Non-Attachment in Love and Grieving

Q: I can understand non-attachment and impermanence in relation to material possessions and even many situations, but what about love? How do you not attach to the people you love?

This world and its joys and sorrows are passing. Neither fathers nor sons possess anything that they do not leave behind. Spend this life in devotion.

Sheikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir

First, we must recognise that when we leave this world, we carry nothing with us. Our earthly possessions are but temporary fixtures in our lives. In the grand scheme of things, we own nothing. Yet, in the presence of love, we find true meaning. Love isn't something we can possess or control. It may possess us, but we can't grasp it like a physical object. When love brings us pain, it's often our fierce grip on it, our desperation to control and contain it, that wounds us, not love itself.

Love is not an object, but a vast expanse, like the empty space that we hold when we open our clenched fist. This is the space of love—to hold life lightly, to tread carefully while we're here. Non-attachment doesn't mean discarding, but releasing, cutting the strings that keep us bound like a marionette or a balloon. By letting go, we are freed from the confines of attachment. Non-attachment is, therefore, a form of liberation.

When we achieve this freedom, we can love more profoundly. Non-attachment doesn't prevent us from building meaningful, lasting relationships. Instead, it enhances our capacity for love and quells our fear of commitment. When we have nothing to lose, we can choose without fear. Fear of loss can consume us, leading us to want everything and, consequently, to hide from ourselves, deceive ourselves, and shrink from commitment.

Non-attachment is an affirmation of life. It is a trust in the flow of the universe, a surrender to the currents of life. Once we realise that there is nothing in this life we can truly hold onto, letting go becomes more manageable. In releasing our grip, we find that we hold the world.

In life, if you wish to receive, you must first give of yourself. A true gift is imbued with a piece of the giver. In the same vein, see your life as a gift from the universe, containing a significant part of the giver. Receiving this gift brings with it the responsibility of tending to it wisely, nurturing it, and acknowledging its interconnectedness with all other things.

In the end, practising non-attachment connects us to something greater than ourselves. It is freedom from the chains that we hold. It sounds terrifying because we only know what it is we hold on to. We only know the known. When we let go, however, we embrace the great unknown. 

And at the end of the day, after all we have let go, that is all that we can hold. Our primary responsibility is to free ourselves, to open our hearts to this truth. 

The truth is not something we can hold, but it is what is left after we have let go.

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Q: My mother passed away this year, and my grief has been so painful. I try, but I don’t know how to let go of it.

A mother is a precious flower that brings many a grown man to their knees, no matter what the relationship to the flower, no matter the scent it produced while it was alive. The love of a mother is only parallel with the love of God.

There is an interesting existential thing to fathom: the place from which you entered into the world, it is no longer there. The door that you were birthed from appears close. That can feel like the ground being removed from under your feet. When the mother passes away, you become a sort of refugee in your own home. You wonder how you arrived, you wonder where you will go, you wonder about your dear mother.

Do not be so quick to look for the ground. It is very okay to be where you are. The immensity of the grief we feel is also the space of love. It feels a little bit more bearable when we bring love into the equation and see that the fear of loss is also the immense attachment to love. It doesn’t need to be more bearable necessarily, but it’s good to sink into the feeling of the space of love. For it is a doorway to feel the heart of grief rather than run away from it. Does that make sense? The attachment is not a negative. Not something to get rid of. This attachment is the direction of a love that is unconditional. The grief is pulling you whether you like it or not out into the open. 

Grief is not a problem to solve or think your way out of. You might think that is the way—to rationalise it, to cover it with positive reinforcement and re-framing. Stop that. Grief is a teacher. When you are in the presence of grief, stop all other nonsense and listen to what the teacher is showing you. 

All emotions arise and pass away. Grief is sticky, it sticks around, it lingers. Let it linger, let it be and let yourself be in it. If you can, welcome it inside when it knocks on your door. Create space to grieve in the presence of grief. Because if you do, somehow it holds you and consoles you as you lay your tears down.

There is a story from the Afro-Brazilian traditions such as Umbanda, Santería and Candomblé about why we have salt in our tears. Here is how I heard it:

Throughout the ages, since people forgot who they were and fell into great suffering, the divine mother Iemanjá (syncretized as Mother Mary) saw her children suffering. She wept and wept, creating entire oceans with her tears.

Iemanjá, with her endless compassion and mercy for all her children, could not bear to see them suffering. Yet, feeling helpless, she continued to cry.

Obatalá—symbol of purity, wisdom, and creation; the father of all Orixás and he who crafted the human body from the clay of the earth—saw Iemanjá crying. He gave salt to her oceans to purify her waters and cleanse her tears.

This, they say, is why swimming in the sea feels refreshing to us, and why we also have salt in our tears. Every time we weep, we can feel the mercy and love of our divine mother always with us, lending us her cleansing waters, lending us her healing purity.

It’s going to take time, and it’s helpful to know this is a wound that may never fully heal or be resolved. Take comfort in that. Take comfort in these feelings and remember they are love in disguise. There is no other love like the love of a mother. It is the symbol of unconditional love.

As much as you can, come to the present sensations in the body. Just feel and sense without the words. Go into the heart of the feeling, not to dissolve it or release it, but just to feel. Just to be intimate with it. 

Stay with it when it comes and let it go when it goes.

Excerpt from Walking the Forest Path Volume 1, available in early 2025.