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Attachment to spiritual things is... just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.
--
Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation (1961)

 

Beverly Sills

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The ideal of non-attachment has been preached again and again in the course of the last 3000 years. It is found in Hinduism, the teachings of Buddha, the doctrine of Lao Tsu, in the philosophy of the Greek Stoics. The Gospel of Jesus is essentially one of non-attachment to the things of this world, and of attachment to God. What the Jewish philosopher Spinoza calls "blessedness" is simply the state of non-attachment, just as Spinoza's "human bondage" is the condition of one who identifies himself with his own desires, emotions, and thought processes, or with their objects in the external world.

 

Patrick (Australian novelist) White

 

How do you let go of attachment to things? Don't even try. It's impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.

 

Eckhart Tolle

 

Passion is something which very few of us have really felt. What we may have felt is enthusiasm, which is being caught up in an emotional state over something. Our passion is for something: for music, for painting, for literature, for a country, for a woman or a man; it is always the effect of a cause. When you fall in love with someone, you are in a great state of emotion, which is the effect of that particular cause; and what I am talking about is passion without a cause. It is to be passionate about everything, not just about something, whereas most of us are passionate about a particular person or thing. I think one must see this distinction very clearly. In the state of passion without a cause, there is intensity free of all attachment; but when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginning of sorrow.

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

We should not hold on so strongly to those who are going to leave us some day anyway. We should not feel excessive attachment for them. We have to keep it in moderation. But there is One who will never leave us, One who will never perish. God will never leave us, not in the kingdom of heaven, nor in the kingdom of hell, nor in this world. And since judgment is in His hands, He is the only attachment we must have. If we hold on to only that one attachment, then we will have joy throughout our lives and even at the time of death. On Judgment Day we will know that joy, because we will be with Him.

 

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

 

Compassion without attachment is possible. Therefore, we need to clarify the distinctions between compassion and attachment. True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason. Therefore, a truly compassionate attitude towards others does not change even if they behave negatively. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the needs of the other...

 

Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama)