Detachment

Hey guys,

I'm putting this up here because I feel I've been guided too. What do you think when you hear the words detachment. What does detachment mean to you and how do you struggle to achieve a detached state of mind? What techniques do you use to achieve detachment in your lives and how can you improve your ability to detach. Finally, in what ways has has detachment helped to improve your life?.

Side note (just for those who mightn't be aware of the term)

Detachment is generally thought to be spiritual technique which allows someone to experience clarity and a feeling of peace no matter what they are experiencing e.g fear, pain etc. It's a skill many mystics have needed to develop along their path and many buddhists continue to practice today.

Alana

"What do you think when you hear the words detachment."

John Frusciantes song Unreachable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRp1G8Po3tM

:)

Detachment sounds like controlled Dissociation to me.

[Rah nam]

Originally Posted by OceanWaves19161

Hey guys,

I'm putting this up here because I feel I've been guided too. What do you think when you hear the words detachment. What does detachment mean to you and how do you struggle to achieve a detached state of mind? What techniques do you use to achieve detachment in your lives and how can you improve your ability to detach. Finally, in what ways has has detachment helped to improve your life?.

Side note (just for those who mightn't be aware of the term)

Detachment is generally thought to be spiritual technique which allows someone to experience clarity and a feeling of peace no matter what they are experiencing e.g fear, pain etc. It's a skill many mystics have needed to develop along their path and many buddhists continue to practice today.

Alana

Detachment = Dispassion
One of the first steps in the Tree of Life.

Tobias named it, standing behind the short wall.
Watch the unfoldment without interacting physically or emotionally.

It is difficult for me to remember how I started but the tree of life played a role in it.
One needs to understand how Dispassion and Conscience lead to forgivingness, to compassion. And how Dispassion and Compassion have to balance.
How Humility and Serenity come into play in a further development.
I only try to say, Dispassion is the first step, and an important one.

Originally Posted by OceanWaves19161

Hey guys,

I'm putting this up here because I feel I've been guided too. What do you think when you hear the words detachment. What does detachment mean to you and how do you struggle to achieve a detached state of mind? What techniques do you use to achieve detachment in your lives and how can you improve your ability to detach. Finally, in what ways has has detachment helped to improve your life?.

Side note (just for those who mightn't be aware of the term)

Detachment is generally thought to be spiritual technique which allows someone to experience clarity and a feeling of peace no matter what they are experiencing e.g fear, pain etc. It's a skill many mystics have needed to develop along their path and many buddhists continue to practice today.

Alana

Hi Oceonwaves. Im not sure if detachment isn't one of those words that has been latched onto in spiritual searches. I feel quite detached at the moment...and it doesnt really seem to have any meaning...it just is a state or feeling.

I wonder if anyone should bother to struggle to be detached? There is a time and place for different states to be...and if one is struggling to detach, perhaps it is the emotional experience they are needing in that moment...rather than detachment? And this is where I feel it may be a word that has been attached to an imagined state of enlightenment...and therefore becomes something of status that people struggle towards.

[Xan]

Originally Posted by OceanWaves19161

I'm putting this up here because I feel I've been guided too. What do you think when you hear the words detachment. What does detachment mean to you and how do you struggle to achieve a detached state of mind? What techniques do you use to achieve detachment in your lives and how can you improve your ability to detach. Finally, in what ways has has detachment helped to improve your life?.

Side note (just for those who mightn't be aware of the term)

Detachment is generally thought to be spiritual technique which allows someone to experience clarity and a feeling of peace no matter what they are experiencing e.g fear, pain etc. It's a skill many mystics have needed to develop along their path and many buddhists continue to practice today.

Alana

OceanWaves... This is a good topic because there's a great deal of misunderstanding about detachment in the spiritual community.

Here's a list of what detachment is NOT:

* It is not a struggle.
* It is not feeling nothing at all... that's disassociation, avoidance of feeling.
* It does not have to take a long time to develop.
* It's not really a practice but an attitude or way of being with yourself.


Here's what I've learned detachment is:

I observe my mind in whatever I think and feel - negative or positive - in a neutral way with acceptance... neither jumping into and indulging in them, nor avoiding and denying them... just allowing them to be as they are, as they naturally come and go.


This is a powerful step in one's spiritual awakening for a few reasons:

* You shift into no longer being controlled, pulled this way and that, up and down by emotions.
* You gradually lose the old ego-identification with your mind's beliefs and emotional reactions...
so you can experience your true nature that was hidden underneath.
* At some point you come to realize that you are not your mind and its contents --- You Are The Watcher... the pure awareness within which all your experiences come and go.
* You grow into living from the quiet awareness and love of your center... your true being.


We may develop detachment by relaxing and taking a little step back from whatever thoughts and emotions are going on in our minds at a moment... by simply observing them neutrally and letting go.

For instance, if you find yourself struggling with your feelings you might say, "Oh, here I am struggling again." and notice the feeling of that from just a little step way.


Conscious belly breathing helps very much with developing the spiritual attitude of detaching, allowing and accepting.

And accepting is the key to getting free.


Xan

[hybrid]

detachment is the ability not to be carried away by your desires and incessant thinking.
detachment means freedom and more room for flexibility.
control thru non control

Greetings..

At some point, you will find the necessity to detach from detachment.. the essence of Life becomes a bland noticing, sterile and a sort lifeless life.. detachment is useful for clarity in some ways, but.. reattachment is important, Life is for Living, not as an experiment.. as an experience, with unconditional sincerity and gusto.. it is after death, as it was before birth, so.. between those two portals, give it all you've got!

Be well..

[Shabda]

Originally Posted by TzuJanLi

Greetings..

At some point, you will find the necessity to detach from detachment.. the essence of Life becomes a bland noticing, sterile and a sort lifeless life.. detachment is useful for clarity in some ways, but.. reattachment is important, Life is for Living, not as an experiment.. as an experience, with unconditional sincerity and gusto.. it is after death, as it was before birth, so.. between those two portals, give it all you've got!

Be well..

it seems to me, that you have, in a way, defined Love~!

[Xan]

Originally Posted by TzuJanLi

At some point, you will find the necessity to detach from detachment.. the essence of Life becomes a bland noticing, sterile and a sort lifeless life..

Life is for Living, not as an experiment.. as an experience, with unconditional sincerity and gusto.. it is after death, as it was before birth, so.. between those two portals, give it all you've got!.

Some people do become stuck in a bland and lifeless form of detachment but this is one of the misunderstandings I mentioned... that detachment means feeling nothing. In my own experience a detached yet inward view allows for increasing joy of being, for deepening awareness in compassion and love. Far from boring.

Whether or not one wishes to jump back into the world's activities is another question. It's the freedom from reactivity and defensiveness that is the gift of detachment.


Xan