Non Attachment Quotes

Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked. (53)(Quote is actually Robert A F Thurman but Huston Smith, who only wrote the introduction to my edition, seems to be given full credit for this text.)

Huston Smith

Things sometimes go our way and sometimes they don’t. All we can do is apply ourselves to our profession, giving our very best effort but emotionally letting go of the outcome. Why? Because if we obsess about an outcome, we cannot possibly honour the present moment.

Christopher Dines

It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual ‘magic’ causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience.

Christopher Dines

Dare to live by letting go.

Tom Althouse

Among this bewildering multiplicity of ideals which shall we choose? The answer is that we shall choose none. For it is clear that each one of these contradictory ideals is the fruit of particular social circumstances. To some extent, of course, this is true of every thought and aspiration that has ever been formulated. Some thoughts and aspirations, however, are manifestly less dependent on particular social circumstances than others. And here a significant fact emerges: all the ideals of human behaviour formulated by those who have been most successful in freeing themselves from the prejudices of their time and place are singularly alike. Liberation from prevailing conventions of thought, feeling and behaviour is accomplished most effectively by the practice of disinterested virtues and through direct insight into the real nature of ultimate reality. (Such insight is a gift, inherent in the individual; but, though inherent, it cannot manifest itself completely except where certain conditions are fulfilled. The principal pre-condition of insight is, precisely, the practice of disinterested virtues.) To some extent critical intellect is also a liberating force. But the way in which intellect is used depends upon the will. Where the will is not disinterested, the intellect tends to be used (outside the non-human fields of technology, science or pure mathematics) merely as an instrument for the rationalization of passion and prejudice, the justification of self-interest. That is why so few even of die acutest philosophers have succeeded in liberating themselves completely from the narrow prison of their age and country. It is seldom indeed that they achieve as much freedom as the mystics and the founders of religion. The most nearly free men have always been those who combined virtue with insight.Now, among these freest of human beings there has been, for the last eighty or ninety generations, substantial agreement in regard to the ideal individual. The enslaved have held up for admiration now this model of a man, now that; but at all times and in all places, the free have spoken with only one voice.It is difficult to find a single word that will adequately describe the ideal man of the free philosophers, the mystics, the founders of religions. 'Non-attached* is perhaps the best. The ideal man is the non-attached man. Non-attached to his bodily sensations and lusts. Non-attached to his craving for power and possessions. Non-attached to the objects of these various desires. Non-attached to his anger and hatred; non-attached to his exclusive loves.Non-attached to wealth, fame, social position. Non-attached even to science, art, speculation, philanthropy. Yes, non-attached even to these. For, like patriotism, in Nurse Cavel's phrase, 'they are not enough, Non-attachment to self and to what are called 'the things of this world' has always been associated in the teachings of the philosophers and the founders of religions with attachment to an ultimate reality greater and more significant than the self. Greater and more significant than even the best things that this world has to offer. Of the nature of this ultimate reality I shall speak in the last chapters of this book. All that I need do in this place is to point out that the ethic of non-attachment has always been correlated with cosmologies that affirm the existence of a spiritual reality underlying the phenomenal world and imparting to it whatever value or significance it possesses.

Aldous Huxley

Sure all life's highways at some point must end, so I plan to ride it in style and plummet in a swan dive when the pavement runs out...And hopefully leave behind artistically that which may make other roads an even better ride...

Tom Althouse

No one can control their results. We can, however, control our attitude. When we practise compassion, it is most effective when it is unconditional and free from seeking an outcome – compassion is a matter of choice rather than a self-seeking action. And so, if we assist another human being from a place of presence and compassion, we are not looking to find our happiness off the back of others’ suffering. Nor are we trying to control them. Compassion is a conscious choice rather than an emotional knee-jerk reaction.

Christopher Dines

Is it a weakness not being able to hate? Or is it preparation for what is inevitable, the ability only to love.

Tom Althouse

To win or lose often depends on set parameters. Expand the bounds of what is possible, and you may come out the true winner, outside the confines of its defining.

Tom Althouse

Time is an illusion, only the keepers of the illusion are real, and the reality they have spun, keeps us, until we set upon the path of the dream.

Tom Althouse

Let go and go beyond living the dream, by dreaming the reality, into a reality beyond the dream.

Tom Althouse

My goal is not to upset the apple cart, but to make it more accessible.

Tom Althouse

More and more obstacles seem to be other people's issues that form in the way of a hand to block one, to take notice of them? Sometimes noticing ahead of time, and taking the time to notice them, makes the hand part of an arm that embraces you. The obstacles become bridges for both to cross over, even if in opposite directions.

Tom Althouse

Every day as I wave to my children when I drop them off at school, or let one of them have a new experience—like crossing the street without holding my hand—I experience the struggle between love and non-attachment. It is hard to bear—the extreme love of one’s child and the thought that ultimately the child belongs to the world. There is this horrible design flaw—children are supposed to grow up and away from you; and one of you will die first.

Sarah Ruhl

There is beauty all around us, and the light finds us when we realize, we are all part of that beauty and worth the cherishing. If we despise any, we journey to despise ourselves. See all as beautiful, even if they choose to see themselves through you, as being less than so. We have the power to see for each, and be the reflection of what they may yet see.

Tom Althouse

Death would be an extremely bad thing like most of us paint it, if being dead were painful.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

As spiritual searchers we need to become freer and freer of the attachment to our own smallness in which we get occupied with me-me-me. Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisitiveness and competitiveness and from our likes and dislikes. If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy. Also recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness from which we may deviate. (39)

Ravi Ravindra

It is useful to study different traditions in order to be free of attachment to any one way of expressing what is beyond expression. (x)

Ravi Ravindra

Abide not with dualism,Carefully avoid pursuing it;As soon as you have right and wrong,Confusion ensues, and Mind is lost. (172)

Edward Conze

Try not to seek after the trueOnly cease to cherish opinions. (172)

Edward Conze

Non Attachment Quotes

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