Can You Love Without Attachment?

First of all, we think that love and attachment mean the same thing. But we need to understand that attachment is our needy, neurotic, and dissatisfied part that yearns for someone out there, believing that when we reach that person, we will be happy.

Love, on the other hand, refers to an altruistic part of our being; a connection with others, a wish for their happiness, and delight in their well-being. We have both, of course, but it's hard to see the difference. They are like milk and water mixed together. If there is any joy in our relationship, it comes from love. If there is anger, hurt, envy, and everything else, it is the result of attachment. But it's so hard to see that.

Attachment is such a simple word, yet it has many layers. At the most fundamental level it is that feeling of lack within us; that belief that somehow I am not enough, I don't have enough, and no matter what I do or what I have, it is never enough. So, of course, because we are so convinced that this is true, we yearn for someone out there, and when we find that person who triggers our good feelings, we cling to the idea of having them for ourselves, convinced they will fill our needs and make us truly happy and content. We assume they are our possession, almost an extension of who we are.

"Attachment says: I love you, so I want you to make me happy. And genuine love says: I love you, so I want you to be happy. If that includes me, wonderful! If it doesn't include me, I just want your happiness. You know, attachment is like holding on very tightly. But genuine love is like holding on very gently, nurturing, but letting things flow. It's not being gripped by force. Yet it's very difficult for people to understand this, because they think that the more they cling to someone, the more it shows that they care about the other person.

Any kind of relationship in which we imagine we will be filled by the other person will certainly be very complicated. The more we grip the other person tightly, the more we will suffer."

—Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

The source of unhappiness

This attachment is the source of all our other unhappy emotions. Because it is desperate to get what it wants, the moment it doesn't get it; the moment he doesn't call or comes home late, or looks at someone else; panic arises and immediately transforms into anger, and then into jealousy or low self-esteem, or into any one of our old habits that we tend to manifest. In fact, anger is the reaction when attachment doesn't get what it wants. All these assumptions are rooted so deeply within us, and we believe these stories so completely, that it seems ridiculous even to question them. But we must. And the only way we can do this is by knowing our own minds and feelings: in other words, we need to learn to be our own therapists.

The fact is that attachment, anger, jealousy, and any other afflictive emotion are not carved in stone; they are old habits, and we know we can change them. The first step is to be sure that, by knowing our own minds well, we can learn to distinguish the various emotions within us and, gradually, learn to change them. The first challenge involves actually believing that you can do this. And that alone is already something enormous; without that confidence, we are stuck and blocked.

The next step is to step back from all the endless chatter in our minds. A very simple way to do this; it's so basic it's boring; is to sit down for just a few minutes every morning, before we start our day, and focus on something. Breath is a good place to start. It's nothing special; there's no trick; it's not something mystical. It's a practical psychological technique. With determination you can decide to have mindfulness on your breath; the sensation in your nostrils as you inhale and exhale. The moment your mind wanders, bring your focus back to the breath. The goal is not to make thoughts go away; but not to engage with them, and to learn to let them come and go.

The long-term result of a technique like this is a highly focused mind, and it will take time. But the almost immediate benefit will be that, as we experience stepping back from all the stories in our head, we will begin to be objective about those stories and slowly we begin to unravel, deconstruct, and eventually change them. It's said that one of the signs we are doing well in our practice is to have the impression that we are getting worse! But we're not. We are beginning to hear the stories more clearly, and then that's when we can begin to change them.

Text by Robina Courtin, originally published in English

"We can become confused and think that the other person is the source of our delight; the love pill to be swallowed. Misunderstood love becomes stubborn attachment. We believe that the object of our love is a permanent source of joy. We return and keep wanting more. We are confusing love with fixation, which brings suffering, not joy. The source of permanent joy is our love, not the other person.

Being in love with someone in particular helps us know the joy that flows when we care for the happiness of others. We think about how to make the person happy; what to give them, what to say, what to do. But true love does not depend on any object. True love is the natural energy of a stabilized mind, an inexhaustible resource that we cultivate."

—Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche