ensues, and Mind is lost. (172) ~ Edward Conze

On the American desert are horses which eat the locoweed and some are driven made by it; their vision is affected, they take enormous leaps to cross a tuft of grass or tumble blindly into rivers. The horses which have become thus addicted are shunned by the others and will never rejoin the herd. So it is with human beings: those who are conscious of another world, the world of the spirit, acquire an outlook which distorts the values of ordinary life; they are consumed by the weed of non-attachment. Curiosity is their one excess and therefore they are recognized not by what they do, but by what they refrain from doing, like those Araphants or disciples of Buddha who are pledged to the "Nine Incapabilities." Thus they do not take life, they do not compete, they do not boast, they do not join groups of more than six, they do not condemn others; they are "abandoners of revels, mute, contemplative" who are depressed by gossip, gaiety and equals, who wait to be telephoned to, who neither speak in public, nor keep up with their friends, nor take revenge upon their enemies. Self-knowledge has taught them to abandon hate and blame and envy in their lives, and they look sadder than they are. They seldom make positive assertions because they see, outlined against any statement, as a painter sees a complementary color, the image of its opposite. Most psychological questionnaires are designed to search out these moonlings and to secure their non-employment. They divine each other by a war ~ Cyril Connelly

Imagine craving absolutely nothing from the world. Imagine cutting the invisible strings that so painfully bind us: what would that be like? Imagine the freedoms that come from the ability to enjoy things without having to acquire them, own them, possess them. Try to envision a relationship based on acceptance and genuine care rather than expectation. Imagine feeling completely satisfied and content with your life just as it is. Who wouldn't want this? This is the enjoyment of non-attachment. ~ Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Your non attachment to the mundane is your charm. Your attachment to the divine is your beauty. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

How then was I to be--to be in love with him the moment he said he was with me? how was I to have an attachment at his service, as soon as it was asked for? ~ Jane Austen

The highest degree of love is Tatayyum (total enthrallment). The lowest degree is 'alaqah (attachment), when the heart is attached to the beloved: then comes sabahah (infatuation), when the heart is poured out: then gharam (passion), when love never leaves the heart: the nashaq (ardent love), and finally tatayyum. ~ Ibn Taymiyyah

Once you stop clinging and let things be, you'll be free, even of birth and death. You'll transform everything. ~ Bodhidharma

When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments. ~ Zhuangzi

I have an emotional attachment with Katihar. ~ Tariq Anwar

Attempting to express his gratitude to the men of Easy Company, he pondered, 'What is my attachment to men such as yourself, whom I have never met? Is it respect because you put your own life on the line to ensure younger people like me have the world we live in today? Is it awe that you could live from day to day watching friends being gunned down or blown apart and still get up the next day prepared to face the same horrors? Or perhaps, fascination at how you and your comrades were able to return to relative normality after the war, with the ghosts of the dead watching what you made of the life they were denied? ~ Dick Winters

Live in joy, in love,
even among those who hate.
Live in joy, in health,
even among the afflicted.
Live in joy, in peace,
even among the troubled.
Look within, be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
know the sweet joy of the way. ~ Gautama Buddha

Baseball writers develop a great attachment for the Brooklyn club if long exposed, ~ Roger Kahn

'Control' had to do with my own life a lot, and that's why that seemed to be a film I could be the director of, because I had an emotional attachment to the whole story. And because of that experience, I feel that I can try other films. I didn't set out to become a director. ~ Anton Corbijn

It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country. ~ Noah Webster

Japanese moe relationships socially dysfunctional men develop deep attachments to body pillows with women painted on them. ~ James Franco

Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life. ~ Lionel Shriver

Attachment parenting is not a passive parenting style. ~ Mayim Bialik

Everything changes. There is nothing to stick to. That is the Buddha's most important teaching. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achieved results without having constantly to replace them with others, finds in them an attachment to life in the hour of difficulty. ~ Emile Durkheim

It's very rare to be in a state where there's nothing in, where you have no attachment to any idea or concept about yourself. In that state you've immediately raised the mind of compassion, because if nothing is in, everything is in, and you are now free to experience yourself as the world. ~ Bernie Glassman

As to our going on together as we were going, in a sort of friendly way, the people round us would have made it unable to continue. Their views of the relations of man and woman are limited, as is proved by their expelling me from the school. Their philosophy only recognizes relations based on animal desire. The wide field of strong attachment where desire plays, at least, only a secondary part, is ignored by them - the part of - who is it? - Venus Urania. ~ Thomas Hardy

If you get attached, then it becomes an obsession. If the person is not there, you are unhappy. If you miss the person, you are in misery. And attachment is such a disease that if the person is not there you are in misery, and if the person is there you are indifferent. Then it is okay; it is taken for granted. If the person is there it is okay - no more than that. If the person is not there, then you are in misery. This is attachment. ~ Rajneesh

Living your life through negative feelings and memories is doing yourself a dishonour.If you want to change you need to be willing to leave your past wounds behind you. -If you wish to remain stuck in your attachment to past pains then dare to ask yourself exactly why you feel the need to define yourself by your past traumas or tragedies. ~ Miya Yamanouchi

When you have lived longer in this world and outlived the enthusiastic and pleasing illusions of youth, you will find your love and pity for the race increase tenfold, your admiration and attachment to a particular party or opinion fall away altogether. ~ Joseph Henry Shorthouse

All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no "I" except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted. ~ Eckhart Tolle

For the most part, for me and my friends, there's always an emotional attachment that clouds women's judgment. ~ Zoe Lister-Jones

Another related source of demonization is the homosexual relationship itself ... That attachment and communion are indeed inspired, but their source is demonic. ~ Andrew Comiskey

Love with attachment consists of waves of emotion, usually creating invisible iron chains. ~ S. N. Goenka

In early childhood (as, perhaps, after death) a person extends in all directions at the same time, so we can say he still doesn't exist yet- the personality comes into being later, when an attachment to some particular direction appears. ~ Victor Pelevin

As significant as our biological mother is in her presence or absence, it is fascinating that women can tap in to the flow of maternal love through forming strong attachments to other women. ~ Pippa Grace

As a child of the millennial generation, I was raised in a society in which we were under the misconception that women and men had reached equality. With the exception of very few matriarchal societies, women were more liberated than they had ever been in history. In America's middle class, basic education was practically handed to us. We have the ability to obtain a higher education and career without men. So it took me nearly a decade after becoming sexually active to realize that, as a woman, I was socially oppressed. I grew up in a world where a woman's abstinence until marriage was highly praised and if she must participate in premarital sex, to limit that activity to as few partners as possible. It was considered tacky to openly discuss my sexual encounters. I was also taught that, as a woman, I was hormonally programmed to be more emotional than men. If I had sex with a man, I was supposed to feel some sort of intimate attachment. If I didn't, I was a cruel-hearted slut. ~ Maggie Young

Yet the saint obediently accepted the destruction of his plans and blessed God. Because of this kind of detachment from his own will and attachment to God's, Louis became an instrument used by God to accomplish even mightier works. ~ Michael Gaitley

Attachment and aversion
are attributes of the mind.
You are not the mind.
You are Consciousness itself--
changeless, undivided, free.
Go in happiness. ~ Ashtavakra Gita

To this I replied, "I still think that my body is not merely a sensory appearance, for surely it came from my parents, who were its cause and condition."
He said, "If you think that your body came from your father and mother, then what are the beginning and end of these parents? What are their source, their location, their final destination? Tell me!"
I answered, "I think that they exist, but I am not aware of what they are. It seems to me that a physical body without parents is not possible."
He retorted, "Consider this. Who are the parents of the body in a dream, in the bardo, and in the hell realms?" With that, I arrived at the decision that this body has never existed, being simply a sensory experience. ~ Dudjom Lingpa

When our attitude towards our material possessions and wealth is not proper, it can lead to an extreme attachment towards such things as our property, houses and belongings. This can lead to an inability to feel contented. If that happens, then one will always remain in a state of dissatisfaction, always wanting more. In a way, one is then really poor, because the suffering of poverty is the suffering of wanting something and feeling the lack of it. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

We are deeply sensitive to one another's presence ~ Bonnie Badenoch

Today, for most kids in the United States and Canada, kids' primary attachment is to other kids. "For the first time in history," Neufeld observes, "young people are turning for instruction, modeling, and guidance not to mothers, fathers, teachers, and other responsible adults but to people whom nature never intended to place in a parenting role - their own peers. . ~ Leonard Sax

Shamefully, human beings are the only mammals to separate mothers from their infants. Dr. John Krystal,
Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobiology at the Yale School
of Medicine, described the impact of maternal separation on
the infant as 'profound', citing the recent discovery that the
autonomic activity (heart rate and other involuntary nervous
system activity) of two-day-old sleeping babies is 176 per
cent higher during maternal separation. ~ Antonella Gambotto-Burke

Softly and kindly remind yourself, 'I cannot own anything.' It is a valuable thought to keep in mind as you struggle to improve your financial picture, worry about investments, and plan how to acquire more and more. It is a universal principle which you are part of. You must release everything when you truly awaken. Are you letting your life go by in frustration and worry over not having enough? If so, relax and remember that you only get what you have for a short period of time. When you awaken you will see the folly of being attached to anything. ~ Wayne Dyer

Thus polyvictimization or complex trauma are "developmentally adverse interpersonal traumas" (Ford, 2005) because they place the victim at risk not only for recurrent stress and psychophysiological arousal (e.g., PTSD, other anxiety disorders, depression) but also for interruptions and breakdowns in healthy psychobiological, psychological, and social development. Complex trauma not only involves shock, fear, terror, or powerlessness (either short or long term) but also, more fundamentally, constitutes a violation of the immature self and the challenge to the development of a positive and secure self, as major psychic energy is directed toward survival and defense rather than toward learning and personal development (Ford, 2009b, 2009c). Moreover, it may influence the brain's very development, structure, and functioning in both the short and long term (Lanius et al., 2010; Schore, 2009).

Complex trauma often forces the child victim to substitute automatic survival tactics for adaptive self-regulation, starting at the most basic level of physical reactions (e.g., intense states of hyperarousal/agitation or hypoarousal/immobility) and behavioral (e.g., aggressive or passive/avoidant responses) that can become so automatic and habitual that the child's emotional and cognitive development are derailed or distorted. What is more, self-integrity is profoundly shaken, as the child victim incorporates the "lessons of abuse" into a view of him or herself as bad, inadequate, ~ Christine A. Courtois

My dear fellow," he continued more soberly, "If you have managed to complicate things by forming a sentimental attachment in less than a week, then I doubt there is anything I can do for you. You, sir, are a romantic, and I suspect your condition is incurable. ~ Frances Hardinge

The honey in the flower or lotus does not crave for bees; they do not plead with the bees to come. Since they have tasted the sweetness, they themselves search for the flowers and rush in. They come because of the attachment between themselves and sweetness. So, too, is the relationship between the woman who knows the limits and the respect she evokes. ~ Sathya Sai Baba