Does a Detached Person lack commitment?

Some of you asked me if a person who practices detachment would be without commitment to anything to which he is detached. If we were to let go of things, there would be no passion, no commitment, just indifference.

In my two previous posts, I have been talking about attachment and detachment. But, what is attachment? What are we to let go of when we practice attachment? Let’s take some examples of attachment.

Some Examples of Being Attached
When you wake up in the morning, and you utter these words, “Oh, God, it’s Monday.” This implies that this new day is like no different from other Mondays before it. And, this new day promises nothing new.

You had experienced that gave you pain. You decide to be afraid of it and therefore will want to avoid it at all cost.

You had encountered something in the past that gave you much positive experience. Subsequently, you want to relive the past experience in the present as well as in the future. You search for a similar situation, and you expect the same experience.

The problem with treating every Monday as though it is no different from past Monday is that you don’t give the present and yourself a chance to experience something new. Instead, you bring along the image of past Mondays and paste it on the new day. The term ‘Monday’ is just a word that we attach to a certain day. But the day itself, the present itself, is always something new.

While you may have experienced something in the past that caused you pain, physical or otherwise, fear - which is different from pain itself - is produced when you wish to avoid it. Ironically, by attempting to avoid the pain, fear intensifies.

Enjoying something in the past and wanting to have the same experience in the future are two different moments. In your very first encounter, you did not expect or anticipate that you were going to receive a positive experience. To expect it to happen again is a form of attachment that produces ‘pleasure’.

Detachment
In all of these cases, attachment is an act of indifference towards the present moment ‘where’ something new always happens. Attachment is act of repeating the past in the present and in the future. And, when reality ‘bites’- surely, it will - the result is one of disappointment and despair.

The person who practices ‘detachment’ does not forget the past, but neither is he attached to it. While he is aware that today is marked as Monday, he bears himself to the ‘new’ day and so is receptive to new things that arise during that day.

While the ‘detached’ person has experienced pain in the past, of which he remembers, he is not ruled by fear. A detached person therefore faces what caused him pain so he may understand it, embrace it. Consequently, he lives without fear. (Yes, it is possible and attainable.)

We must remember that the Buddha, who practiced detachment, was compassionate, loving and understanding. A detached person, therefore, is one who is far more committed to learning new things, and treating people as absolute values.

Attachment, therefore, avoids commitment because commitment requires that one lives in the ‘now’.