Detachment notes

Wtf is detachment?

What detachment IS

Overview

Detachment is the way you live your life, not the choices you make.

• It’s about participating fully in the present moment and focusing on your actions, which you can control, rather than being dominated by the consequences, which you cannot.
• It’s about living life with totality and awareness and not avoiding it. You can do anything, even falling in love, and still be detached.
• Practice them deliberately and consistently (like exercising) and be happier

• Living life passionately, but you’re not “swept up” or “dominated” by your emotions or the outcomes
  • It’s ok to have emotions, but don’t let it sweep you up, don’t be dominated by it
• What stops you from doing something is usually some form of attachment. Ex) You sing loudly in the shower VS you don’t sing at all in public because you’re attached to the idea of being judged.
• The paradox
  • You can be 100% passionate (completely invested in the action) and 100% dispassionate (completely detached from the result) at the same time
• Example - asking someone out
  • An attached person is stopped by attachment—the fear of rejection (a future consequence).
  • A detached person isn’t ignoring the consequences, but they aren’t worrying about them. They simply take the action (asking) and are fine with whatever outcome follows.

What detachment IS NOT

• NOT Apathy, disassociation, or being unplugged
  • This is rather the opposite of detachment, and often a defense mechanism from mind’s response to a powerful attachment (a lot of caring, that our body and mind wall things off & you stop having feelings
    • Just like callous hands - thickening skin that they can’t feel much → our mind creates callouses as well
• In disassociation, there is an absence of experience and feeling. In detachment, you experience the full range of life and emotions, but you aren’t controlled by them

The “Spectrum” Fallacy

• “How do you fall in love and be detached?”
  • This question has an assumption that falling in love & being detached are on the opposite end of the spectrum.
  • But there is no spectrum! Detachment is a way of living your life, not what choices you make!
  • It’s not actions, but the attachment to the actions and its outcomes. The whole thing is that it is not bound to a particular thing!!!
  • You can be completely in love while also being completely detached. You love the person fully in the present, but you aren’t “grasping” or possessed by the need for that love to turn out a specific way. You are in control.
• You can do anything in life and be detached! Detachment is living life with totality, not avoidance of it
• you control it!

Attachments and desires

Chasing attachments make us unhappy

• It creates dopamine (a problem): creates pleasure, anticipation/craving, and tolerance
  • The first “high” from a release of dopamine is mind-blowing (gambling, drugs, etc). However, as you repeat the behavior, the units of pleasure decrease, but the anticipation stays the same.
• This mismatch make you want more and more even though you get less pleasure from it, and this is how you become attached

Past and present focused brain

How to be detached to your life

• when we act thru our passions, we get caught up in stuff, like toxic relationships or clinging of the past that leads to attachment
• We just have to focus on the present, not the past or the future!!
  • Our brain has the capability to project thinking in the future
    • confessing to someone & expecting them to accept it → if expectations are not met, you suffer
    • ask what am i expecting in return?
      • hey i got u flowers & i thought of you & id love to take you out sometime. if you’re not interested, totally get it. DONE.
      • if they say no, then just say cool, and thanks and just walk away.
    • The future focused capability is just something we should just take use of, like our tongue ,our hands, etc, and we should NOT let it control you
    • suffering will come from the expectations. the more you expect less, you have more pleasure
    • a person with stable expectations, the more the person lives in pleasant surprise
    • focus on actions, acknowledge the possibility of a response, acknowledge the chance of disappointment
    • just ALWAYS NOTICE< NOTICE< NOTICE YOUR EXPECTATIONS
  • Brain in the past
    • We always want “our glory days” → ppl cling to the past
    • So, don’t hold on to the past! you notice your mind goes to the past a lot, it’s all just the functions of the mind
    • The present is colored by the past. This is NOT living in totality.
    • The actual cognition → slice of mind on the past, another on the future
    • If you have a fracture of your mind, you will not be happy
    • ALWAYS FOCUS ON THE PRESENT
• The future expectations, and the holding on the past
  • They’re just literally patterns of the mind!
  • FRACTURED ATTENTION = ATTACHMENT

Nature of desire

• The way we get caught up in the future and past, it’s our desire
• If we conquer our desire, we get detached
• Desire
  • where does your desires come from??
  • The desires make us hard to make the right move
  • some kind of craving or grasping, of some sensory experience we’re trying to re live
  • Losing ourselves in desire is a joy of the mind, because awareness and mind don’t go together. The mind LOVES it when you are not aware because it gets to do whatever it wants lol
• Look deeper
  • grasping - important to notice in your mind
    • any time u engage w some positive thing, attachment will form, and attachment will be grasping (u will want more)
    • what happens after the experience? → grasping!
    • pay attention to it …BUT DONT conquer it
      • conquering is an attachment in itself → replacing one desire for another, and a lot of self help gurus do this (replacing one attachment to a healthier attachment)
    • process of detachment doesnt come from conquering because ur still getting attachment
    • It’s sublimation thru observation! → sublimate your desires thru observation
      • The more awareness you cultivate the less you will get lost in your desires
      • focus on your actions
      • observe how crazy your mind is, observe observe observe, then subliminate, then the more calm your mind will be
• If you have a grasping and engage it with awareness, that is better than restricting yourself with lack of awareness

CONTROL THE MIND INSTEAD OF LETTING THE MIND CONTROL YOU

Stages

1. the world and u are separate
   • i have no consequences of the outside world
   • you ask them out, do the best you can, and leave the rest to god
2. But, you are actually no different from the outside world, we are all part of one system
   • the world and me is one, all other things are part of my life
   • if you realize this, you will develop a transcendent compassion
3. Then, you can be detached
   • there’s no reason to be stressed out
   • Just go with the flow of the world

Thinking about the sphere of influence

• one hand our sphere of influence we can control is small, but our influence to the outside world is huge
• do i control the world? NO. Can i influence the world? YES.
• lazy/apathetic ppl → they have an attachment of saying i cant do this and that
• as we practice detachment, the cycles will repeat → if we don’t understand the world and chase our desires, your never gonna be happy (key problems in life)

Hopes & dreams

• are hopes and dreams also attachments
  • not necessarily, but it depends
  • hopes and dreams → leave that as goals to be striving for in the present (and NOT want to accomplish - this is in the future)
  • striving for (present) VS want to accomplish (future - trap)
    • when we try to accomplish something and fail, we see it as a failure (its joever)
    • when we’re striving for something and fail, we see it as a setback (let’s try again)

Applicable actions you can take now

• you have to be chill about it, DO NOT like overthink being detached lol
  • today i feel like this so i will do this - if u do this with awareness the desire will disappear
• watch the expectation that comes from an action, watch the birth of this thing
  • any time you take an action, observe what you expect. the more expectations the more upset you are going to be
• when you suffer, when was this born?
  • it’s not born from action, it’s born from an expectation!
  • if i changed my attitude for this, how would my life change..