Although I'm in the process of reading the article, the title was quite striking to me - the Buddha said almost exactly the opposite - that it is attachment which is the cause of stress, clinging to changing phenomena, hoping they were permanent, or even without realising at the emotional level that they will fade.
It's a misunderstanding of Buddhism to simply run away from all sources of suffering. Suffering must first be acknowledged, then accepted, then transcended. The best things in life take a LOT of suffering to get to. Think about running a marathon. Why do so many people want to do that? It must be worth it for them to suffer so much for it.
Buddhism has a lot in common with Epicureanism. This is the idea that "pleasure" is the greatest good. Epicurus's idea is that pleasure comes from a modest, curious, ascetic lifestyle. That long-term goals are much better than short-term ones.
Reading this article now, but this is about attachment to another person through relationships. I haven't studied Buddhism (or Stoicism from my sibling comment) in great detail. My question is, how does the detachment taught or encouraged by these philosophies deal with relationships? My understanding of it (very, very superficial, I know) was more about detachment from things, not from people. I'd like to be corrected on this if I'm wrong.
From what I've read, attachment to another person is just as bad (think unrequited love, or even a co-dependent relationship). The thought goes that you essentially give the other person power over your happiness, so it's bad for you.
It's also not good for the other person either. For instance a scenario where your girlfriend may want to go to culinary school which is best for her, but if placed all your happiness in her, then you may be tempted to sabotage her attempts to follow her dreams (to varying degrees), so that she may stay with you.
These are at least the thoughts of an interesting fellow who was a jesuit who later embraced buddhism and was found to be "incompatible with the catholic faith", so you know it must be pretty good stuff: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/54195.Anthony_de_Mel...
It's less about detachment than it is about non-attachment; it's the same for physical objects and even mental phenomena as it is for people - attachment to these things causes suffering in the same way, when the inevitable time comes that they pass and fade, their qualities change, your life moves on.
>"Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha."
Dukkha is the word used by the Buddha to describe stressfulness, unsatisfactoriness, suffering, anguish etc., i.e that pain which is emotional; his position is that these arise from our desire to be stable, and from that desire acting upon it, to try and slow the tides of change. At least, that is my understanding.
But non-attachment to people need not mean that one stops feeling compassion for them, nor does it mean that one has to break up with one's friends. It's more about being mindful of the kind of relationships you have, and how they affect you. For example, one of the Buddha's prescribed techniques is to meditate on the theme of death, that one's body will eventually die, to visualise each process of birth, aging, sickness, death, one's decomposing body, the bones left over, those bones themselves yellowing and decomposing.
But here we have even the most important of all - detachment from one's own body. I don't mean this in a kind of "outer body experience" way. It's not that one stops caring, it's that one understands on an emotional level that things pass; it's not enough to understand this on an intellectual level. This kind of base understanding within us, acheived through meditation, is referred to as nibbana/awakening/enlightenment.
>"Just as if a great mass of fire of ten... twenty... thirty or forty cartloads of timber were burning, and into it a man would time & again throw dried grass, dried cow dung, & dried timber, so that the great mass of fire — thus nourished, thus sustained — would burn for a long, long time. In the same way, in one who keeps focusing on the allure of clingable phenomena, craving develops. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origin of this entire mass of suffering & stress.
> It's less about detachment than it is about non-attachment
Thanks for saying this, those aren't synonymous and at one point I did read/study (cursory, survey level) about both Buddhism and Stoicism and came to understand the distinction but failed to use the correct terms in my comment.
Thanks also for the thoughtful reply. I have some reading to do now.
Although I'm in the process of reading the article, the title was quite striking to me - the Buddha said almost exactly the opposite - that it is attachment which is the cause of stress, clinging to changing phenomena, hoping they were permanent, or even without realising at the emotional level that they will fade.