The Attachment Paradox

Sometimes people talk about how we should not be attached to possessions, experiences, the body, places, people… But there is a natural attachment, or a being touched, by these things. It is natural to feel touched being with someone you love, or enjoying a new outfit, or new house. It is natural to feel hurt when someone leaves you, or annoyed when your favourite object breaks. It is not this natural ‘being touched’ that is the problem, it is the layer of drama around it. It is the story of ‘me’ around it that builds up this drama and makes it all seem, and feel, very serious and meaningful to ‘me’. When the thinking turns an experience or feeling into a ‘story of me’, or identity, it starts to feel dramatic and exciting. It starts to feel all about ‘me’ and how special I am. Then the natural ‘being touched’ is so overlaid by the story that the original feeling is no longer really felt.
Being without attachment, means being totally utterly touched by life again and again to the point that it cracks your heart open, and at the same time knowing that it is all totally and utterly meaningless.
The thinking can not do this. You can not try to make this happen. It is simply in acknowledging the awful truth of this paradox that you see that this is how life is already, whether you like it or not.