Detachment


DETACHMENT

One often hears the terms Duality, Compassion and Attachment, as describing the essence of what Buddhism is all about. The term Attachment, as it is used in Buddhism, often connotes desire or unhealthy attachment to things like the vices of drugs, sex, drunkenness and gambling or money and material possessions. It is also used in the context of, and here discussed in terms of attachment to a single identity or Ego.

There is said to be a spiritual state of mind that is opposite to what the Buddhists call Attachment. Attachment can be characterized as the belief and conviction that the human character is a single identity, personality and Ego, to which one is attached and bonded. The individual may be defined by the inherent propensities as born, such as characteristics like body type, sensory sensitivity, astrological type, facility of memory, speed of reflex and response or sexual proclivities. All of these facilities are considered as independent of the learned conditioning of the individual by the experience of living.

The conditioned personality as the way one thinks, speaks and acts, based upon the experiences they have had, the parents and family they were raised, the belief system they have incurred, the opportunities that they have had, may be called the Ego. The Ego is the 'thinking I', the sense of self, the Individual distinct and separate from most others. The Ego is the personality that engages the world, the identity in which the individual would define themselves. The individual is conditioned by such things as parents, family, education, community, personal experience, travel, work, relationships, general physiological temperament, environment or weather. The child is expected to adopt the beliefs and values of the parents and community.

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