Written by Jen Liu

“If we trust that the innate intelligence of this practice is always moving us in the direction of liberation, then any lost item, person, expectation, or hope can actually become a benevolent messenger of the challenging but important lesson of impermanence, guiding us to a happiness deeper and more stable than the comfort offered by temporary causes and conditions.”

In traditional Buddhism, non-attachment refers to the practice of letting go of grasping and aversion to people, things, and experiences due to the understanding that everything changes, and we create suffering by being too fixed in our desires.

Though this concept may sound like it's asking us to numb ourselves or insert distance between us and the things we love, the essence of non-attachment is one that actually encourages us to love more fearlessly and completely, less inhibited by an inflexible resistance to loss or change. An attachment based on grasping or aversion is one that is, by nature, fragile — susceptible to falling apart when that thing turns out to be different from what we want it to be or thought it would be. When we try to form connections from such a place, we sometimes find that what we thought was unconditional, absolute openheartedness has actually been tinted with greed, fear, or aversion.

The wisdom of non-attachment can emerge in all shapes and sizes if we just learn to recognize it. It can blossom out of a break-up with a partner, death of a loved one, or misplacing an object that held sentimental value. If we trust that the innate intelligence of this practice is always moving us in the direction of liberation, then any lost item, person, expectation, or hope can actually become a benevolent messenger of the challenging but important lesson of impermanence, guiding us to a happiness deeper and more stable than the comfort offered by temporary causes and conditions. Perhaps it could be said that non-attachment looks like love, liberated.

It’s as if there is a jewel of freedom buried within layers of longing, grief, and pain, which are all valid and necessary parts of the human experience. We often must give ourselves the grace to sort through those very real layers before we can arrive at the soft, gooey center, where we discover yet another aspect of the human experience: the power to relinquish control and float weightlessly upon the tender waves of change. If and when we get there, we may find that we are far more capable than we thought of holding the pain of loss, while simultaneously being grateful for the opportunity to free ourselves from clinging.