Distance yourself from attachments, awareness will follow

There’s a famous saying that goes, ‘The root of suffering is attachment’. Attachment means an emotional bond that connects one person to another. When you get attached to people, sometimes you hope that they do things as per your wishes. We all have expectations that arise because of our attachment to people from whom we expect them. If our expectations aren’t fulfilled, it often makes us unhappy.

So what can we do? First we have to detach ourselves from any type of attachment. All sufferings start with us, from the expectations we set in our minds. Hence, it’s we who decide what’s wrong and what’s right, and it’s we who presume things or jump to conclusions. As The Dalai Lama says, “Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.”

The same goes for the work we do. If we work with fear in our minds, it scares us. What will the result be? Will it be all right? Will it be terrible? To make sure that the task at hand is done well, we should do our work without fearing the consequences. These feelings always distract us from our actual path because we keep wondering if we’ll be praised or punished for it. Thus our focus shifts from the work to the fruits of the work—which should not be the case.

Just imagine being free of attachments. No matter how things go, you remain stable through it all. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t bother you. The most profound state of being is devoid of the dissociation that attachment brings. When we see things without the cover of our attachments, we see life the way it’s meant to be seen — bright, pure, and true.