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From: SECBH@CUNYVM.BITNET
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: re: Question on detachment
Message-ID: <1990Dec20.011732.6053@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 20 Dec 90 01:17:32 GMT
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In article <1990Dec1.212606.14671@nas.nasa.gov>
david@star2.cm.utexas.edu (David Sigeti)

>The point is not so much *detachment* as *non-attachment*.  And, even
>here, the emphasis is on not clinging.  The point is not to actively
>separate yourself from the world but to refrain from clinging to
>things when you should let them go.

For the past six years or so I have worked as a volunteer with
terminally ill individuals.  Most of these people became paralyzed
(or extraordinarily weak from extreme cachexia) and often became
demented. In several cases this work has involved very intimate
relationships and taken place over an extended period of time and
was not completed until I sat with them as they died.

Recently I came across an early Chinese Buddhist aphorism:  Let him
who would truly learn, practice the Zen of the lone lamp in the death
room. (This is not a perfect quote as my books are packed away, but
the thrust of it is correct.)

It was after beginning this work that I became a Buddhist.  It
certainly unfolds the Buddhists ideas of anicca, anatta and
dukkha with relentless naturalness.  I would like to say that I
find David's comments on non-attachment as oppossed to detachment
to be very reflective of my own experiences and observations.

Detachment, it seems to me, is part of the process of arriving
at a state/mode of non-attachment.  Detachment does involve judgement,
and overcoming emotional resistance.  It is (in my mind, at least)
a process of struggle and discipline.  One the other hand, non-
attachment, to the degree that I have experienced it, seems free
of both judgement and effort.  It is very difficult to explain but
there is a qualitative difference in the way in which one "is".

In caring for the terminally ill, it is quite easy to discern those
care partners who have achieved some state of non-attachment.
They have a capacity for focusing on the most concentrated
instances of time and circumstances, and I believe this is because
they are not involved (either attaching or attempting to detach)
from the larger "drama", i.e. - the patient is getting worse,
he is going to throw up, he is going to die soon, etc.  The process
of, say, cleaning a patient who is in great pain, and changing his/her
soiled bedding without being able to remove him from the bed
can comsume anywhere from 20 minutes to 40 minutes.  But done with
non-attachment it can be a series of small actions, of precise and
careful touchings - each one with its own certain purpose, but
which cumulatively become a clean individual in a clean bed.
However, for those whose focus is on that big picture, that
goal, the process is usually a nerve-wracking and tedious one
marked with frustration and clumsiness.  I think this comes from
being attached to that "goal" - a clean patient in a clean bed,
which can interfere with all those movements and gestures which
are appropriate to all the many moments that occur before arriving
at that point ("goal").

There is the popular saying "Go with the flow", however I think what I
am attempting to describe is something closer to "Be with the flow."

None of what I have described in the above setting presumes non-caring,
rather it is the concentration and release of attention as the
moment calls for it, an engagement in the present situation rather
a commitment to an overarching ideal or goal.

>If you really want to understand the spirit behind non-attachment, you
>should probably take up some form of Buddhist mindfulness meditation.
>The Theravadin, Tibeten, and Zen traditions all start out more or less
>the same so which one you choose is probably not all that important.

>In another posting in this newsgroup,
        Message-ID: <1990Nov27.004141.426@nas.nasa.gov>
>I mentioned a number of books that can help you get started (if you
>aren't already).  I really think that, in general, it is necessary to
>be practicing Buddhist meditation in order to understand the doctrines
>of Buddhism.  All the teachings and doctrines are just guides for your
>practice and to understand them, you almost have to have a practice to
>relate them to.

I would agree with this.  The arising/being/decay of thoughts, moods,
ideas during sitting practice provides a concentrated view of
impermanence.  With continued practice, I feel, that a person
carries over into non-meditation time an awareness of the complex
"momentariness" of which formerly insoluble blocks of events
are composed.

In article <1990Dec2.215911.11350@nas.nasa.gov>
cak0l@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU (Christopher A. Koeritz) writes:

>some might argue that complete detachment from desire will lead
>to abandoning the sacred doctrines, since there is usually a desire
>to study them in those who do study them.

There is, of course, the Buddhas sermon in which he compares the
dhamma to a raft which is abandoned once one reaches the "farther
shore", or Ippen's like comment (from Pure Land Buddhism) that
finally even the Pure Land must be abandoned as an attachment.
I remember Ippen's comments more clearly, and he seems to be making
the point that one abandons the _concept_ of the Pure Land and
instead you yourself become the Pure Land.

Jack Carroll