Detachment

Detachment is often cited as a main tenet of Buddhism. It gets wrapped up in airy expositions that eventually leave the impression that detachment means robot-like dispassion. I don't believe this is useful. 

When I read Dhammapada translations, I hear the voice of a passionately empathic person. I hear the voice of one experienced in anger, love and desire. However, I also hear the voice of a person who has conquered his emotionality and sentimentality. I take the lesson that awareness of passion is different from being ruled by passion.

My humanism is rooted in the practice of self-awareness and other-awareness. Self-awareness is developed through meditation, physical exertion, and education, both formal and informal. Other-awareness is developed through observation, experimentation, social integration and education, both formal and informal. Incorporating both forms of awareness into moment-by-moment living develops mindfulness. Mindfulness develops compassion. Compassion develops generosity, peace and happiness.

Detachment removes the blocks to education and experimentation. By simply observing my feelings, my passions, I can gradually free myself from the purely hormonal and habitual sway of them, which has developed unconsciously with a cocktail of genetic predisposition and childhood development. If I can see I am anxious, my anxiety becomes less toxic. If I can see I am angry, my anger becomes less toxic. If I can see I am reacting sexually rather than intelligently, I am less likely to do something stupid or harmful to myself or someone else. And so on.

Always remembering I may be totally wrong in the moment of making a judgment or decision helps me to remain detached from the anticipated result. If I am wrong, the anticipated result would be wrong. So what is the point of investing emotionality into the outcome of any choice? It will simply lead to pain and disappointment if the choice is wrong. It will lead to hubris which inevitably leads to failure  if the decision proves right. Investment in being flawlessly correct is the antithesis of detachment. And, being emotionless is mental illness, not detachment.