Detach for Contentment
Written on August 4, 2008 by Tom Stine
Today’s post is by Evan Hadkins at wellbeingandhealth.net.
I’m a blogger. I’d like to make my income from blogging and a membership course that I plan to open in early October. None of which is happening at the moment. Making my income this way exists only in my imagination, only as a desire. Which brings me smack bang up against the nature of desire and our imaginations.
Imagination can be a drawback - we can pretty much always imagine things being better than they are. Which is a pretty certain recipe for discontent and frustration. And yet building and creating anything means bringing something from nothing: and imagination is vital. Which leads us back to desire. To move something into the world of form means using our imagination (and much else too).
We imagine something that meets our desire. Anything from a sandwich to meet our hunger, to a major public building to meet the desire for beauty, to a membership course to meet others’ desire for greater contentment and my desire to make my income doing what I love. Our imagination is often fueled by desire. This too sounds like a recipe for discontent and frustration. Wanting what we don’t have - surely this is the problem? Surely this will lead to only frustration and discontent?
I think the answer to these questions is one that can be infuriating: yes and no. Knowing we want a sandwich and eating one doesn’t disturb our contentment. Each stage of this process can feel good. From the arousal of appetite, to knowing what we want, to going about getting it and how it feels inside us: all this can feel right. All this in a sense can be experienced as contentment. Or it could be a process of discontent - perhaps we haven’t been paying attention and we are suddenly ravenous and sick with hunger, unclear about what would be good to eat, bolting the food instead of chewing it, and it feeling not so good in our stomach. The whole process can be one of discontent.
It seems to me that it is not desire and imagination themselves that are our problem: it is our attachment to them. If I don’t have the food I want available I can spend lots of time cursing and getting annoyed. And I can stay this way for a long time. This is the attachment. If I can let go this attachment I may have more options - having a bit of something now while I go buy what I want, or finding that what I have will do for now. (I’m not saying that the swearing and cursing is a problem: if it helps us get back to contentment and focus on what we want I think that is OK too.)
This is a simple physical example. But I think it applies to pretty much any desire we have. Whether the desire is emotional (for example, to express our sadness or regret), intellectual (perhaps to understand what makes for a successful blog), spiritual (such as having a sense that we are both ourselves and the universe at once) or social (like a satisfying connection with other people). Whatever the dimension of our life I think it is the attachment to the desire that is the problem. In each case the desire may lead to a satisfying or frustrating course of action. And the only difference is our attachment to the desire.
Let me earth this is a bit in my own situation. Would I like to be owning my income from blogging already? Sure I would. Would I like it to be happening faster than it is? You bet. And at this point I have a choice. Get caught up in my impatience or do what I can. The difference is attachment.
If I get caught up in my attachment I lose the joy of the process. My attachment to wanting to make money doing what I love means that I am no longer loving what I do. All of a sudden I’m not doing what I love but resenting how slowly my blog is developing. My attachment destroys what it is attached to.
Instead I can be content and active. When I’m content I don’t spend all my time just lying around. Doing things in tune with who I am are a postive joy. Even working hard at them. Contentment can be a very active state of being. But this requires us knowing what our desires are and appreciating the role of our imagination in meeting our desires. (I think our fantasies of just lying around and doing nothing mean that we have been pushing ourselves - usually because we are attached to some ideal of who we should be.)
It seems to me that, in this world of form, our desires can let us know what we need. It seems to me that our imaginations can help us make this world of form a better place for all of us. Our desires and imagination are good servants but attachment to them makes them into bad masters.
This is my approach to desire and imagination at the moment. I’d like to hear your experience in the comments.
Thanks to Tom for his hospitality in letting me do this guest post. It’s stretched me to write about this - put me to the edges of what I can say. I hope it’s beneficial to you.
Evan Hadkins is a blogger who lives in Hobart, Australia. He writes about wellbeing and health with a special focus on psychology and self-development. You can enjoy his writing at wellbeingandhealth.net.
on August 4th, 2008 at 10:11 am
This reminds me of a zen-like story.
When you are hungry, eat. When you are thirsty, drink. When you are sleepy, sleep. Why make a big deal of these?
on August 4th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
@Jarrod Nice story. Very Zen, isn’t it?
on August 4th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Hi Evan,
You might try focusing on the “desire” and get a feel of what is behind it, creating it.
Is it a want, need, a feeling of “lack of” that is driving the desire?
If so let those feelings go. Keep letting them go until you no longer feel that way. If your mind jumps in and says something like “You may have let those feelings go but. you still don’t have it. Let that go also until the mind no longer brings that up.
Now that you are “hootless” about it all, lets see what evolves.
on August 4th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Hi Evan
Thanks for the article and nice blog! Action and it’s attachment is said to be in 3 values. Attachment to the start of the action or the desire, attachment to the action itself underway, and attachment to the result or expectations of same. You touched on 2 of these. The last is the hardest attachment to let go of. And yet, it is easy. Once we are deeply enough established in silence within, attachments will fall away and contentment will arise. Indeed, a deep inner happiness will infuse everything in our lives.
We just have to not be attached to this result (laughs)
on August 4th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Davidya, what a great comment. Yes, we could get attached to “achieving” non-attachment, right?
This was a great article, Evan. It’s true that detachment leads not to apathy, but to the ability to playfully and curiously explore our creativity.
Blessings,
Andrea
on August 5th, 2008 at 4:40 am
Very nice article, Evan. And nice reply, Davidya.
Does one have the idea or the desire to be free of attachment? We do such silly things in order to free ourselves. Let’s eat only certain types of food. Let’s be chaste. Let’s build a new and desirable system that will allow us to be free of the undesirable system. And who is it that will enjoy the fruits of these labors?
Silly might not be quite the right word, because to the person in that moment it may seem completely reasonable. In their working mind they might not be able to see the desire for detachment being the same as any other desire. After all, it does seem like the Highest Goal, if I may use that phrase.
I would ask others to inquire into who it is that is going to be detached. Can the who, the self, or whatever you call it, ever be detached? One might say, “Yes,” but is that just the self throwing something out to make room for something else it believes to be better?
Nice things arise from your writing, Evan.
on August 5th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Thanks for the great comments folks.
At the moment I am staying with, “My ground is authenticity” and seeing what follows. At the moment I feel calm and centred with it and I’m trying out some writing about authenticity for a membership course I want to do later this year.
on August 5th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Hi Jarrod,
The question of value judgements and their worth (judging the judgements and so on) is a big question. At some level I affirm life, joy and so on as of greater value than their opposites. Many a discussion to be had about this I guess.
on August 10th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
thanks for leading me to this interesting site, evan!
“i would ask others to inquire into who it is that is going to be detached. can the who, the self, or whatever you call it, ever be detached? one might say, “yes,” but is that just the self throwing something out to make room for something else it believes to be better?”
a possible reply to this: it depends on how the “yes” is said. is could be a salivating “yes, yes, yes, it’s possible and i want it!” or a relaxed, smiling “sure, why not, and let’s get up and see what happens when we walk towards it.”
on August 10th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
@isabella Marvelous comment. I think you’ve got it. When it’s just movement toward something, just for the joy and curiosity, that’s a yes for sure. Glad you like the site.