DETACHMENT

By Michael Erlewine (September 17, 2013)

I have been for quite some time on a bit of an Odyssey. I have
been "in" the experience and not yet out-of-it enough to verbalize
much of anything, so my blogs have been beside the point, and not
on it. But there now are some glimmerings floating up and here is
one. It may be hard to find the words.
The whole idea of detachment from the world (being detached) has
puzzled me, like how to do it, how to actually detach without it
being like some form of castration, giving up a part of me,
something I am still actually attached to -- you know, throwing the
baby out with the bathwater?
In what the Tibetan Buddhists call the Common Preliminaries ("The
Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind Toward the Dharma"), it is that
fourth thought that has been a stumper for me, sometimes
translated as "feeling revulsion for samsara," with samsara being
this world I am so attached to. I guess I don't often feel revulsion
for this life. I like this world.
And yet I am constantly reminded (especially as I am growing
older) that I will eventually separate or detach from every last
"thing" in this world before I leave it. I am often vividly reminded of
the old phrase "You will never get out of this world alive." I get the
idea.
And I also know "Less is More," and that at some point "more"
means having less, being content. I am on board with that, but how
do I do it? How do I practice detachment so that it works
painlessly?
I have never been much into going cold-turkey, cutting off
something that I am attached to just because I should or because
my mind tells me it is not good for me. I sure don't know where
what I call "I" ends and my attachments begin. And since
attachments are often defined (at least by me) as the glue that
holds the Self together, this gets complicated. It does not speak
well of the future of the self.
It is not like my attachments are jointed to myself like an elbow (or
a crab leg), so that I can just intuitively see where to break it off, or
that I only have nerves up to the joint and feel nothing beyond that
point. My attachments are sensitive indeed. Like a root canal, the
nerve in my attachments appears to be still very much alive.

I can tell the nerve is very much alive by my reactions, my reactivity

to almost everything around me, good and bad. And I have to ask
myself, what is the difference between awareness and reactions?
The Tibetan Buddhist practice to deal with our attachments and
reactions I have detailed here before. It is called Tonglen, which
translates to something like "Taking and Sending" or "Sending and
Receiving." My own take is that Tonglen on a more subtle plane has
to do with our reactions, so I sometimes translate it to myself as
"Reacting and Accepting."
It is the process of discovering (becoming aware) of my constant
reactions (likes and dislikes) and acknowledging or accepting them
that I am referring to here, the neutralization or incorporation of my
reactions into what I call myself. The result is that my negative (or
positive) reactions are acknowledged as part of myself, as my own
projections. I become aware that these are "my" reactions and no
one else's, not something outside of me.
If I look, I see that I react to one thing or another all the time, night
and day. In fact, it would appear that I am mostly a hotbed of
reactivity, often inflamed, but almost always running at a slow boil.
Check to see if you are the same.
And it seems that I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to
get a witness, calling out and then looking or waiting for someone
"out there" to take notice and signal back to me. "Hello in there"
Never happens.
Considering that the Greek philosopher Parmenides pointed out
thousands of years ago that "Being Alone Is," this must be an
exercise in futility. For sure, there is no other "One," but only "the"
one, and not two (or the one "and" the two). This must be why
most religions and spiritual practices are all about resolving the
dichotomy of appearances, me, myself, and the "other." In other
words, "Being Alone is" or "Being is Alone." Did I get it wrong?
However, we can be alone together (we already are), but each of us
is alone by the fact that when we die (or live, for that matter), no
one else goes with us into the bardo at death. And according to the
Tibetans, life as we know it here and now is just another bardo! We
go into it alone both now and then.
It seems that I never get used to this idea and, instead, vainly wait
for someone to be aware of me, to rescue me or bless me, when all
that is possible is for me to become aware of myself. That's what
Buddha did, and even becoming aware of the nature of the Self is

just the first step to ultimately becoming aware of the true nature of
the mind. This is why awareness is what the Buddha was all about,
becoming aware, just waking up.
So. detachment for me is not cutting off my nose to spite my face,
but gradually neutralizing my polarized reactions, one by one, or
perhaps a wave at a time. And what is left after my reactions are
neutralized is awareness. Awareness is different than reactions.
And, at least for now, what the texts call "revulsion of samsara/thisworld" (at least for me) is this process of taming my own reactions,
becoming aware of them, acknowledging and accepting them as my
projections, and no longer viewing them as "other."
So what was seen as two (myself and that "other") becomes one,
the dichotomy is unified, and like the proverbial pebble dropped in
the pond, the ever-increasing circle of ripples includes more and
more of that other as myself. I see that it is just me, alone, as I
settle my mind.
And the point of all these words is that the above process (Tonglen)
is one of gradual detachment, of leaving this world, so to speak, a
bit at a time, like turning a glove inside out.
In the end we are naturally detached, quiet, but still there, and
aware. The awareness remains when the ripples of reaction play
out. This is why the practice of recognizing and incorporating my
reactions as just another part of me is so important.
Any comments?