197 Quotes About Detachment

Denial protected us, screening out certain experiences & feelings until we grew strong enough to relate to them...Yet it also dropped a curtain over our experience, obscuring it, leaving us with a sense of missing pieces. For instance, when we achieved something, we felt like an imposter. Or, though we had a relationship with a significant other, we often felt alone and unrelated to anyone.

She breathes all the political gases that flow around this, but she never seems to inhale them.

All the things I don't want are making me very happy.

Things can be added, but that doesn't mean that anything is missing.

[D]etachment means letting go and nonattachment means simply letting be. (95)

She felt detached from all aspects of her life. She had no time anymore to feel. All that time she used to waste feeling, and analyzing her feelings, as if they were a matter of national significance.

Opening Our HeartThe true meaning of opening our heart is that we no longer have fear of losing anything. It is a form of surrender, yet such surrender has no object. It is not like we are surrendering to something. What we surrender are our hopes and fears, and an investment in our misery. When we have reached the final point of that surrender there is nothing that we want to hold on to.

Another aspect inviting contemplation is the fact that the affective tone of any feeling depends on the type of contact that has caused its arising. Once this conditioned nature of feelings is fully apprehended, detachment arises naturally and one's identification with feelings starts to dissolve.

And do you see how beautiful and graceful the birds are when they are flying and soaring? The ground has many comforts for them to enjoy... But in the sky they are truly what a bird is meant to be. So it is with the human heart.