You're Killin' Me, Man

Original Painting by Jeff Montgomery

Now that the ranting is over, on to more important things. I alluded to non-attachment earlier and to the fact that insanity lies in continuing to do things we know don't work in the hope that THIS time it will work; essentially, we are insane. I also understand that to many people the idea of non-attachment or disciplines that include ascetic* practices are like dirty words, horribly offensive to the modern ear. But it doesn't need to be. In fact it should be welcome. The world has convinced us all to walk around with our heads up our... in the sand (that's better, but the imagery isn't as powerful).

I'm going to assume that no one reading this is a monk or cloistered nun, that I can focus primarily on those of us slogging it out in the ruins of Mammon. In a world that is built on the lie that more and newer equals happiness and contentment, the question is not just how can we practice non-attachment, but why? With all the gilded-crap that modern American life has to offer, why would I purposely limit my gluttonous life-style? After all, by the time the bottomless pit that is my carnal pleasure becomes a problem, they'll have invented a pill to fix it. The obvious, or maybe not, reason is that I know this is not reality. I know that such a life doesn't really make me happy (a moment) or content (an underlying state-of-being).

See, non-attachment is not simply denying myself all manner of pleasurable things. In fact, it only begins as denial. Denial is the infant stage of non-attachment. In its immaturity, non-attachment is the proverbial teenager: whiny, preachy, and without a real understanding of itself. The basic denial has to mature. In maturity, non-attachment is true freedom (like riding in a '76 Lincoln Continental between San Bernadino and San Diego). The true freedom comes from not being held hostage by vice. Freedom is the ability to move towards God unimpeded. Our attachments bind us; hold us back. Here's a simple example: if I define myself by what the world thinks of me, if my self-worth is dependent on meeting my cultural definition of success, I am not free to jump into the "Great Ocean" to quote the Dali Lama. My attachment to the world and to the successes of the world will hold me in chains on the shore. Once I am freed from an attachment to success as the world defines it, that attachment is no longer binding on me. This is a large part of what Jesus means when he says we have to "die to ourselves" in order to live.

To be non-attached does not mean that I have to become a stoic, joyless, hermit. The opposite should be true (again, issues of maturity here). Let's say I can accomplish the feat of destroying my attachment to particular people.  The modern instinct is to say, "That's horrible". Actually it's another of those pesky paradoxes of faith. The freedom from attachment to people doesn't make me without love or indifferent to others. Rather, freedom from attachment to a person or persons frees me to really love them, that is to love them without possession. As long as I am attached to a person, my love for them is contingent on whether that person fulfills my ideal of whatever attached me to them in the first place. However, if I am non-attached, I have relinquished an attachment to them that is dependent on an ideal created in my own mind. I would argue (though not here, for the sake of space) that much of the divorce and discontent in our culture is the result of attachment and when the object fails to live up to the ideal, to the fantasy, we are discontented. But if we are in a state of non-attachment (which really means a total attachment to God) we are able to love as God loves, or at least as close as we can get on this side of sanctity. To love as God loves is love without qualification. As Jesus says, "...to love and not count the cost."

The goal of non-attachment is not to free us to be indifferent, but to give ourselves away. It is the freedom to love and not demand or dominate. It is to love and not require or qualify. Every attachment binds us to a spiritual state that demands justification and keeps us from being what we are created to be. Every attachment we break allows us to enjoy the things of creation even more because we are not married to a preconceived notion or outcome. Each attachment we leave behind does not say, "You are useless, and unimportant and I leave you" but instead says, "I want to know you for what you really are, what you were created to and not what I imagine or demand you to be".

The challenge is to find the things we are attached to. What do we hold in such esteem that any deviation from expectations leaves us angry or discontent? Find it and leave it, or at least your attachment to it. I used to be discontented at living on the Gulf because it wasn't San Diego or Tamarindo. I learned that I was holding on to something that never actually was and it never would be. Once I realized that the Gulf is the Gulf, I loved it and don't want anything more. 

*asceticism (ascesis)- the practice of penance, mortification, and self-denial to promote greater self-mastery and to foster the way of perfection by embracing the way of the cross (CCC).